“The older one panicked. Kept saying it was his fault.”
He blinked hard, jaw tightening.
“I got him back. Not his brother.”
Back.
He saved one of them, but not the other.
Oh, Noah. I swallowed carefully. “Noah…”
“It never should’ve happened,” he said. “But it did. And the fact that I couldn’t save both of them…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “That just doesn’t leave you.”
I had no idea what to say—if I should even say anything at all—and he didn’t add anything more. A silence folded over us like a shroud.
A little heavy, but mostly still.
We sat with it, just sharing space with each other while Noah collected himself, and I turned this new information over in my mind. “Was that the nightmare you had?” I asked gently. “Back at the Stanley?”
He nodded once, eyes still fixed on the river. “Guess I have my own ghosts to banish.”
I reached across the table and took his hand.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look at me either.
So when his fingers curled around mine, emotion rose in my throat.
For a while, we said nothing. The water glinted. A hawk circled overhead. And from far off, we could hear JJ yelling something at Kill about keeping a soda cold in the cooler.
Eventually, Noah looked back at me. A little steadier. Still pale, still raw. But present.
I wanted to help him, but somehow, I knew there wasn’t a thing I could say that would make him feel better. So…I just held his hand.
And I allowed some of his pain to be mine.
MRS. GRADY: SURPRISE!
Although we’d traveled hundreds of miles that day, and Noah had experienced a near death experience on the river, just a little over half a day had passed since he’d climbed out of my bed.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
Would we spend another night together? He’d gotten quieter once the shuttle arrived. Maybe he needed some time to himself.
Maybe I did.
But after checking into our hotel in Page that night, I felt a little panicked. We’d passed the halfway mark, and as much as I’d resisted coming on this trip, I wasn’t ready for it to end.
That would be the end of my time-out from real life. And, even more concerning, it would signal the end of my time with Noah. The end of this…
Whatever it was.
Calling it a fling seemed to trivialize my feelings—feelings I wasn’t sure I even recognized.
How was this even possible? I’d just been engaged to another man, for goodness sake.
By the time I left my hotel room to come down for dinner, the sun had dipped low over the red cliffs outside the windows, casting everything in a kind of cinematic glow. I’d showered, braided my still-damp hair, and even put on a real dress—simple cotton, strappy, white. Something about tonight had made me want to feel…pretty.
My eyes scanned the handful of large round tables in the dining room, but it didn’t take long to find Noah, sitting with a few other familiar faces from the bus.
