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“It’s okay. I know.”
“He has to return to England, and my life is here.”
“Does it have to be?”
Did it? God, why was I even thinking about it? “We don’t even know each other,” I reiterated, maybe more for myself than her.
“But you both want to.”
21
LYNX
“How’d you know Nora was…the one?”
“Besides wanting to spend every day buried?—”
I nodded my head toward Brian.
“Besides knowing I couldn’t live without her?”
“How long did it take you to realize it?”
“I went to England to settle a few things, and after I did, all I could think about was returning to the States as quickly as I could.”
I looked up at the house where Stephen’s wife sat talking to Emerson, and a life flashed before my eyes.
This could be us. Emerson and me, spending summers here with our wee ones, as happy together as Stephen and Nora were.
But how? I thought about my younger brother and how crazy I believed he was to give up his position with MI5 to go out on his own. Not to mention, Z Alexander had made it perfectly clear that he considered me next in line for the chief position. While Z wasn’t a young man, he wasn’t exactly old either. He could continue in his role for many years.
“She says I don’t know her.”
“Do you?”
“I feel as though I’ve known her all my life.”
“Then convince her of it.”
I looked up at Nora and then again at Stephen. The love the two so obviously felt for one another made my chest hurt. Could I have that? Truly?
“Did you have to convince Nora?”
“To the point I thought I’d go mad. But I realized I had to prove it to her, not convince her. She had to trust that I loved not just her, but Brian too.”
I saw the boy’s eyes meet Stephen’s.
“Yeah, I love you, okay?”
Brian smiled, shook his head, and refocused his attention on filling molded plastic shapes to build his sisters a sandcastle.
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
“Until you do, you bloody well won’t be able to get her to trust you. You shouldn’t even try.”
That night,as we all sat around the dinner table, I watched Emerson laugh so hard she wrapped her arms around her stomach. I remembered her saying that it was one of her happiest memories of spending her childhood here. With everything that had happened over the course of the last three days, I hadn’t thought it would be possible for her to laugh like she was; I was so glad she was able to.
“Oh, Rick, I love this song,” exclaimed her mother. “Come dance with me.”
