Captured(47)



“Soldiers? We’re superstitious. He carried that letter as a talisman. For luck. I carried my favorite baseball card. Hunter had this little pocketknife. All the guys had something. For Barrett, it was your letters, especially that one.” Derek leans against the stove, watching me, but his gaze is still hooded, cautious.

“I don’t want you to go, Derek.” I stand up, taking a step toward him. I don’t touch him, though, because that’s just too dangerous. “I can’t come up with any other answers than that. I can’t answer any of the what-ifs. I’m scared of getting hurt. This whole thing is big and confusing and frightening, but the one thing that seems clear to me is that you’re here now, and that I feel better when you’re around.”

Derek and I stand face to face, not quite touching.

“Where do we go from here, then?” he asks finally.

“I don’t know.” I’ve been thinking so hard, processing, sorting through my emotions, thinking of Tommy, of Tom, of the farm, of right and wrong and good and bad and what I want versus what’s best, and I’m just fried. I don’t want to decide.

I want him to decide. I want someone to tell me what to do, rather than having to be the one who’s strong and decisive and in charge.

“Come on,” Derek says. “Let’s go for a ride.”

He takes me by the hand, and I follow him willingly. I let him tack up Henry the Eighth and Mirabelle, the bay quarter horse. He lifts me up into Henry’s saddle, and climbs onto Mirabelle. I follow him as he trots ahead of me, out to the north pasture. When we’re through the fence, he clicks Mirabelle into a canter. I’m beside him, and I realize that this is exactly what I need. The wind in my hair, Henry pounding the grass beneath me. Sunshine, Derek, freedom. We canter across the pasture, dismount, and go through the small gate separating my property from the Lovitzes’, remount on the other side. The Lovitz property is truly massive, four hundred acres of farmland, and another two hundred acres of woods. I’ve ridden through their forest from time to time, and I follow Derek along the tree line to the trail running north and east through the woods. Under the foliage, we walk the horses. Words are unnecessary.

Thirty minutes later, the trail opens up in a clearing. Derek dismounts, extends his hand to me. We unsaddle Henry and Mirabelle, tie them to a tree branch with a nosebag of grain. Derek lays the saddle blankets side by side on the grass in the middle of the clearing, in the sunlight.

My heart is suddenly pounding.

He’s lying there on the saddle blankets, arms crossed beneath his head, staring up at the clouds as they twist and shift and pass.

“C’mere.” He holds out one arm, inviting me. “Quit thinking, quit worrying. Just lie down with me and watch the clouds.”

I lie down, and his arm curls around me, holds me against his left side. My head rests on his chest, and I can hear his heartbeat, faint and steady.

“Your hair looks beautiful.” He takes my hand in his, examines my fingers. “These, too.”

I shrug, still feeling absurdly nervous. “Thanks. I enjoyed the spa. It was really relaxing. Thank you.”

“I just had the idea. Hank and Ida made it happen.”

“They’ve got Tommy for the rest of the night,” I say, apropos of nothing. Or perhaps not. Maybe it is relevant. I’m trying not to think about it too hard, because I’ll start overthinking it again. Or maybe I’m already overthinking things.

“Reagan?”

“Yeah?”

“Quit thinking.”

I laugh, a gentle snort. “I can’t. I’m trying, but I can’t.”

He rolls, and suddenly I’m partially pinned beneath him. He’s looking down at me with his moss-green eyes searching, piercing, seeing into me. His hair is blond and thick and falling across one eye, a little too long. He’s got a beard, grown long enough to be soft to the touch now. He’s put on muscle; his T-shirt sleeves stretching out once again, shoulders broad and chest thick. His arm is beneath my neck; his hand is clutching my shoulder, weight on his elbow. His other palm touches my cheek, thumb caressing the corner of my mouth. He traces the line of my lips.

For reasons I can’t even begin to fathom, I bite his thumb.

“Ow.” He pulls his thumb away and fits it to the tiny hollow beneath my lower lip.

“Sissy.” It’s more of a breath than a word.

“Reagan?”

Whisper in response. “Yeah?”

His face descends, his words a murmur as his lips touch mine. “You’re breathtaking.”

“I—”

He cuts me off with a kiss. Kisses me breathless. Pulls away, speaks before I can. “All of you, who you are. You’re stunning.”

“So are you.”

He grins and shakes his head. But his eyes, dark and perceptive, see that I’m still wondering, still worrying, and the smile fades. “Tell me what you want. Just for you. Not for Tommy. Not for Tom. Not for me. Not for Hank or Ida or the farm. Just for you. Reagan—what’s your middle name? I don’t even know.”

“Olivia.”

“Reagan Olivia Barrett. What do you want for you?”

My answer is immediate. “To forget. To not be in charge. To give in and not think about the consequences. To just…even for an hour…not have to worry.”

Jasinda Wilder & Jac's Books