Dane's Storm(62)

“Yeah, I noticed that. I think it’s just part of the healing process. It might be a little bit irritated, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore.”

She pressed her lips together. “Hmm. Well that’s good.” She bent a little close. “The bottom stitch is torn, though.”

“I know. I ah, did that climbing the hill to the plane.”

“Days ago?” She stood, putting her hands on her hips. “Dane, you should have told me. I’d have fixed it.”

I pulled my jeans up the rest of the way and stuck my feet in my shoes. “Listen, Dr. Frankenstein, I appreciate that, but really, it’s fine.”

She snorted, turning away. “All right, then, get me warm, because I’m freezing.”

**********

She was crying, but she was still asleep. I’d woken to stoke the fire and add wood to it, the sky between the breaks in the trees catching my attention as brief streaks of light illuminated the dark forest.

When I heard the tiny whimpers coming from our shelter, I ducked inside, whispering Audra’s name, touching the wetness on her cheeks, my heart constricting painfully. She gasped out another sob, shuddering, and I put my arms beneath her, scooping her up and ducking back out through the door where I straightened.

Audra’s eyes opened blearily and she blinked up at me, her gaze disoriented and teary. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling closer. “Dane?”

“Shh, I’ve got you,” I said, adjusting my arms beneath her body so I had a better hold of her. “I have plastic over my shoes and you don’t. Let me hold you. There’s something I want you to see.”

She sniffled again but didn’t ask any more questions, resting her head on my shoulder, her breath warm against my neck.

When I stepped into the clearing, it was just in time to see a blazing golden streak as a shooting star shot across the sky. “Oh,” Audra breathed, tilting her head to the heavens as another star followed. She gasped, a sound that turned into a small sob as she pressed her face to my neck. “I want him back,” she cried, the wetness of her pain sliding down my skin.

“I know,” I whispered. “I do too, honey. I do too.”

She shuddered as another sob tore from her chest. “I didn’t get to hold him long enough.”

I pulled her even closer, nuzzling the side of her head, kissing her temple. “Nothing but forever would have been long enough, sweetheart.”

She cried as I held her, releasing more of her pain as dazzling light fell from a black sky, the earth proving that there was no such thing as complete darkness.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


Audra



Morning had broken. The new glow of dawn filtered into our shelter, and I blinked at the rock wall directly in front of me, light and shadows dancing together. A waltz of sorrow and joy.

I’d somehow grown used to waking here. We’d been on this mountain long enough that I no longer had to orient myself when morning came. The fire outside snapped and crackled, and the winter birds were waking in the trees, singing their greeting to the brand new day. Despite the fire, the air in our shelter was still cold, but my body was warm. I snuggled against the heat of Dane at my back, recalling the day before and then the night. The shooting stars, the way my heart had swelled in a way I didn’t completely understand at the sight of those brilliant flashes of falling light. The way Dane had cradled me in his arms as I’d cried. The way he’d carried me.

I thought about all we’d said to each other: the revelations, the confessions, and truths. And I suddenly saw the situation with Dane—our marriage and the demise of us—in a very different light. We’d both made mistakes, both withdrawn from the other in our own ways, but we’d been so young, struggling with something for which there was no guidebook. But there had never been a lack of love, despite it all. We just hadn’t known how to access it. We hadn’t known how to offer it.

I loved him. I’d never stopped. And that had also been a small part of the reason I’d been so unwilling to venture back to the past in my mind. My heart had known that to do so would be to admit it still belonged to the man I’d once pledged my life to and meant it with every ounce of my being. The man I’d willingly given up, though never in the deepest part of my soul.

Dane sighed in his sleep and I smiled, scooting against him even more. He was so very warm, so solid and yet so soft to snuggle against. I was hungry, my bones sharper than they’d ever been, and uncomfortable to lie on, and yet for the moment, I felt relaxed, safe even. He let out another soft moan and I realized I was wiggling against another part of him that felt decidedly solid. For a moment, I froze, but then a warm flush rose from my toes to my cheeks.

I loved him.

I wanted him and that’s all there was here in this small shelter from the brutal cold—love, desire, and yes . . . trust. I hoped desperately to be rescued, but until we were, I wouldn’t want to be weathering this storm with anyone but him.

A peace fell over me, inexplicable considering our circumstances, and yet it felt so good, I held on to it tightly, unwilling to let it go just now. Later . . . later we could deal with the very real challenges we faced. But here, now, I needed him. I needed to love and be loved, to remind myself why giving up was not an option.

I turned in the intimate shelter of Dane’s arms, his eyes just blinking open as he smiled sleepily at me. I put my hand on his bearded cheek, smoothing my thumb over his lips, and then his cheekbone, more defined than it’d been when we’d boarded that plane. I didn’t speak but he must have seen the desire in my eyes because he moved forward, pulling the blankets up to our necks.