She flailed and swatted at me, trying to catch her breath.
“I think you’ve gone and lost your mind, that’s what I think you’re doing.”
Pressing my mouth up under her jaw, I slowed my assault. “No, Faith. I’ve gone and lost my heart.”
On an exhale, her fingers stroked into my hair. Softly. Coaxing me to look at her. “Funny . . . ’cause you found mine.”
I slowed, staring down at her, brushing my knuckles down her cheek. “Lost mine a long time ago. Been searching ever since.”
She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. Awe swept through her expression. “I’m so glad you came back to find it.”
I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. “Me, too. Me, too.”
I pulled away before I let myself get distracted. Body hard, nudging at me to go that direction. “Come on before I keep you in this bed all day.”
“Sounds like a fine idea to me.”
I gripped her hand and gave a little tug. “As much as I like the sound of that, I’m pretty sure that girl of ours is going to be pounding on your door in a minute or two.”
Yup. There I went. Making those claims.
Ours.
Surprise streaked through her eyes before the emotion shifted.
Sheer adoration took its place.
God, I wanted to be worthy of that. Of the way she was looking at me like I was good and right. Like I was everything.
Nerves spun, and I shoved them down.
I’d face all that tomorrow. Today . . . today was about us. And I was finished wasting time.
“This way,” she whispered with her little, awed voice, her tiny hand wound up in mine.
She tugged at me, quietly padding forward as she led me through the thicket of spindly trees that edged the back of the property.
As if it were a secret. As if we were stepping into a different world.
A magical one.
Lush green grew up on all sides, the narrow trail hugged by shrubs and bushes and a variety of trees as we got closer and closer to the brook that trickled over the smoothed rocks beyond.
The sound of it filled my ears. The memories fierce where they beat through my mind.
That peace was compounded by the energy blasting into my back. A steady, burning pulse.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
Every one of Faith’s footsteps behind us was like fuel that reminded me of my purpose.
“You hear that?” Bailey rushed low, looking at me from over her shoulder.
Swore to God, the child hitched my breath.
Stole the air right out of my lungs.
Dimples and chubby cheeks and chocolate eyes.
Filled with wonder.
Faith.
“What is it?” I murmured back, just as quietly as we cut deeper into the copse of limbs and trunks and thick leaves.
Sunlight speared through the dense canopy above, sending glittering rays through the crannies and cracks, as if straining to find their way to the damp ground floor.
Lighting in the heavy humidity clinging to the air.
A kaleidoscope of iridescent colors scattered across the ground to merge with the scent of mud and grass and summer that wisped and churned in the slight breeze that blew through.
“A dragon,” she whispered, faking the shudder that ran through her body. “Is a bad one.”
The lightest laughter billowed from behind.
Joy. Comfort. Light.
“A dragon?” I whispered back, catching on to the child’s game. “I hope your unicorns are around.”
“Don’t you see them? They ev’where.”
A bird rustled through the branches above. My eyes grew wide. “Is that one?”
“Yes. Did you see it? It got pink wings, Jacie. She fwies so high.” Excitement billowed through her voice.
“I saw it,” I told her. “We better hurry and help her.”
I swung Bailey into my arms, wondering if it wasn’t because I couldn’t stand the thought of not holding her any longer.
She squealed when I hugged her to me and then she quieted like she’d just realized she’d slipped out of character.
“Be super quiet.” Those brown eyes were wide with her play. Lost in her little world. “We got to sway the dragon.”
Faith’s energy flowed. Quiet as our play and as fierce as Bailey’s belief.
I would.
I would slay all of them.
Faith wandered the edge of the rose garden.
Silently.
Lost in thought.
Wearing this yellow sundress that made her shine. The girl was like a torch that burned in the pitch of night.
I’d been on a blanket in the grass with Bailey under that big shade tree that grew up at the edge of the magnificent house.
We’d played by the stream for more than an hour before Bailey had decided she was hungry. But it had to be a picnic, she’d insisted, the little girl seeming unwilling to let go of the day we’d spent out under the sun.
Faith didn’t seem to mind all that much, either.
It felt like we’d stepped into a reprieve. A time-out. A moment given to make sense of the direction we were stampeding toward.