“Depends.”
Raising my arms overhead, I bend to the side. “On what?”
He keeps me waiting while he takes an inordinately long amount of time to drink his coffee.
“Stuff.”
That’s not helpful at all.
Fallon’s non-answer suspends in the space between us, maddeningly vague, yet so fitting for the man who always carried secrets.A secret for a secret, he would often say.
“What stuff?”
He shrugs a shoulder, and I decide not to push.
Tricia comes back and starts cleaning things up. “The pilot informed me that we’ll be starting our descent.”
Sitting down, I secure the seat belt around me and move Fallon’s hand from the back of the couch. I’ve been dying to get a closer look at the new ink he’s gotten.
I trace the artwork up each finger to his wrist. “When did you get this done?”
Fallon unbuttons the cuff and rolls up his shirtsleeve to his elbow, exposing a beautiful floral design of vines and small flowers that look like climbing jasmine.
“I got full sleeves done the first time I went to New Zealand.”
I sweep the pad of my thumb over the lone butterfly, its wings outspread in flight and almost identical to the broken, blue butterflies that cover my old scars.
“It’s gorgeous,” I reply.
My fingertips tingle as they explore his skin, and I feel a tug I haven’t felt in years. The ache of my husband’s absence remains ever-present in its permanence, yet here Fallon is, back in my life and resurrecting feelings I thought I would never experienceagain. Happiness pulses through the cracks of my heartache, but it’s shadowed by fear.
What if he leaves? If he disappears again, I don’t know if I can endure the emptiness he left behind the first time.
But what if he stays?
My chest compresses with the question I’m not ready to answer.
“Why a butterfly and not something more masculine like a skull or a cobra?”
I’m joking, of course, but when I lift my eyes to Fallon’s intense blue gaze, every molecule of oxygen gets sucked right out of my lungs.
“You know why,” he quietly replies.
I think I do, and that’s what scares the shit out of me.
Chapter Nine
FALLON
Coming Home
Elizabeth has beenquiet for most of the drive, and as much as I want to know what she’s thinking, I don’t ask. Feigning scrolling on my phone, I surreptitiously watch her absentmindedly fiddle with the heart locket on her necklace as she stares out the passenger-side window. Backcountry scenery flies by in a monotonous blur of green as the SUV navigates the road that will take us to her house.
Wanting extra acreage, she and Ry built their forever home on the outskirts of Fallen Brook, not far from the Fields. It’s an area that’s more rural than suburban, with little development. I’ve made sure it has stayed that way. I own all the land that surrounds their property.
Elizabeth checks her phone when it vibrates.
“Just Charlotte letting me know they’re home from the beach.” Elizabeth taps her phone on her knee as her gaze returns to the view outside her window. “It feels weird being back.”
