“I wanted to believe in miracles.”
“It’s already wilting.”
“It’s nervous.”
“It’s dramatic.”
“It lives here. It learned from us.”
Her smile softened.
Then we went upstairs.
The bedroom faced west.
I had not furnished much. A bed, made carefully with white sheets because I had panicked in the store and bought the first thing that looked clean and soft. Two nightstands. A lamp. Nothing on the walls yet. No memories. No ghosts.
Just light.
Sunset filled the room, warm and low, sliding across the floorboards and touching Destiny’s hair until the black turned blue at the edges.
She stood in the doorway, and I forgot how to breathe.
Not because of the bed.
Because of the whole impossible shape of the moment.
Destiny Rourke in a room I had built for her.
No blood.
No bullets.
No grave.
No other woman’s ring.
Just her.
Choosing to stay.
She looked back at me over her shoulder.
“Come here.”
My body answered before my mind could.
I crossed the room slowly.
Careful, because I wanted to remember every second.
She met me halfway.
Our kiss this time was softer at first. Slower. Her hands slid under my jacket and pushed it from my shoulders. I let it fall. My fingers found the hem of her scrub top and stopped there.
She looked up at me.
I asked without words.
