“Thanks to you.” He let me go, but then his hand moved to my stringy hair. I let him tuck it behind my ear and inspect the mutilation. His lips pressed so tight they vanished completely in his thick beard. “If Liam hadn’t burned her body, I’d-I’d . . .”
“He burned her body?”
“Yes. So she could rot in hell next to Aidan.”
Had that been his reasoning, or had Liam worried the silver in her blood would contaminate the soil? For whatever reason he’d done it, I was glad she was well and truly gone.
“I saw Greg signing the discharge papers. Ready to come home?”
I nodded, but then asked, “Which home, though?”
He smiled gently, skating his palm over the side of my face that wasn’t injured. “Whichever one you want? You have many now. I kept the apartment. August got a team together to clean and repaint your house, so it’s ready too. And the inn, there’s always a room with your name on it. It’s completely up to you, honey.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Wherever you’ll be.”
I smiled at him. “You don’t need to take care of me anymore, Jeb.”
“Who’s going to take care of me?”
“I’m half-blind.” My voice was a cracked whisper.
“You’re half-sighted.” He combed another lock of hair behind my ear. “And the best way of taking care of a person is to spend time with them and love them. You’re really good at that.”
“You have Lucy now.”
“And what? I can’t have two women in my life?”
“I know she apologized, but I’m not ready to live with her.”
“Then you won’t. She’ll stay at the inn. And I’ll stay wherever you want to live.” He stood, extended his hand, palm face up, and waited for me to latch onto it. When I did, he said, “So where shall we go?”
“The apartment,” I said without hesitation.
It had been a safe haven, unlike the inn, unlike my parents’ house. “I might need some clothes though . . .” I tipped my head to my bare legs poking out of the hospital gown.
“Of course. Let me run back and get you some. Give me a half hour.”
After Jeb left, August let himself in again. Draping my hair over the ugly wound, I sank down on the bed and gathered my hands between my knees.
“Everyone’s gone,” he said, coming to sit next to me.
“Except you.”
I felt his body stiffen. “Did you want me to leave?”
“You don’t have to stay.”
He crooked a finger under my chin and lifted my face. I slid my chin off its perch and dipped it back against my neck. “Why won’t you look at me?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to look at you,” I whispered. “It’s that I don’t want you to look at me.”
He sighed, a deep, rattling lungful that softened the line of his body, and then one of his arms hooked my knees and the other curved under my arms. He scooped me up and deposited me with the utmost gentleness onto his lap.
“I don’t want you to stay with me because you feel pity, August,” I said, nestling my head in the crook of his neck.
He snorted, sliding his hand through the back of the gown and running his fingers delicately over my spine. I felt something stiff press against my thigh.
“Because that’s the reason I’m staying with you,” he said softly.
“How can you still desire me? My face is-it’s . . .” Tears crept down my scars and pooled in the corner of my mouth.
“It’s the face I want to wake up to every morning and fall asleep watching every night.” August’s hand settled on the small of my back. “Besides, I’ll remind you that I’m scarred too.”
“Not your face.”
“No, not my face.” He tucked me a little closer still, locking both his arms around my juddering ribs. “Your scars are a piece of you now, and I love all the pieces of you, Ness Clark.”
A loud sob scraped up my throat as I burrowed deeper into this man who’d always tried to keep me safe, and who, when he’d failed because I’d pushed him away, had risked his life so I could get mine back.
“You’re the love of my entire life, August Watt,” I whispered against his neck that smelled of wood and spice . . . that smelled of home.
Epilogue
The sunset dripped through the evergreen needles, showering the forest with a crimson glow that turned the rough trunks tawnier. I was still in Colorado, but miles away from Boulder.
When Sarah had caught me crying into my pillow after I’d failed, for the fourth morning in a row, to make myself a cup of coffee-I’d poured the scorching liquid all over the countertop and down my legs instead of inside my mug-she’d booted my butt out of bed and took me on a road trip to a cabin that belonged to her father, but which he apparently rarely used.
We’d told next no one we’d left-just Liam, Jeb, and Evelyn. Evelyn because her heart would’ve given out if she thought I’d run away, Jeb so he knew I was safe, and Liam because he could track us, and I didn’t want him to give my location away to August.
Sarah believed I’d taken her up on the trip to regain my footing in this new world, but that wasn’t the reason I’d gone with her.
I’d gone because I was ashamed.
The morning I spilled the coffee on myself, August had cleaned up my mess. He’d cleaned up most of my messes since I’d been home. And although he never once complained, it wasn’t fair to him. Which had been the second reason that propelled me out of Boulder . . . out of his life.
He had everything going for him. He didn’t need to be saddled with a girl who couldn’t manage to fill a glass, who knocked into furniture, who tripped because she constantly miscalculated the distance between her feet and the raised threshold of a doorway. Perhaps, one day, my brain would catch up with my two-dimensional vision, but until that day came, I didn’t want to be anyone’s ball-and-chain.
As I rocked in the hammock hooked between two great spruce trees, I twirled an aspen daisy between my fingers, marveling at the petals’ lilac shade. I’d picked it with Sarah before she’d headed into town for some fresh produce.
Even though I could never hate you, if you break my heart again-
When I break yours, it breaks mine.
We’d been gone three days, and I’d spent all of them thinking about August, reliving tender moments we’d shared, but then I’d close my eyes to force the memories away, because the pain of being without him made my broken heart hurt more than my broken face.
A car engine rumbled up the long, dusty drive. I imagined Sarah was back. I got down from the hammock to help her with the groceries, but froze when I saw it wasn’t a red Mini that had pulled up but a gleaming navy pickup.