I’d convinced Sister Dorothy I was a good candidate for joining a convent, but I still had my doubts. Noah being the number one reason. My feelings for him were too strong to deny. I cast him a glance and saw he’d taken off his boots and socks and was heading toward me. Nerves tightened in my stomach. There was something about his confident stride I just couldn’t look away from.
Why did he have to be so alluring? If I’d never met Noah, making the decision to become a nun would be so much easier.
Silently, he joined me in the water. We walked side by side, and I cast him a quick glance. He was already looking at me, studying my profile, and a flutter went through me.
“Have you thought any more about staying?” I asked, hopefully.
His expression instantly dimmed. “I’m sorry, Estella, but staying isn’t an option for me.”
Sadness gripped me. “When are you leaving?”
“Soon,” he said, somewhat rueful. Emotion sat heavy in my throat. I was going to miss him so much. I’d think about him every day for the rest of life and wonder about what might’ve been.
“What about your father’s remembrance ceremony?”
“Everything is in place for that. I’ll probably leave the day after.”
I swallowed down a thick ball of emotion. His eyes took on a mournful gleam. “You don’t want me to go?”
“Obviously not. Why else do you think I asked you to stay?”
“You asked me to stay for Vee. You didn’t ask me to stay for you.”
I grew flustered. “Would you have given a different answer if I did?”
A long silence fell, his gaze never leaving mine. “I can’t stay for you if you’re leaving to join a convent,” he stated simply.
I turned and started walking again, a jumble of emotions warring within me. I paused and swung back around. “Even if I wasn’t joining a convent, I couldn’t go on living in that house. It’d send me mad just like it did Vee.”
“There’s always a third option,” Noah said, coming to stand before me. His hand slid down my arm. He interlaced his fingers with mine, and the connection of our palms felt electric.
“Which is?” I whispered.
“When I go, you could hop on the back of my bike and come with me.”
For a second, time stood still. I was swept up in a whirlwind of possibility, filling me with a new, exhilarating kind of hope. “Come with you?” I asked breathily.
Noah leaned in, his voice thick as he said, “We can go anywhere you want to go.”
“Don’t say that unless you mean it.” I couldn’t deny that the idea of riding off into the sunset with Noah made me ridiculously light-headed. Going to college and joining a convent gave me a resigned sense of purpose. But venturing out into the great unknown with Noah filled me with sheer exhilaration and joy. The very thought felt like true freedom and wasn’t that what I’d wanted all along? To be free of the shackles that bound me?
“I mean it,” Noah said, his eyes sincere as they traced my features. They stopped at my mouth. I saw his intention to kiss me, and my stomach flipped.
He took my face in his hands, and when his mouth brushed mine my very soul left my body. He deepened the kiss, and the gentle pressure of his lips was almost celestial. I didn’t react until his hands slid from my cheeks to my neck and into my hair. I emitted a quiet moan and opened my mouth, allowing him to slip his tongue inside.
I forgot about the families and dog walkers on the beach. My entire existence shrunk down to the size of a pin, and all I could concentrate on was Noah. He kissed me like both our lives depended on it, drank me in and swallowed me whole. Tingles skittered down my spine, from the base of my neck where he gripped my hair in his fist, all the way to the tips of my toes.
I never wanted to leave this moment.
If I could live in this pure, unadulterated euphoria forever, I would.
Noah emitted a quiet groan, and my breathing quickened. I gripped his T-shirt tight for fear he might disappear and drift away like he was nothing but a sweet, too good to be true dream.
Then a splash of cold water hit me right in the face, and the spell was broken. I gasped and drew back. Two little boys ran away giggling. I looked to Noah, and a small laugh escaped me when I saw how his dark, wet hair hung over his forehead. He’d taken the brunt of the splash.
“Little fuckers,” he murmured in annoyance, and I chuckled some more.
He narrowed his eyes on me. “Find it funny, do you?”
I grinned wide. “Just a little bit.”