Page 163 of Hold Me Until Morning

Nerves thundered my pulse.

This was so different.

So new.

And it felt so good and right and I was terrified that I was setting us both up for destruction.

Because I was sure this kind of breaking would be the unbearable kind.

Because my heart ached just looking at the two of them.

But I didn’t want to let reservations get in the way.

I didn’t want to hide or shutter.

I wanted to open myself to this—whatever it meant or wherever it was going to lead.

Was it selfish though?

Bringing him into this?

We’d already seen exactly what happened when I did, the fading bruises on his face proof of that. But he’d sworn that he wanted to be here for us, and I had to trust in that. Believe in him when for so long I’d stopped believing in anyone.

Cody came around the back of the truck with Maddie hooked to his side. Her little arms were wrapped around his neck.

“Hurry it up, slow poke! I got friends to meet.”

Cody widened his eyes. “That’s right, hurry it up, slow poke.”

“Someone’s awful anxious.”

“Me!” Maddie threw her arms high, and affection was rushing wide, radiating from both Cody and me.

Reaching out, he took my hand and brushed my knuckles across his lips.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he mumbled there.

Affection bound my chest in a fist.

“Me, too,” I whispered back.

It was foolish, but I was.

I wanted to be here.

With him.

He led us behind the few cars that were parked in a row toward the gathering of people on a sprawling lawn that extended out from in front of the mansion.

He didn’t let me go as we walked below the rays of the sun, though Maddie wiggled to get down.

The second her feet hit the ground, the child beelined in the direction of a group of kids who were playing beneath a giant tree on the far side of the lawn, wild curls billowing behind her as she went.

Her voice carried as she sang, “Hi! I’m Maddie. Are you my brand-new friends?”

Cody chuckled as we ambled along. “There isn’t a shy bone in her body, is there?”

“Not even one,” I told him.

---