Page 41 of My Heart to Find

Cara hugs her arms around her body, looking at the chewing-gum-stained tarmac beneath our feet. “I’ve got to get home now,” she says. “Sorry.”

She doesn’t wait for me to say anything, just scurries off.

I stare after her as she leaves, her figure getting smaller and smaller until she disappears around the corner. I try to pretend like my heart’s not breaking as she walks away. She couldn’t make it clearer that she’s not interested in me if she tried.

So, why was she smiling and laughing with me earlier, after we finished at the post office? Why did she make it seem like we really would be making our podcast?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cara

“IT’S LIKE WE’RE THEonly people in the world right now,” I say, drinking in the tranquility of the forest. And it’s quiet—save for the whispering of the leaves and the slight whirring sound of some insects. But that’s all I can hear, that and my own beating heart, because the sounds of the others out searching for the treasure have disappeared. It’s just me and Damien, right now. Because this is a special place, a place just for us, this little haven of soft amber light from the setting sun, between the trees.

Right now, nothing else exists.

Damien smiles as he nods. We’re standing close, so close, and I want to reach for his hand. Want to lace my fingers through his. I just want to be close, and I can’t describe the enormity of the feeling, the way it drinks me up completely, because I’ve never felt like this before. Never felt so...connected.

And then he’s moving toward me, eradicating the space between us. His arms wrap around me, and I lean into him. My ear goes against his chest, and I listen to the reassuring thump-thump-thump of his heart. It’s grounding, so grounding. I’ve never felt safer.

“I like you, Cara,” he says, and his words are so low I nearly miss him speaking. Because everything inside me is screaming with excitement and disbelief—that this is Damien Noelle, and I’m in his arms, and he’s chosen me to be out here with, me to be with...

Because this is what it is, right?

I look up at him, my heart pounding. Is this it? Is this where he kisses me? My first ever kiss...

Damien smiles, and his eyes are doing that jumpy thing that my own do when I’m nervous—when I can’t decide what to look at so I just keep looking at different things, one after another, never able to settle. But Damien can’t be nervous, can he? He’s a guy—he’s supposed to lead in situations like this. Then I realize how stupid that sounds. Of course guys can be nervous.

I am, so why wouldn’t Damien be?

I swallow hard, my fingers feeling all strange. I glance at his eyes, at the exact same moment he looks at me. Chills run through me at the direct eye contact. It’s intense, like I’m staring into his soul, like he can see every hidden part of me. Like there are no secrets between us.

“Anyone still out here?” Mrs. Mitchell’s voice travels through the fog.

Damien and I spring apart.

“We’d better get back,” he says, and I nod, give him a smile.

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