OK. Talk soon.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and walked slowly down the length of the boardwalk. I tried so hard not to remember our last time here, the finger paint.
Doc had said the boat still hadn’t arrived in port. He’d called the shipping lines, and they were scheduled to arrive a week ago. He got no explanation for the delay, and I couldn’t help being afraid. What if something happened to him? Could I survive if he never came back? If the things I’d said, the angry words I’d shouted at him as I beat him with my fists...
Oh, God, those couldn’t be my last word to him.
The pier posts were as tall as me, and I counted them as I walked. One... two... three... “Please come back to me,” I whispered, feeling like a child plucking petals from a daisy. Four... five... six... “This missing... makes me sick.”
Seven... eight...
With a sigh, I stopped at the last post and leaned my forehead against it. I was out of rhymes. My heart was broken, and even having Lane here with me didn’t stop the hole in my chest from growing larger every day.
Turning my cheek to the damp wood, I closed my eyes and imagined it was him. He was standing here with me, his firm chest against my face. I spread my fingers against the post. “Slayde,” I whispered. “Won’t you please come back?”
“That depends.” The familiar voice made my eyes fly open.
I wasn’t sure I believed them. I wasn’t sure I wasn’t dreaming. He stood there in the same dark jeans and white tee, only now a long-sleeved red flannel shirt was on top. He was bigger somehow than the last time I’d seen him. His dark hair was longer, shaggy, and his beard fuller. One thing was the same—his pale blue eyes seared into me with an intensity that stole my breath.
Trying to calm myself, I asked the follow-up question. “Depends on what?”
“If there’s anything for me to come back to.”
I looked down. I couldn’t answer that yet. “When did you get in?”
“Last night.” He waited, watching me. I waited, unsure. “Doc’s at my place.”
I nodded. “He showed up a few weeks ago. Said you told him he could stay there.”
“He certainly can. I just wish I’d known he was here when I crawled into my bed in the dark.” He smiled that sexy, heartbreaking smile.
A gust of wind pushed my hair forward into my face, and I was glad because it hid the tears forming in my eyes. I reached up and caught the flying strands, holding them back and together in a fist at my neck. He only stood there, drinking me in as I did him. The sight of him was an image I could feel in my bones.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” He spoke quietly, trailing his eyes up my body. “You look... so good.”
“You look... different.” His brow lined, and I continued. “Bigger. Stronger, I guess—from working on the boat?”
“They worked me pretty hard, but it was good. Honest.”
“I can’t believe you left on a boat—I mean, you said you never would. You don’t swim.”
“Mariska is a fortune teller after all.”
Smiling, I blinked down. “Don’t tell her that.”
In two steps he closed the distance between us. He only hesitated a moment before taking my face in his hands. “The entire time I was gone, I could only think of you. Every minute I was away. I tried not to, but it was pointless. I’d close my eyes, and you were there, waiting for me in my dreams.”
His mouth hovered a breath above mine, and my lips throbbed with anticipation—but he pulled back. He lowered to one knee then dropped the other until he was on both in front of me. I tried to stop him, but he wrapped his arms around my waist, holding me so tightly, resting his cheek against my stomach. His face pointed down, and I carefully slid my fingers into his soft hair as tears burned my eyes.
“I can’t change the fact that I put that tear in your hand.” His voice was rough. “I broke your heart, and I don’t deserve to have you or even to ask this. But if you could find some way to forgive me... I’d spend the rest of my life making sure you made the right decision. Please forgive me, Kenny. Please.”
My heart ached for him as thoroughly as my entire body longed for him. “I have to forgive you,” I said through the thickness in my throat. “I can’t live without you.”
He sat back on his heels and looked up at me. It was more than I could bear. I dropped to my knees in front of him, reaching for his cheeks. I kissed him with all the pain and longing that had consumed me since that horrible night, and without hesitation, he gathered me in his arms and stood, holding me in a breathlessly firm embrace just like before.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh and cry and hold him and never let go. He was here, holding me, kissing me in a way I’d only dreamed of for so long. He was asking me to forgive him. He was asking me for everything.
Pulling myself together, I leaned back. “It’s true. You put the tear in my hand.” He watched as I took his right hand and spread it open. Then I lifted mine and pressed our palms together. “You’re also the one who turned it into a heart.”