Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I fit the picture into the waiting frame, then grab a nail and the hammer. When I hang the picture on the wall next to the shelf, it sits a little crooked. I straighten it, step back, and look.
Tyler smiles out at me from the center, and my chest tightens so suddenly I have to press a hand there.
“Hi,” I say softly.
The room stays still around me, and I let out a breath that almost turns into a laugh, though there’s no humor in it.
I used to talk to him all the time after he died. In the car, in the shower, in the dark while T.J. slept down the hall, and the whole world felt split open. Over time, those conversations thinned out, but it wasn’t because I stopped loving him, and never because I stopped thinking of him.
Now, the words come slowly, but they come.
“They replaced everything Kozlov destroyed. Well, everything they could.” I look at the shelf, then back at the picture.
“Letters are gone, and so are some of your personal pictures, but I’ll never forget them.” My voice cracks, and I pause, swallow, then take a breath.
“We’re safe,” I tell him, trying to let the meaning of the words settle into my bones. “We can move forward without looking over our shoulders.”
My eyes burn, and I fold my arms over my middle. “For a long time, I thought moving forward would mean leaving you behind.” I take a step closer to the picture. “But that isn’t what this is.”
I take another deep breath. “I fell in love again.”
CHAPTER 46
ELENA
Part of me feels like Tyler already knows this, but saying it here, with his face in front of me, feels like a confession. “I love them,” I whisper. “Buck, Weston, Calder. All three of them.”
My husband keeps smiling back at me as emotion swells tight beneath my ribs.
“I didn’t plan any of this. I tried not to let it happen, but it happened anyway, and it’s real. They love me, and they love T.J., and they’re with me because they want a life with us, not because they feel responsible for what happened three years ago.”
My mouth trembles. “Though I think responsibility is hardwired into all of you men so deeply none of you would know how to set it down if you tried.”
A tear slips free, and I wipe it away and keep going. “I hope you’d understand.” Then I shake my head. “No, that’s not right. I know you would. They were your brothers, and you trusted them. I trust them, too, with me, and T.J., and our future.”
My eyes move from Tyler’s face to the others in the picture. To the surviving men who should have stayed nothing more than pieces of Tyler’s past, and somehow, they became the center of my future instead.
There’s no sign and no dramatic shift in the air. Yet as I stand there, something loosens deep inside me, and the peace that fills the space is so sudden and complete it almost feels external.
Not him. I don’t really believe that. But I let myself imagine it, anyway. Tyler seeing the life in front of me and not begrudging a single part of it. Tyler knowing our son will grow up surrounded by men who will walk into fire for him. Tyler letting me go without being lost or forgotten.
“Thank you,” I whisper, then stand there as the tears dry on my skin.
When tires crunch on the gravel outside, my pulse gives a small, automatic jump before reason catches up. It’s Weston’s truck, and he and Calder are back.
I wipe under my eyes and meet them at the door. “How did it go?” I ask as soon as they come in.
Weston sets a hand at my waist when I reach him, and I lift onto my toes to kiss him. He kisses me back gently at first, then a little deeper as he brushes my hair back behind my ear.
“Good,” he says when I pull away. “Better than it could’ve been.”
Calder watches me come to him with that quiet intensity of his. I slide a hand to the side of his neck and kiss him softly. His mouth parts with a low breath as he pulls me closer.
“What did she say?” I ask after giving him one more kiss.
“Lungs sound better.” His voice is still a little rougher than usual, but less than it had been. “No new concerns.”
“She told him to take it easy a few more days,” Weston says.
I study Calder’s face. “Are you going to do that?”
The corner of his mouth moves. “Mostly.”
Weston drapes his jacket over the back of a chair. “Dr. Navarro said he doesn’t get to decide what ‘taking it easy’ means.”
“That sounds like her.”
Then the front door opens again, and Buck steps in with a stack of folders under one arm. He acknowledges the other men but heads straight for me. His hand settles at my jaw, thumb brushing my cheek as he bends and kisses me. It’s not hurried, but not soft, either.