The air catches in my throat, half-sob, half-laughter, and my knees nearly give out at the sight of his devastatingly handsome face. “Ryder?”
He’s wearing his favorite Randy’s Custom Auto black tee, the one I would bury my face into every night after the funeral and soak with my tears. The jeans he has on hang low on his hips and are faded and frayed at the knees. My eyes are ravenous for the sight of him, tracking the dark stubble of his jaw, the unruly sweep of his brown-black hair, and his smile—God, that smile. The one he reserved only for me. The kind that made me feel like the center of every star in the sky.
“There’s my girl,” he says in that deep timbre, and hearing it destroys me in the best way possible.
He steps forward into the light, and I stagger backward. Not from fear but from the unbearable surge of everything I’m feeling.
“Where have you been?” I ask, the words tumbling out on a choked gasp filled with so much longing. I used to see him every night, but it’s been weeks.
When his fingers brush my cheek, they’re warm. Solid. Real. His hand trails down my neck to my heart. “I’m always here, sweetheart.”
I expect him to vanish like he always does, a cruel trick of the dreams that maliciously taunt me, where he fades away just as I’m reaching for him.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
I don’t care if this is madness, or heaven, or some illusion that my mind is offering me. Ryder ishere.
I crumple into him and bury deep, my tears soaking into his chest. He smells like sandalwood and citrus, and my hands fist the back of his shirt, terrified he’ll disappear if I let go.
“I miss you, too, my sweet Elizabeth.” His arms hold me, strong and safe and exactly how I remember.
We stand there, wrapped in each other, in time, in something beyond explanation. It’s too vivid to be a dream. Too perfect to be anything else.
“I’m mad at you,” I mumble into his shirt.
His chest vibrates with his chuckle. “I know, baby,” he says, caressing my hair. “Never heard you throw so many fuck yous around at one time.”
I lean back in his arms and outline every detail of his face with trembling fingers because I can’t stop touching him. “Why?”
My one-word question is filled with so many whys. Why did he keep secrets from me? Why did he take it on himself to decide what was best for me?
“Because I love you.” He lifts my necklace from under the open vee of the shirt, his masculine fingers that knew how to touch me in every way tenderly stroking the rings he gave to me. “Because it was time, and you needed a push.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make.”
Ryder’s amber gaze lifts to mine. “I know it might not make sense, but even when you thought you had none, it has always been your choice, sweetheart.”
My mouth turns down in a moue because I can’t grasp his logic. “No, that doesn’t make sense at all.”
“Your heart understands, baby.”
His face flickers in and out, like the flame of a candle when it gets to the end of its wick. I’m about to wake up. I’m not ready. My hands cling to him as I will myself to stay asleep for just a little while longer.
“Don’t go. Please stay. Just a little longer.”
Ryder cradles my face, and an explosion of love and longing sets the world on fire when his lips take mine, our kiss hungry and fueled by desperation because our time together is about to end.
“We can’t stay long,” he says and glances over his shoulder.
We? I peer around him to see who he’s looking at, and profound disconcertment overtakes me. Why is Charlotte here? She shouldn’t be here.
One by one, the gears of awareness start turning, and my brow dips in a frown when I look up at Ryder.
He smiles. Nods.
It’s not possible.
My eyes find the girl again, and the young woman smiles, like she knows me. Like she has always known me. No, not a girl. A beautiful young woman. Her long blonde hair, the same shade as mine, is pulled into a loose braid over one shoulder. But that’s not all. The heart shape of her face, the slant of her smile, andthe dimple in her cheek. Recognition sends me reeling as her soft gray eyes gaze back at me with heartbreaking tenderness. Her father’s eyes.
