Page 37 of Ravaged From Fate

“And you?” he asks. “What’s your passion?”

“Nursing,” I reply.

“Ah. Obvious.”

“Taking care of people just makes me all happy inside. I can’t explain it.”

“I think I understand what you mean,” Caspian says. “When I perform in front of a crowd and I feel them with me in the beat, as corny as that sounds, that’s when I’m at my most happiest. What you’re saying sounds a lot like that.”

“Take, for instance, the other day,” I tell him. “I helped deliver that baby.”

“When you drove past me?” he asks.

“Yeah, I was coming back from that. Even though I was feeling so shattered by the end of that day, what I’d done made me so damn happy. It made everything else worthwhile. I don’t know if I’m explaining that right or anything.”

“Yes, you are,” Caspian replies. “You’re explaining that exactly right. I understand you completely.”

“You do?”

The big man pauses and then looks at me with his brown eyes.

“I think you and I are very similar, Elsa.”

A shiver passes through me.

“You think so?” I ask him.

“I know so.”

We finally make it to the spot I want to show him. We come to a stop at a hidden lookout. Below us is a whole ocean of trees, and smack bang in the middle is the town of East Springs, nestled in the Californian forest.

“This is my favorite spot in the world,” I whisper, staring out over the view.

“I can see why.”

We spend the next minute in comfortable silence and watch out over the sight. The sky is clear today. Crystal blue. It’s one of the best days I’ve ever been out here.

“East Springs is beautiful,” I remark softly.

“Not as beautiful as you,” Caspian says back.

And it’s a shock.

He actually said that…

I hesitantly turn to face him. He’s not looking at the view.

He’s looking at me.

And then I lean forward and kiss him.

17

ELSA

What are you doing, Elsa?

I pull back from the kiss, feeling like the biggest idiot on planet Earth.