Finding Eden (A Sign of Love Novel)(70)

I smiled back. "Remember when I used to draw in dirt with a stick?"
She laughed. "Yeah, I do." Then her face went serious. "If ever anyone was meant to do something, you were meant to create art. You make people feel things with your gift." She shrugged. "If that's not a true calling, I don't know what is."
I gazed at her for a second and nodded. "Okay, I'll call a couple galleries. But today . . . today, we go over to your mom's house and tell her our plans." I leaned down and kissed her lush, pink lips. "And then we go to the grocery store and stock up on food for our home—at least things that don't need to be refrigerated." I smiled and pushed a piece of her bangs to the side of her forehead. "And then we'll come back here and I'll work on the electric so we can live in the light and eat cold food." At the picture in my head of us doing such normal, everyday things, I felt . . . joy. And by the sweet smile on her face, I think she felt it, too. "Maybe tomorrow we can go to a furniture store and pick some stuff out. Do you think your mom would help us cash that check?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I think so." Her brow furrowed slightly. "Calder?" She bit her lip and paused.
"What, Morning Glory?"
Her eyes returned to mine and a small glimmer of a smile came to her lips before it disappeared. "We're going to need to go to the police." She blinked at me, looking worried.
I let out a breath. "I know you do, Eden. To get your name back, I know you do." I shook my head. "But not me. Not Xander. We don't have to."
She looked up at me and widened her eyes. "Don't you think your name is important, too?" she asked. "Don't you want your own name back? You deserve to have an identity, Calder. I mean, Madison understood about you not having any ID–she was willing to do whatever she did to bypass that because you two—" She took a deep breath, apparently deciding not to voice the rest of that thought. "Anyway," she continued after a few seconds, "not everyone is going to. What if you got pulled over driving without a license? You'd be forced to tell your story. Let's do this on our own terms. Let's do this together."
Worry moved through my body. I knew she was right. I knew that most of the reason we hadn't been reunited sooner was because none of us had been willing to go to the police. But still, the thought of it sent anxiety racing through my veins. "What if they try to separate us somehow?" I asked. "What if we did something wrong by not going to them immediately? I don't know all the laws. They could put us in jail or something."
Eden shook her head. "No. I don't think so. And my mom has a good relationship with the Cincinnati police department after all these years. There are people she trusts there. There are people I think we can trust."
"Clive Richter—" I started.
"I know. But all these years . . . all these years and he's gotten away with what he did that day. He's always claimed he lived there, in Acadia, but that he was working the day of the flood and didn't have any part in any of it. He says he wasn't even there. We know that's not true."
I let out another loud whoosh of air and grabbed my hair in my hands, turning away from her. Apart from Hector, Clive Richter was one of the first men I learned to despise. I hadn't known distrust and animosity prior to that first time he put his spineless hands on me. And him using his badge to terrify, belittle, and humiliate Xander, Eden and me, had done little to encourage my trust in the police. My hand went unconsciously to the scar on my thigh, ugly and raised under my jeans. I needed so badly to be able to protect Eden this time. The thought of putting ourselves in the hands of the police filled me with a crazed fear I wasn't sure how to control. In my mind, I understood people trusted the police in general, that the police were there to help, but my heart screamed something different. "Can we just talk about how we're going to do this?" I asked Eden softly, turning around and dropping my hands. "Can we figure it out?"