Take Me Away (Southern Bride 6)

Coward indeed.

Nolan dropped my hand and started to walk away. He removed his cap and raked his fingers through his hair, then put the cap back on with a deep sigh. He turned and looked at me. The pain on his face was almost unbearable. And when he opened his mouth, I knew he was going to tell me everything.

“Don’t…” I quickly said. I could see it written all over his face. Maybe I had it seen yesterday too, when he turned and looked at me in Saryn and Truitt’s kitchen.

He shook his head as his lips pressed tightly together and his face constricted in a pained expression.

“Don’t tell me what you were about to tell me, Nolan. I’m so blissfully happy right now, please don’t ruin it. Being here with you and experiencing this feeling deep inside of me that screams that you and I were so much more…I don’t know how, and I don’t want to remember how. At least not right now. Please, keep those things to yourself.”

That caused him to jerk back, almost as if I had slapped him across the face.

I took a step toward him. I needed to make him understand how I felt. “Do you know that feeling when you first walk outside after it’s been raining for days and days, and you lift your head toward the sky and the sun warms your face?”

“Y-yes.” His voice sounded strained.

I dropped my head back and let the sun hit my face and smiled. “When you kissed me yesterday afternoon, that’s what it felt like. Like I had been trapped inside for days, months…years.” I let out a chuckle. “But then you kissed me.”

Righting my head, I met his gaze. My heart broke in two at the sad expression on his face, and I would have given anything to take it away.

“It has been eight years of being in the rain, Nolan. Eight. And I see it on your face, too, and I know you’re getting ready to leave again, and I have no idea when you’ll come back. But that kiss brought light to the dark world I’d been living in. I dreamed about you, Nolan. All those years I dreamed about you.”

I felt my cheeks heat as I pressed my fingers to my forehead and let out an embarrassed laugh. “I mean…” My hands went to my cheeks in an attempt to cool my body down. “I had these fantasies. Very vivid dreams that I was with a man. I would wake up sometimes gasping for air because they were so intense. The love and passion in those dreams…I swore I felt it when I woke up from them. I had them nearly every single night. It started about a year after I moved to Paris. Those dreams. God, they felt so real. I had it in my head there was someone out there waiting for me. Looking for me. Then I saw you sitting there at the café that one day, and something buried deep inside me ignited and I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was I had to go after you. I followed you until I lost you in the crowd. A complete stranger, and I was drawn to you like a moth to a flame. Then, that night, I dreamed again. But it wasn’t a faceless man who was kissing me and making love to me like it had been all those years before. It was you.”

Nolan closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath before he opened his eyes and looked at me.

“When I turned around and saw you in Saryn’s kitchen, I knew it was fate. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it. I was meant to see you that day in Paris, I was meant to come back to Texas, and you were meant to be there. Then, you kissed me, and I knew it was love. It was in your kiss, Nolan. And I know I’ve experienced that love before; I felt it in the depths of my soul all those years. I feel it when you look at me now.”

“Linz, please…”

A rush of something mixed with fear and anger took over. “Don’t stand there and tell me I’ve never loved you before, Nolan. Do not lie to me because I feel it here.” I pressed my closed fist into my chest. My eyes filled with tears as I went on. “I ache with it. I laid in bed last night and you were the only thing I could think about. That kiss, your smile. The way my body warmed simply by watching you with those kids. I loved you, I love you, and I don’t know if you ever loved me—”

“Yes! God, yes. I love you so much, Linz.”

I inhaled sharply. “Love? You still love me?”