Addie kicked a stone. “When’s your next session with Dr. Burton?”
“Tomorrow. It’s strange, I’ve actually started looking forward to the sessions.”
“You didn’t look forward to them before?”
Noah laughed, but the sound was almost hollow. “I dreaded every one of them. I had to force myself to go. But Burton’s different. His sessions don’t feel painful—they feel like progress. He’s the first therapist to stop the nightmares. And I don’t feel scared about having a flashback anymore. I feel more in control.”
“Noah, that’s wonderful.”
He glanced at her. “I also like him because he encouraged me to make things right withyou.”
“I should get him a Christmas present.”
They stopped at Jules’s food truck, and Noah rounded it and checked that the doors and windows were locked. When he returned to Addie, her smile was gone and she was frowning at the vehicle, arms wrapped around her waist.
He touched her hip. “What’s wrong?”
“I hate that Jules is sick. She’s such a beautiful person.”
“Sickness doesn’t discriminate.”
“I know. It just sucks.”
He squeezed her hip before turning, giving her a moment to gather herself. They were just starting back toward the path when a gasp and a thud sounded from behind him. He spun to see Addie on the ground.
Fuck!He dropped beside her. “Hey! What happened?”
Her cheeks turned a pretty pink shade as she pushed up into a sitting position. “My lack of coordination in combination with my complete inexperience with hiking led me to trip over a stupid tree root.”
He didn’t even crack a smile. He wanted to kick his own ass for not sticking right by her side. “Are you hurt?” Gently, he lifted her hands and studied them.
“No. I’m okay. Just a wounded ego.” She started to stand…only to frown, glancing to the loose soil near her feet. “What’s that?” She lifted a piece of paper that was just poking out of the dirt.
Not a piece of a paper. A photo. The edges were frayed and the print dirty, but he wasn’t sure if that was from the dirt and any recent rain, or the age of the photo.
Addie ran her thumb over the photo to brush off some of the dirt. “Is that Jules?”
It was hard to tell with it being so scuffed, but maybe. “It kind of looks like her, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but much younger.”
Jules looked to be maybe in her twenties in the photo, with long dark hair. She sat in a hospital bed, holding a baby. “She was looking for a photo the other week. This must be it.”
“She was?” Addie frowned. “It must be her and her daughter.”
“She doesn’t have a daughter.”
Addie frowned up at him. “Yes, she does. She told me she has one daughter that she doesn’t see nearly enough.”
What the hell?
Raindrops suddenly hit their shoulders.
Shit. He wrapped an arm around Addie. “Come on. Let’s get back. I’ll ask Colt to check the rest of the equipment boxes.”
But even as they jogged back to the cabin, his mind was still on the photo. This entire time, his gut had told him that Jules was somehow involved in whatever was going on. And now, he was even more certain.
CHAPTER 28
