“It’s why we got engaged,” he said quietly. “I mean, we’d been dating for a couple of years, and things were going great, but I wasn’t thinking about the future just yet. And then Caitlin got pregnant, and I just … I was so happy. Shocked, but happy.” He paused, his chest growing tight with the familiar ache. Looking back now, it had all seemed so simple. Sure, he’d been nervous about being a father, but with every sonogram and doctor’s appointment, his excitement had grown.
“So, I proposed, and we started planning,” he continued. “For the future. For our family. Everything seemed like it had fallen into place. And then Caitlin started getting cramps. We were nearly six months along. We went in to get her checked, and … they couldn’t find a heartbeat.”
He couldn’t say the rest, there weren’t any words for it, so he just watched the waves roll in until he found his voice again.
“After … I tried to be there for Caitlin,” he continued. “We went to a counselor, and they said it takes time to heal from something like that. But Caitlin didn’t want to take any time at all. She … changed,” he said, feeling the hollow ache in his chest all over again. “She pulled away from me, and she didn’t want to talk about it—or even act like it happened at all. I tried to help. I thought we could get through it together, but she … she didn’t want that. She started staying out late, partying with new friends, acting like I was some kind of buzzkill every time I tried to ask if she was OK. I know it was out of grief,” he said with a sigh. “It was her way of trying to deal with things. But she shut me out. There was nothing I could do. And in the end, she just came straight out and said it was over.”
Evie squeezed his hand again.
“I know she was the one who went through it,” he said. “And however she needed to cope was her choice, but still …”
“You lost something too,” Evie finished for him, her voice gentle.
Noah nodded. “It felt like everything got ripped away all at once. The life we’d been planning, it was just … gone.”
And he was left alone, with nothing more than a diamond ring and a half-built crib to show for all those dreams.
“Anyway,” he said, pulling himself back to the present. “Time passed. I kept seeing the counselor for a while, on my own, and that really helped. But I just couldn’t stay in that town anymore. It belonged to a different life, you know?”
Evie nodded. “I had to change apartments after Glen died,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to. I loved our old place, but … that whole neighborhood reminded me too much of him. The coffee shop we went every morning before work, the little bar on the corner …” Her voice was full of memories. “It hurt too much.”
They sat there in silence, watching the waves turn darker as the sun sank lower in the sky.
“It’s amazing, how the human heart can heal,” Evie said at last. “If you’d tried to tell me two years ago that I would be able to start over. That I’d be happy again … well, I probably would have smacked you in the face,” she said with a wry chuckle.
Noah found himself smiling. “Yeah, I would have been right there with you. But it’s true,” he said, letting out a long breath. “I didn’t think I could be happy again either.”
But he had been, these past few weeks, caught up in friendship and flirtation and the sizzling chemistry he’d found.
With her.
He glanced over at Evie. Their eyes locked, and this time, Noah felt something new pass between them. A deeper connection, something more than just red-hot desire.
She understood what he’d been through. She knew what he’d lost. They’d both tasted darkness and grief …
And they’d both made it to the other side—and found the light again.
He reached for her instinctively, and Evie moved for him too, their lips meeting in a fevered rush of emotion. He lost himself in the kiss, drowning in her, dizzy at the sweet relief he found in her arms. But it wasn’t just the curves of her body crushing closer that made him feel light-headed.
For the first time in a long while, it felt like his burden had been eased.
The kiss deepened, turning hot and wild, and Noah never wanted to come up for air. God, he couldn’t get enough of this woman: the way her hands clutched at his shirt, pulling him closer; how she moaned when he trailed his mouth to her neck. It was an inferno, blazing out of control, until Noah used his last thread of self-control to drag himself back, breathing hard. They were still parked in his damn truck on the side of the road, and no matter how much he wanted her, he knew, he could do better than this.
“My place is close,” he said, his voice coming out hoarse with need.
Evie looked just as caught up in the moment, her eyes bright as she gasped for breath and said the single word that set him on fire.
“Yes.”
He damn near broke the speed limit driving back through town. He pulled up outside the old, converted barn and fumbled with his keys before going to unlock the door. He didn’t even have a chance to flip on the lights before Evie was in his arms again, kissing him passionately, fervently, igniting that wildfire all over again. Somehow they made it up the stairs to his bedroom, and then Noah lost himself completely. There was no sense of time or reason, just the hot, breathless slide of their bodies as they tore off their clothes
But when Evie was finally naked on the bed in front of him, Noah stopped.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Noah couldn’t reply. He was drinking in the sight of her, there in the moonlight. Memorizing every perfect inch. She was breathtaking. Beautiful.
His.
When he finally leaned in and kissed her again, it was slow. Tender. This time, he didn’t want to rush in a flurry of passion.
This time, he wanted it to last forever.
He tipped her back on the covers, touching every inch of her reverently until Evie was writhing in his arms and Noah was close to the brink. Still, he forced himself to go slow. Touching. Tasting. Worshiping her. Even when he settled between her thighs and nearly went out of his mind at the feel of her, he savored every moment. Every gasp, every moan.
Every heartbeat, thundering in his ears as they moved together, surging as one, hurtling towards the brink of the world. And when he felt her break, crashing over the edge, he knew there was no going back. Since the night he’d first seen her, dancing by candlelight, he’d been drawn to her for reasons he was only just starting to understand.
They were meant to find each other, to heal the past with a new hope.
And now he never wanted to be without her again.
14
Evie woke in an unfamiliar bed. For a moment, she was half-suspended in sleep, yawning as the morning light filtered through a nearby window. She had that loose-limbed, warm feeling in her bones: pure sunshine, like she’d just had most amazing dream …
Then she turned and saw Noah asleep beside her, naked in the sheets.
It wasn’t a dream.
Evie smiled. He was almost angelic, sprawled there with his hair mussed up and his breath coming soft and steady. She could look at this man all day. But watching him now, she was overwhelmed with a wave of emotion.