It sucks to be Gage, I’ll give him that.
A mean shiver runs through me, as it should with nothing on but this bustier and tulle skirt. The wind licks my bare shoulders, my thighs, as if it were initiating a serious round of foreplay. If I weren’t so hopped up on adrenaline, I have no doubt my teeth would be chattering.
Out in front of me, the Pacific Ocean is a deep shade of navy with frosty white caps that crash over the shore like thunder. A few yards away sits the remnants of that hut made of palm fronds that Gage made for the two of us so very long ago.
Our love shack.
Just the sight of it brings back all of those memories I once touted as being so wonderful, so beautiful and pure. Tears come to my eyes as I walk that way. If there is any part of the old Gage living inside that hardened shell of a new body, he will feel the same.
“Skyla?” My name booms from behind, and I turn to see Gage Oliver with his hair as black as night, those eyes already sirening out my way, a flannel and jeans on, so very unassuming. He appears ten feet closer in an instant, then another ten feet until he blinks to life right in front of me.
He scans me up and down before closing the distance between us.
“Marlena’s dress,” he muses. “I see you have plans for me. Plans to destroy me?”
“Plans to free you.”
His familiar cologne permeates the air as a weak laugh pumps from him. He glances to the skeleton of our little palm frond escape and waves his hand over it. A wild wind blows through, pushing my hair before my eyes, and by the time it dies down our little love shack is fully brought back to its prime with green verdant fronds glowing over the thatched roof. It looks far more alive and beautiful than it ever has before. And sitting on the tip of the roof is a single blue butterfly, glowing like a cobalt star in the night, its wings fluttering manically as if beckoning us over to it.
“Shall we go in?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, laughter caught in them like that of Demetri, and I don’t care for it one bit.
A spiral of fear trickles through me. Going inside the hut means I’m out of view. But, then again, it might bring his people out onto the sand. They can’t exactly see him either.
“Not yet.” I frown over at him because I know that look in his eyes, and he thinks he’s bested me. “Gage.” His name swims from me like a long-forgotten dream as I take up his hands. My mind sweeps all thoughts of anything that occurred at Marshall’s away. I’ve spent weeks perfecting a shield over the thoughts I want hidden from him, but I want to remain loose and open to the things I want him privy to. “But I’d like to end there.” I shrug, trying to look convincing as if none of this was a lie—truthfully it isn’t. “Can you imagine for a moment if we could roll back time?” I reach up and touch his face, not in the aggressive way I had been doing with angry slaps to the cheek, but lovingly, the way I used to do—the way my heart craves to do so now. “Gage,” I press out his name with genuine sadness, and that’s all it takes. Any pretending I was hoping to do dissipates to nothing. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of those cobalt blue eyes, and all I want more than anything is to have my husband back. Not that I’m kicking Logan to the curb.
Damn the rules. Damn my mother for opening my heart twice the size it should have ever been in the amorous department. And mostly, damn Demetri to hell for searching my mind and heart and bringing to life this glorious being.
Without the sensitivity and tenderness of his spirit, Gage would simply be a Wesley Edinger look-alike, a horrible one at that. Nothing that I would bat a lash at. I would have let Chloe have him. But his spirit coupled with this face—God Himself must have given a chef’s kiss of the fingers when Gage was brought into the world. I’m so thankful it was my world. I’m so thankful for the small window of time we were given together, and I would give anything to crawl back into it and make love to Gage all over again, my Gage, the real one trapped underneath all of the lies.
His chest expands with his next breath. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?”
I sniff back a laugh, wiping a rogue tear from my cheek as the wind gives it an icy kiss.
“Maybe,” I say. “But every word is true.” My face turns toward the angry sea and I take up his hand. “Come on. Let’s move before I freeze to death. I can still die, you know. You wouldn’t want that to happen a second time, or would you?” I’m honestly not sure.
“I would hate that, Skyla.” He gives my hand a squeeze before wrapping his arm around my shoulders, warming me with his body. “Skyla, I love you.” It comes out depressed, exasperated as if it were a fact I was refusing to believe. “I love the boys—Jaxson included. I love Logan. That’s my core. Those are the people I care about, who I prioritize. Period.”
I nod as I look down at the sand. “You left out my people.”
“I can’t love them anymore, Skyla. That would be a lie. I can’t even tell myself that I wish there was another way. It’s too hard to destroy something and profess to care about it all at the same time.”
“That’s what you’re doing to me.” I curl into him and give his belly an absentminded scratch as if we were still a couple.
“No, Skyla.” He drops a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m being honest with you. It’s you who I care about. I had to choose between my eternity with you or your people, and I made the decision. But you are on a level all on your own. I don’t bunch you in with them. I can’t.”
We stride a few steps out and hit the water line. I twist into him, wrapping my arms around his waist, my body shivering uncontrollably.
“Let’s hear it, Skyla,” he says. “What’s this meeting really about? You’re in a dress you wouldn’t normally be caught dead in—not to mention the fact it’s subarctic temperatures—and you’re barefoot and pregnant.” His brows bounce, amused. “Let’s cut through the BS. Go ahead, try to convince me that I’m wrong.” He lets out a heavy sigh that warms me to the bones. His eyes search mine. “And just to be clear, I can’t afford to be wrong about anything. Your argument needs to be ironclad. I am an immovable boulder. I’m holding firm to my stance. I must and I will spend eternity by your side. There’s not a flame in Hell that could keep us apart.” His words come out stern, like a verbal punishment for something I haven’t yet done.
“The truth is, I don’t know how to convince you.” I take up both his hands and hold them up by my face. “I don’t have any answers. I didn’t come with them. They are not prepared. The words I need are not even in my lexicon.”
His cheek rises on one side as a lopsided smile emerges. “So you’re winging it?”
“Yeah”—I mull over his words a moment—“I’m winging it.” A thought hits me, and I wish to God I had the ability to burst forth my wings.
My mother and her cryptic, although seemingly kind, words come back to me.
All that is mine is yours, Skyla. Remember that always. Remind yourself of it so that you never forget.
