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“If it hadn’t been for you, I could’ve been stuck in that trailer for days. I could’ve died there, watching Xander’s body rot.” He flinched, but I kept going. “It was you who saved me, Reid. You pulled me from that wreckage and brought me home.” I gazed into those beautiful green eyes, eyes that I knew so well. “I’m not only talking about last night. You’ve saved me in more than one way, Reid Ramsey.”
His forehead crinkled in confusion. “What do you mean?”
Despite everything, my lips found a smile. “I came back to Ember Hollow, counting down the days until I could flee back to my little apartment in the city. I was anxious and alone, but I had thought that I had built a life for myself. I thought that I was living.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t. I was just existing. I had put a Band-Aid on a gaping bullet hole that had never healed and pretended that it was fine. It wasn’t. You showed me that. You scooped me up and you acknowledged my pain with your own and you soothed it with a kiss.” My throat tightened as I thought of the night we first kissed, and those precious words he’d said to me. It was like ripping off that Band-Aid and exposing the festering wound before soothing it with salve. “And now, I understand that true healing is possible.”
Reid’s eyes reddened as he blinked back tears. “Lark.” His voice wavered with emotion. “You are my healing.”
I bit my trembling lip. “I love you, Reid Ramsey.” Those words slipped from my mouth for the first time. I had known I’d loved him, but I was scared to admit it to him. Fear was always a lurking monster, waiting for its opportunity to strike at the first sign of weakness. But Reid deserved those words. I was trusting him with my most delicate asset, my heart, because he was worth the risk.
He was worth more than I had to give.
“And I love you, my sweet—” Reid stopped, his eyes widening as if something had just occurred to him. His face paled.
“What?”
A muscle in his jaw fluttered. “Butterfly,” he croaked. “I didn’t know—considering everything—if you wanted me to call you that anymore.”
A fissure fractured my heart at the thought of never hearing him call me that name again. I had learned to love it so much…
But I also understood. Reid had told me what the Shadow Stalker’s mark was at the hospital when I gave my statement to police. How he carved a butterfly into every one of his victim’s skin. I’d almost thrown up when he told me about it.
I didn’t know why he chose that as his mark, but it felt like a personal flap to the face. As if he was trying to take a part of me and turn it into something ugly. Something evil.
I have always loved butterflies. They reminded me of the beauty the world had to offer. They reminded me of my girlhood, and the innocence of being young and seeing everything in bright colors. I didn’t want to let a man take that from me. It was mine first.
Holding Reid’s stare, I harden my expression. “You don’t have to use that name if you don’t want to.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. “But I wish you wouldn’t. He doesn’t get to take that from us.”
Reid pressed his forehead against mine, letting out a relieved and sated sigh. “You’re so damn strong,” he said, his voice in awe. “You’re my everything, my sweet butterfly. I love you with my entire soul, and I will love you until the day that I die.”
I sucked in a breath. Heat blossomed behind my ribs, spreading through my body down to my toes. The heart inside my chest was beaten and scarred, but it was suddenly so alive. A spark kindled there, warm and bright and perfect.
A wide smile spread across my lips. “Kiss me, Reid,” I breathed.
And he did. His mouth met mine in a soft, slow dance that I reveled in. I memorized every curve of his lips, every stroke of tongue. His taste was seared in me forever. I kissed him deeply, lovingly, until my mind was hazy with the sensations he stirred within me.
Reid and I had a long journey ahead of us, but we would walk it together. I would love this man through every path of life, if he let me.
I placed a hand against his muscled chest, pushing gently. He relented, turning so that he was on his back and I rolled on top of him. Straddling his waist, I looked down at him. He was breathtaking, his eyes vibrant and heated, his skin flushed and that gorgeous sandy-blond hair mussed.
Leaning down, I whispered in his ear. “I love you.” I nipped at the lobe. “And I’m going to show you exactly how much.”
Epilogue
Reid
Two Months Later
“Uncle Reidsy!” I glanced down at the little girl pulling on my shirt sleeve. Hailey grinned up at me, holding out a crochet carrot with a smiling face. “I want to put my present on the top of the tree.”
I raised a brow. The house was alive with people, music, and low conversation. It was the bed-and-breakfast’s annual Christmas open house where our family invited our closest friends and favored guests to celebrate the season.
I glanced at the fresh Christmas tree prominently displayed in front of the living room windows. “Why do you want to put your carrot on the Christmas tree?”
Lark had brought her overflowing basket of crochet fruit and was giving them out as gifts to everyone she came across. Hailey had almost screamed when she got hers because it was “just so cute.”
Hailey’s grin widened. “’Cuz I love it and it’s so tiny I don’t want to lose it. If I put it in the Christmas tree, I’ll know right where it is!”
I glanced at Lark standing by my side, and she smiled. “But what if you forget it in the tree and go home without it?” she asked.
