I glare at him, and he grins, handing the woman his phone and dragging me to the middle of the bridge.
“We’re celebrating our eighth anniversary this summer,” Nash tells the woman, winking at me as he wraps one arm around my waist and pulls me close.Tooclose. “Sometimes my wife here forgets we’re married because we haven’t fought in years.”
I poke him in the ribs, making him laugh through a grunt.
“That’s because my husband is so quiet around the house, it’s like he’s not even there.”
“Don’t be silly, honey.” Nash gives me a dopey look. “It’s because of all of those dirty cartoons you keep on your side of the bed—especially the ones of Popeye and Olive Oyl you love so much.”
I can’t contain the laugh that pulls out. All roads lead to the Tijuana bibles.
“Dirty cartoons?” the woman says from behind the phone, pushing the shutter button eight hundred times. “Didn’t know those existed. Get one where you wrap your arms around him.”
I look at Nash—I don’t want to do this—but when he challenges me with a whispered, “I won’t bite,” I do as she says, ignoring how well we fit, just like this.
When she’s pleased with her work, the woman’s voice rises again. “Did you hear that, Dan? These two have been married for eight years!” Softer, to us, “Would you mind taking one of me and my husband?” My arms drop from Nash, and up goes her voice. “Dan! Get over here! This handsome man’s gonna take our photo!”
Back on the trail after all pictures are taken, Nash shows me us on his phone. We are mid-laugh and it’s perfect.
“I hate it,” I tell him.
“Really?” His lips twitch. “I think I look pretty good.”
I slap him on the arm, but I’m also smiling. “Think it’s a waste of time to keep walking and see if anything sticks out?”
“No place else I’d rather be, Rue Conway.” He grins, so easy. Like he always has and probably always will. Like this moment is the only one he’s concerned about being in and every next moment is the next moment’s concern. I’m envious.
For the next hour, Nash shoots down every possible clue location I spot. In the quiet between, it’s comfortable. More than once, our hands brush, and as much as it makes my skin buzz, he doesn’t react. Nash is still Nash, but we are not us. He’s him—whoever that is now—and I’m me, engaged to Jonathan, and mother to a child he knows nothing about. We aren’t who we were all those years ago.
At the bench where we started, Cap is napping upright.
“Crazy that’s my dad,” I say to Nash.
“I like him.”
Cap’s oxygen tube moves with his breaths. I didn’t come here looking for a new dad—even if not biologically, I had a good one—but twenty-four hours here, and Cap’s growing on me.
I move to wake him, and Nash stops me with a hand around my arm.
“Hey,” he says, voice lowering as he leans close to me. So close I could count every strand of day-old stubble lining his jaw or shade of color in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
Like a freak bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky, adoration for him rips through me from top to bottom. I can’t tell if he feels it—it doesn’t matter—the concern he’s radiating is the only thing I need.
Nash was a lot of things—wewere a lot of things—but one thing I seem to have forgotten is that when we were together, it was time spent with a constant soft place to land beneathme. Maybe he never wanted a normal house or a normal career, but when I had a bad day, he didn’t shy away from the hard conversations. Unlike Jonathan who takes action with every problem, Nash gave me space to be. He pushed and he talked and he forced me to dance when I wanted to build tall walls and slap him across the face.
It takes every ounce of my strength not to wrap my arms around him and cry.
“Me too,” I tell him.
It’s a lame response and doesn’t hold a candle to the simple fact hissorryfeels like the one I’ve been needing to hear since I got the news. Even as I drive and Cap tells us about the hurricanes he’s weathered on his boat, it’s the only word I think of.
I don’t think Jonathan ever said it once.
Twenty-One
“Now what?” Leaning against my car parked in front of Nash’s house, I’m sweaty, exhausted, and covered in mosquito bites. “That got us nowhere except carriers of malaria.”
“Angel Oak tomorrow?” Cap asks.
