Collared(92)

I kick some sand over his toes. “You have ten years of experience.”

“I suppose I do,” he says, smiling at the horizon. He keeps staring at it as his hand lifts to his chest. “So . . . I had another birthday present for you . . .” When his hand curls around something hanging beneath his shirt, I swallow. “But I’m guessing this isn’t the right birthday for this gift.”

I can see the chain around the back of his neck, the outline of the ring beneath his shirt. My hand curls into the sand when I find myself wanting to hold it out to him. “Not this one. Not yet.”

“I’m ready to make that choice—no one and nothing is forcing it. I’m ready to walk away.”

“Don’t walk away—not yet. Stay where you are. I’ll be right here.” I slide just a fraction of an inch closer so our shoulders are just barely touching. But even with this slightest of touches, my body responds as if he’s crawling over me the way he did that night in his bedroom, that night when I’d never been happier. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“But if I do that—stay where I am—you know what that means, right?” His eyes drop to the distance between us. “Father Costigan can’t give you a ring. He can’t give you intimacy. He can’t give you his last name or a family or a home.”

My chest contracts—then it slowly releases. “I know, but Torrin Costigan can love me.”

“And this is enough for you? Being what I am? Being like this?” He looks at my mouth in a familiar way. He wants to kiss me, but he can’t. Not with the way our lives are now. Not on a public beach for anyone to see.

“All I’ve ever wanted is you. You’re enough. In whatever way I can have you.” I lean forward. “Besides, look at me. I’m a psychologist’s dream or nightmare—depending on the day. I’m at the epicenter of an international media storm. I’m in love with a priest.” I fight my smile but lose the battle. “Is that enough for you?”

He lowers his face toward mine. He doesn’t blink. “You, Jade Childs, have always been more than enough.”

I don’t lean back. I stay right where I am, our faces in line so I can feel his warm breath wash across my lips. I’ve never mentioned to him what I found out that day in the interrogation room with Reyes, and I’m not sure I ever will. I think he doesn’t want me to feel like I owe him anything or have that skew my decision when it comes to us. I think it’s important to him that when I’m ready, I make that decision because I want to be with him and not because I want to pay him back for the ten years he never gave up—for the decade he refused to let go of me.

“Thank you,” I say, but my eyes are relaying a million other things that I hope he sees. I think he might.

“For what?”

I could go on and on, detailing everything I’m thankful to him for, but it all comes down to the same thing. “For saving me.”

His face moves a little closer, and I can almost feel his forehead leaning into mine. “You’re welcome.”

I see devotion and loyalty and love and desire when I look into his eyes. I see the boy I loved’s eyes in the face of the man I love. I see a person who sacrificed ten years of his life to save mine. I see everything I’ve always wanted and everything I hope to one day deserve, and the man beside me stares at me in a similar kind of way.

It’s the best birthday I’ve ever had. Maybe because I never thought I’d celebrate another one. Or maybe because I’m alive to have a birthday when the odds put me in the one-in-a-million range. But I guess this is the best birthday ever because he’s here to share it with me. He isn’t my husband or my fiancé or my boyfriend . . . or even my secret lover. He’s my friend. My best friend.

For now, for me, that’s more than I ever could have imagined having again. For now, this is exactly what I need. Torrin Costigan is worth the wait until I’ve completed the process of putting myself back together.

“Everyone thought I was dead.”

Torrin’s brows pull together like it’s a painful memory. Then he shakes his head. “Everyone was wrong.”

“You found me alive.” I smile when I want to kiss him. He smiles when I know he wants to kiss me back. “But then you brought me back to life.”

He exhales, and just before he leans back, his forehead presses against mine. It’s fleeting and forever all at once. In the advancing twilight, that little light still flickering below us lights up his whole face. It illuminates the distance between us too.

“Someday?” he asks.

I nod and scoot a little closer. My hand finds his just beneath the surface of the sand and forms around it. No one watching would think anything of it. But he knows what it means. So do I. “One day.”