I filled my lungs, but there was still an anxious ache in my heart, a Joe-sized hole in my chest.
The boat slowed to a crawl. The tourists crowded to the rail to take pictures. Zack went below to prepare for docking. I fiddled nervously with the drawstring on my hoodie. I should do the same. But I stayed in place, searching the shore as we pulled in.
There, beyond the bicycle porters and the tourists waiting in line to catch the next ferry, beside the dockworkers and the horse-drawn drays. A tall, hot, bearded man with a fluffy golden dog.Joe.
Everything inside me, all the color and light, all the yearning and ache, narrowed to a single focus.
He raised a hand. I threw both arms over my head and waved back enthusiastically, tears springing to my eyes. I’d missed him so much. I clattered down the ferry stairs. But when I reached the ramp, I slowed, suddenly nervous. Joe stood stiffly, watching me approach. His hair was rumpled, his face unreadable.
Until I saw the warmth in his eyes.
I crouched down to greet Honey, who rushed to me with all the naked exuberance Joe didn’t show. I fussed over the dog, lavishing her with the attention I longed to give to Joe, and then straightened.
“Hi,” I said, my heart pounding.
“I brought the dray,” he said.
Not the words I’d driven more than four hundred miles to hear, but he was here. That had to mean something.
He cleared his throat. “Maddie told me you had some things. Thought you could use a hand.”
Everything inside me softened. He was so good at showing up. At helping out. But I wanted—needed—more. “Thanks.”
“Zack let me know you were on board. I wasn’t sure when you’d get in.”
“You could have texted me.”
He tucked his hands into his armpits, his brow furrowed. Trying to gauge my mood. “Didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.”
“You were wrong about that.”
A smile ghosted around his mouth. “I’ve been wrong about a couple things. But what I’ve got to say, I wanted to say in person.”
Our eyes met.
And, oh, that smile…That smile gave me hope. I wanted to launch myself at him. I was brimming with things I wanted to tell him, dying to share the feelings spilling out of me.
I dammed them up. Giving him time to make up his mind, to have his say. Desperately wanting him to take the first step, to make the first move. Not just for me, but for him. I knew my heart. I needed Joe to be sure of his.
He shifted his feet. Glanced at the crowds. At the wagon driver.
“Hey, Joe.”
“Zack.”
And before I could fling myself into Joe’s arms, he was pulling Zack into a one-armed man hug, complete with a slap on the back.
“Got your freight right here,” Zack said. To me? To Joe?
And after that it was all lifting and loading.
“Ride or walk?” Tom, the driver, asked when everything was on the dray.
“I’ll ride,” Joe said before I could answer.
I gave him anare-you-kidding-me?face.
He shrugged, almost apologetically. “Tom will help with the boxes.”
