A soft smile spread on his lips, but his eyes conveyed what was in his heart, a steadiness of affection that’d seemingly grown in their time apart.
“Thunderbolt,” he said.
“Thunderbolt,” Amelia repeated, keenly aware of how far they’d come.
The change had happened unexpectedly in them both. If anyone asked how it began, they’d have no coordinates in space to give, no moment in time to tell, only that they stood in the midst of it now, baptized in new light at the end of the hall.
They stood beside the last photograph, one where Liam Moriarty flashed a candid smile. In Portland, the same picture, tattered at the edges and regarded with contempt, sat on her father’s desk. Here, it held a place of honor amongst a proud bloodline.
“I see why this is your favorite part of the house,” Amelia said and cast one last look down the hall before they drifted into the great room.
The space was an Elysian dream, redolent with lavender and drenched in golden light. Through tall windows, the sun melted like sherbet on the horizon and spilled across the desert valley.
“Simple things,” Emory said and settled next to the window.
Amelia contemplated the scene outside and that lonely road in the distance. “And yet here you are where nothing is simple.”
It was only an observation, but Emory treated it like a question to be answered. Shoulder against the window frame, he stared out and Amelia admired his profile.
The poetry I’ll write for you,she thought fondly, thoughher crushes always ended that way, those times she bled her heart onto a page and handed it over. The ones before crumpled it up and said it was too much.“Not all hearts are built for boundless love,”her mom used to say as she freed the hair plastered to Amelia’s tear-stained cheeks.“Those poems you write. Darling, save them for someone worthy.”
The scar on Emory’s lip twitched with a frown. “I came here without a choice. It was survival, not ambition.”
Eyes to the floor, his hair was a curtain around his face and his cheeks a dusky pink. Heavy was the crown upon his head, but Amelia recognized the burden as loneliness, not duty.
She reached up and gently tucked a lock of hair behind Emory’s ear. The gesture drew his gaze. He was heartsick over something.
“You ask me the same question every time you see me, but I wonder if anyone’s ever asked you, so I will. Emory Holt, are you okay?”
“Amelia Havick, no, I am not.”
“What can I do?”
Emory stared up at the ceiling and thought it over with a hum. It was a clever distraction as his arm slipped along the small of her back, and he drew her in close.
“Hmm, well, let’s see.” Emory appraised Amelia in her sundress and wedge heels. “You look beautiful, like you’re ready for a date or something, and I happen to know a place on the third floor.”
“Oh yeah?” Amelia laughed, giddy just to be near him again. “You know a place?”
“Yeah, there’s this balcony. No one fucks with me up there. Iwas gonna grab some food and hide away. You wanna hide away with me?”
Offered in earnest, the question came quiet and not for the sake of discretion. Emory drew a long breath and shifted on his feet.He’s nervous,Amelia realized. It never occurred to her that she might elicit butterflies in him too or that he might fumble his words with his heart on the line. Something in the balance, that they were on equal footing, calmed her frazzled nerves.
Amelia held his hand in both of her own and stared up at him from beneath her lashes. “Only if it’s a date.”
The blush on Emory’s cheeks deepened. Whatever his worries, they seemed to depart. “Yes, it’s a date.”
“Then let’s go hide away.”
TWENTY-SIX
AMELIA
Hidden from the courtyard below and terrace farther down, the balcony overlooked the valley and an expiring sun that set the distant mountain ridge ablaze. Amelia and Emory laid out a light spread on the bistro table and shared their first meal together.
As they split the last clementine at dusk, its juice sticky and sweet in the summer heat, Emory looked contented for the first time Amelia could recall and laughed with a lightness that sounded silver to her ears.
Twilight rose and the conversation flowed over shimmering candlelight. Amelia slipped out of her shoes and eased back in her seat.
