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I touched his cheek and he leaned into me, flashing me an encouraging smile with a look that told me he adored me. “I can never thank you enough for being here for me, for helping me brave my past, and for helping to bring Erin back into my life. I’m in awe at how accepting you are of this whole situation. Most of the men I have ever known would have left me a note rather than take all of that on.”
“Ah, but I’m not most men, I want to be the man. And hearing you tell me I’ve given you courage warms my heart.”
“You are the man, James.” I swallowed and studied him for a moment while I gathered my thoughts. “The moment I see you when I come home from work my heart flutters … no matter how bad my day has been.”
Balancing his drink carefully on a flat piece of rock, he took my hand, laced our fingers together, and lifted them to his lips. He peppered kisses over the back of my hand but kept his piercing gaze on me. My heart squeezed tight with love for his intimate gesture.
Swallowing back an emotional wave I continued. “When you wrap your arms around me and hold me like you do, there are no words for how safe you make me feel. I never realized how long I’d been in free fall until I let you in.”
“I get it, Tricia. When we first met, I guess we were both scared of our own shadows, because of our treatment at the hands of others. Before Charlotte, I had honestly thought I was invincible. That bitch almost wrecked me, and who knows, if Sawyer hadn’t met Billie, she may well have succeeded. It was only due to her jealousy of their love that she ran at the mouth and the truth about how she blackmailed me came out.”
“Manipulators like her give women a bad name,” I agreed, “I’m so sad that happened to you.”
Taking our hands to his chest, he sighed. “That period in my life was a living hell but it was nothing compared to what I’ve seen you go through … what you still are going through.”
For a long moment he stared into my eyes and the air between us thickened. The love I felt arcing between us had felt palpable.
“Despite all the difficult days I’ve felt helpless to know what to say, I want you know you have never been lost. You’re not lost. I still see you, Tricia … the real you. Through all that pain you carry, the connection we share … it’s phenomenal— unlike anything I can begin to explain. And if I can see past that load you have carried, I need you to know you are one of a kind.”
I considered what James had said and Sawyer came into my mind. When Billie met Sawyer, and I watched them fall in love, I had thought their love story was epic. Sawyer was a romantic, but when I measured how James had nurtured, loved, and protected me, I knew James had far more in common with his younger brother than either of them realized.
“So, what’s next?” James asked, handing me a carefully prepared sandwich and some chips on a paper plate.
“My father … and my mother’s will …” I groaned. “Although I don’t think I can face the hypocrisy of sitting through that event, but let’s not talk about my family anymore right now. I’m having such a perfect day with you all to myself, which has been invaluable to my sanity … likely to yours as well.”
“Done,” he replied, taking the hint immediately and steered the topic of conversation on to things we wanted to do for the rest of our time in Vermont. He pulled me over him and sat me between his legs. Hugging me from behind, he kissed my head and we sat in a comfortable silence listening to the calming sound of the waterfall.
The lunch his staff had packed tasted delicious and after we’d packed the picnic basket up, James helped me up into the helicopter and stowed the basket on the floor beneath the back seat. When he had climbed in beside me, and we’d both buckled up, the chopper pilot lifted off again.
The next stop that we made was in Woodstock, home to the famous music festival. There we did a mini bar crawl, drinking cocktails and eyeing the impressive displays of music memorabilia from the artists who had previously performed.
By the time we made it back to the field where the helicopter had landed, we were very mellow and tipsy. I hadn’t wanted the day to end when I saw the sun was getting lower in the sky.
“Aren’t we going home now?” I asked, through the helmet headset.
“Soon, just one more quick stop before we head for home,” he answered, a soft smile on his lips, but as he turned to look straight ahead again, his smile immediately dropped. For a few seconds I studied him unaware and decided he’d looked worried.
“Is something bothering you?” I asked, and saw his body stiffen at my question.
“No. What makes you say that?” he asked, glancing at me but not keeping eye contact like a challenge as he normally would have done.
I narrowed my eyes and continued to scrutinize him. “Are you sure?” I probed because the version of James in front of me was nothing like the carefree guy I’d had lunch with.
“Of course, where we want to go isn’t that far from here,” he explained, changing the subject, then immediately pointed out another place of interest in the hope of diverting me from my question again.
For a few minutes we sat mainly in silence and listened to the pilot when he made reference to a couple of places of interest. I had begun to relax again when the pilot suddenly veered off to the west and we headed over a ridge. My eyes almost popped out of my head and tears sprang to my eyes. A huge swell of emotion brought a lump to my throat when I looked at the ground in front of me.
As far as the eye could see were miles upon miles of sunflowers; the massive bed of green and sunburst yellow made a perfectly uniformed carpet of gorgeous blooms beneath us.
“I’d have bought you a bouquet of those, but I figured you’d prefer I left them in their natural state for you to enjoy,” James told me, smiling affectionately when he saw tears on my cheeks. “Aw don’t cry,” he whispered pulling my head closer and resting it on his shoulder.
I had wanted to say something, but I couldn’t speak for the lump in my throat and sat up bobbing my head like I’d been possessed. Chuckling, he turned to face me as much as he could and wiped my tears from my eyes.
“We don’t have long because the sun won’t last, and we have to head back before dark. But I couldn’t bring you out here without taking you down for a few minutes at least.” As he said that the pilot moved to a clearing and landed a couple of minutes later.
Helping me out of the door, he slung an arm over my shoulder and we ran away from the chopper, ducking our heads before the rotors had fully stopped.
James helped me over a fence and into the field. “These are view only,” he told me as we walked through a patch of sunflowers at waist height and not fully grown, before stopping a minute later. All around me was one huge flower bed with us almost lost in the middle.
