AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Raven didn’t need to know Charleigh was the only reason I’d even come down here. Didn’t need to know I’d toiled the whole damned night. Set on edge by her fear and her kiss and her words. I hadn’t been able to sit still for a second longer, so I’d tossed out the excuse that I was going to run to the café to grab breakfast.
“Oh, yeah, I was heading out and stumbled into him, so he stopped to say hi.” Charleigh’s words were flustered.
Raven’s gaze narrowed, zeroing in on what Charleigh was holding onto. “Why do you have a suitcase?”
“Oh…I…this?” Charleigh tripped all over herself, one worried glance cast at me before she turned back to my sister. “I’d decided not to go on a hike since my feet were hurting from all the fun we had dancing last night, and instead, I cleaned out my closet and took some stuff to donation.”
She jostled the suitcase like it was empty.
“At six in the morning?” Raven’s brow arched.
“Yeah?” Charleigh issued it like a question.
Raven shook her head. “You really are a masochist.”
“Well, you’re up, aren’t you?” Charleigh punted back at her.
Raven giggled. “Fair. Fair. But there aren’t bears around here. I was worried about you taking off into the mountains by yourself, so I have to admit I’m relieved to see you standing here.”
Yeah, I was relieved, too.
Relieved I’d been here.
Relieved that I’d made it in time.
She and Nolan made it the rest of the way up, and the kid was beaming his precious smile at the woman, bouncing on his toes. “Well, I think it’s really good you woke up so early because that means you gotta have breakfast with us. My belly’s been growlin’ for twenty hours. Is your stomach growlin’? And look it, I got my favorite puppy.”
He waved the dog over his head again.
Charleigh looked down at him, and there was just something about the way she did it that flayed right through the center of my chest.
Something that both soothed the sting and made me altogether petrified.
And I thought I might fully come apart when she reached out and brushed her fingertips down his cheek and whispered, “I’m glad you like it.”
His megawatt grin bloomed. “I like it the most!”
“We’d better get to the café then,” Raven said.
She covertly glanced between me and Charleigh again, and I was pretty sure my baby sister didn’t buy our lie for a second.
Then she grinned directly at Charleigh. “Now get your cute butt over here with us.”
EIGHTEEN
CHARLEIGH
I struggledto find my breath. This little boy was nothing but a landslide. His sweetness so overpowering it nearly knocked me from my feet.
I attempted to suck the emotion down and act normal, but I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to look like when five minutes ago I’d been set on boarding a bus and never looking back, and now I was supposed to be having breakfast with the very people I was worried I was getting too close to.
A pendulum shift that made the ground tremble beneath my feet.
“Okay, just let me take this suitcase back upstairs really quick.” I needed a minute to wrap my head around what was happening.
To come to terms with what River had asked of me.
To stay.
