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I chuckle and push him back by the chest, thankful for his obvious attempt to cheer me up. “It’s happy tears.”
He captures my hand in his, fiddling with it. “I’ve never understood those.”
“You’ve never had happy tears?”
He shakes his head. “When I think of happy…” He pulls on a loose strand of my hair. “I think of you. Of wildflowers and late nights and early mornings. Of quivering aspen trees and cheese.”
“Cheese.” I bite my lip to tame my smile.
He remembers that?
He shrugs, smiling with me. “There’s not a ton of happy I can look back on, sunshine, but that summer with you was the best of my life.”
I divert my eyes away from him, not knowing how to handle the effect his words have on me. “Where’s Ave?”
“She went to help Vinny set up at Elliot’s place.”
“He’s not staying with us?”
“He didn’t want to intrude. Just said he’d be here if we need him.”
We’d never normally use Elliot’s lodge for so few of us visiting. Even when we had more bodies than beds, we made it work up here in ours.
“They’re meddling.” Lance confirms my thoughts. “That doesn’t mean I expect anything from you. Just spending this time with you and Waverley is enough. More than enough.”
My eyes drift from his handsome face to his thick neck. His bare chest and toned stomach…
“Baby Lowell, you can’t look at me like that whilst I’m stood here making promises to you.”
Baby Lowell.My stomach dips, butterflies fluttering up from the depths. It’s been too long. “I didn’t look at you like anything,” I say, stepping around him and into the lodge.
I hear him snigger, making a smile grow on my face as I head through the kitchen and down the corridor toward the stairs.
He’s being patient with me, respecting my boundaries, giving me time to—
I’m nearly at my room when my thumb dips low and instinctively brushes my right ring finger, my stomach sinking when I find it bare. I hold it up, my finger free of the ring.
I lift my left hand.
My eyes drift closed, the ring, the statement it makes, causing my heart to pound in my chest.
Inside my room, I slide the pale purple stone adorning my ring finger off and unclasp my necklace with a slight tremble in my hands, sliding it onto the chain and fastening it back around my neck.
Nina’s right, I might not be able to fall for Lance again, but I can fall harder, deeper—forever.
I lost myself when he left me. I lost myself when I thought I lost Ave. I can’t keep falling.
Because one day, I won’t be able to get back up again.
I’m lay on my lounger, thinking about the hospital, my colleagues who I’m stretching thin by being away, and the patients I’m not there to treat, when water rains down on my abdomen and breasts.
“Mummy, come swim with us!”
“Ave,” I groan, pushing up my sunglasses to rest on my head. I stare her down, her toothy grin spreading wider and wider.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No,” I tell her, swinging my legs over the seat. “I was just resting my eyes.”
