The Christmas Blanket

“No,” I finally said. I lifted my head again to look at him. “But sometimes, I wish I did.”

His jaw tensed, but he never stopped holding me, never stopped swaying.

God, those eyes. How they’d haunted me since the last time I saw them, watching me leave in my rearview mirror. They watched me the same way now — like I was all River had ever known, all he’d ever needed, and also the only thing to ever break him.

River’s hands were warm against my lower back, my hips, and he pulled me in even closer, gazing down at me over his nose.

His eyes flicked to my lips, and the breath that came from his chest when he did was one I knew I’d hear forever replayed in my memory.

Longing.

Pain.

Regret.

“Truth or dare?” I asked, voice cracking with the question.

“Truth.”

“Did you ever miss me, after I left?”

He shook his head, the muscles of his jaw ticking, nose flaring, hands still pulling me in, closer, closer.

“Only every day, Eliza,” he whispered, his brows bending together. “Every hour. Every minute. Every second you’ve been gone.”

Emotion surged through me, but I didn’t have the chance to break beneath it before the blanket dropped from around us, and River took me full in his arms.

And then his mouth was on mine, hard and punishing, a kiss and a gunshot all the same.

I cried out at the connection — a sigh, perhaps, or a moan or a whimper. Maybe it was all of those things, all wrapped into one, my body and brain so confused it couldn’t decide how to react.

But I leaned into him, into that kiss, and the ghost that was River Jensen.

His arms were sturdy where they held me, and as our lips melded together, it was as if there was no other place in the world we could possibly be. It was a kiss we’d shared a hundred times before. It was a kiss I’d never experienced, never even dreamed of, not until the moment his lips were on mine. It was years of love and passion. It was years of heartache and pain. It was everything I hated, everything I desired, everything I’d forgotten and everything I would always remember, too.

This is my husband, my heart screamed. This is the love of my life.

This is a stranger, my brain combatted. This is the man who let you go.

River swept his tongue over mine, sending a bolt of electricity ripping through me, shooting straight to my core. And in the next breath, I pressed my hands into his chest, shoving him away.

I’d already turned my back when River groaned at the loss, covering my mouth with both hands. I shook my head, eyes welling with tears, emotion swimming with the alcohol in my bloodstream, making for a dangerous current I knew had the power to sweep me under.

“Why,” I asked softly, almost so soft I wondered if he’d heard me at all. I turned to face him again, slowly, timidly, the glow of him blurred through my tears. “Why would you do that? Hold me like that, kiss me like that…” I sniffed. “But you just let me go. When I stood in front of you just like this and asked you what you wanted, what you needed. When I asked you to come with me, but you wouldn’t.” I shook my head, desperation aching through me. “Why, River?”

“Eliza…”

“Just tell me why.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard in his throat as he looked into the fire. Tears glossed his own eyes, and when he found my gaze again, I swore the way he looked at me would break whatever part of me was still holding on.

“I knew Dad was dying,” he said gruffly. “He told me.”

My bottom lip trembled. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was going to,” he said. “Of course, I was going to. You were my best friend, Eliza. But I came home, and there you were, sitting at our dining table with all these plans laid out.”

He shook his head, and realization washed over me like an icy flood.

It was the night I told him I wanted to leave.

Or rather, I wanted us to leave.

I’d spent my day off clipping photos out of travel magazines, making vision boards, planning routes and researching what we could do to earn money in each place I wanted to visit around the world. I had a plan, a way to make it work, a way for us to see the world and make enough to live on, too.

And when he walked through the door that night, it was all I could do to wait until he’d taken his coat off to tell him all of it.

“When I saw it all, and listened to you talking about getting away, about how this town was suffocating you, how you felt stuck…” He grimaced. “Eliza, I couldn’t tell you. Not then.”