“Of course. I don’t plan on leaving you ever again.”
Relief coursed through me and I had to clench my jaw and press my lips together to keep from blurting out the three words I was dying to say. I needed to do that in private, just the two of us.
River moved ahead of us, going out the door first. I looked at my mom and raised a brow in question.
“It’s her,” she said softly.
For a minute I was confused and then my mom added, “It’s the beautiful soul I met that night on the bridge.”
I knew thenexactlywhat she was talking about. I’d been away in the military, but my mom had told me all about thatnight. It was one she never forgot and talked about often. She wanted so badly to bring the young girl home.
River had been on the bridge that night.
Thank God my mother had come along.
Because I couldn’t imagine my life without River in it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
RIVER
I couldn’t takemy eyes off him.
Somewhere in the midst of our journey upstairs, Huntley’s mom had disappeared. It gave me time to breathe where she was concerned because I had no clue what to say to the woman after all these years.
She saved my life.
And she was the mother of the only man I’d ever loved.
What were the damn odds?
Is that what one would call fate?
The nurses moved around the room getting Huntley settled and I couldn’t seem to look away for a fraction of a second, afraid of losing sight of him. A bundle of nerves buzzed, swarming like bees in my belly.
A part of me was almost scared to be alone with Huntley.
I had so much to tell him; yet I didn’t have a clue how to say it.
When it was only the two of us left in the room I stood at the foot of his bed, my feet rooted to the vinyl floor, my lips unmoving.
“You’re beautiful.”
His soft-spoken declaration had me all twisted up inside. My mind was at war with my heart which soared as it always did when he said sweet things because a part of me believed I didn’t deserve his kindness…
Or him.
And on those thoughts, I said what I was thinking. “I don’t deserve you. How can you forgive me after running like a coward?”
Huntley tried to sit up and groaned in pain. That had my feet moving quickly to the side of his bed. “Don’t move for heaven’s sake, you’re hurt.”
Not listening, he reached out his hand and pulled me so close that if I hadn’t dug in my heels a bit I’d probably have ended up sprawled across him on the bed. He looked at me and I swear he could see straight into my soul.
“There’s nothing to forgive, baby, and you deserve anything your heart desires.”
My breath hitched and I mumbled, “What if my heart desires you?”
Shit, I hadn’t meant to say that so he could hear. He gave my hand a light tug and the next thing I knew, I found myself exactly where I’d been thinking about seconds before. In the hospital bed on top of him.
