Page 83 of Born in the Spring

Where I would wish for Elara. That the next time the snow falls, she would be right here with me.

Then when the next time came, and I was still alone, I would wish again.

And now, it’s another next time, and she’s right here.

So while seeing those flakes from this spot will always feellike a dream, so many dreams, it’s way more than that now, and it’ll never be as miraculous as her.

But she’s watching them whirl to the ground with a softohfrom her lips while I’m holding her hand and playing with her fingers, as she’s feeling that wonder like I have, and like she has withme, so I’m imagining thatohis as much from my touch as it is the snow’s added touch.

Until I remind myself I don’t have to imagine anymore.

I caress my thumb along her knuckles, my eyes tracing over every freckle, like I’ve never seen a more beautiful hand in my life—which I haven’t. Unless you count her other hand.

A laugh blows through my nose, and Elara stills my enraptured fingers by lacing hers through mine.

“What thought did you just have?”

I smile at the amusement already in her voice as I pull her even more into me, releasing a low, euphoric laugh into her hair. “I’m just so fucking happy.”

She shifts to glance up at me, a curve in her mouth. “Youareglowing.”

“And you’re blushing,” I say back, spying her pinkened cheeks right before she turns them back toward the window. “You’ve been blushing all night,” I tease with another nudge of my face into her hair.

“It’s the snow,” she teases back, but as I hold her, my answered prayer, I watch it too. “It’s so beautiful like this,” she murmurs through her returning wonder.

I fill my lungs as a kind of cushion for my heart as my thoughts go to my brother. His lodge has the same window in the same place in his room with a similar view. But his curtains almost always stayed closed.

Shepherd loved being in the public eye. He loved to showoff what and who he had, but behind his closed doors, he liked the privacy. He and Elara had that in common.

And while I wasn’ttryingto lay us bare while we were literally laid bare, Elara didn’t tell me to close the curtains. Not only is she here with me, but she’s here with me in private, in a public way, and wanting to be.

That’s what I hold on to now as I hold on to her.

“Those flakes were my shooting stars.”

“Were?” she asks, a smile in the word as she angles her head toward my chest, her breath warm on my skin. “So you got what you wished for?”

I kiss my smile into the back of her hand. “You know I did.”

I don’t bring up how I also wished for a different life. For more time with my brother—when he was alive, and now when he’s not. More time with Dad—when he was in my life. Those are all things Elara knows, and thinking about my brother while she and I are in my bed, with our clothes off, is one thing, but talking about him is another.

But then, like reading my concerns, she does it herself, letting me know we can, because I give her the short version and she hears the long version.

“He wouldn’t have hated you forever,” she tells me, unlacing our fingers to lift hers to my chest, stroking one over his personal pain in my heart. “Me, though,” she sighs out, and I say her name with a jolted laugh of disbelief.

“Loving you is completely consuming,” I tell her now, then add low, “He was just hurting.”

I don’t feel that personal pain from Elara and Shepherd’s relationship anymore, but I still know that deep ache of losing her.

And just like I could never hate her, my brother couldn’t,either.

She relaxes more against me. “I’m happy too.” She taps the back of her knuckle to my chest, now over the swell of my love for her pumping through each beat. “In case you needed me to say it.”

I shake my head against hers, feeling nothing but absolutes for her love for me, and knowing I’m going to make her happier than any man ever has. And I don’t let myself feel guilty for that.

“I didn’t.”

Elara chuckles, her touch to my chest now a playful backhanding, and I wrap my fingers back around hers. “What’s tomorrow going to be like?” There’s a seeking in her question, for an assurance against everything else we can’t control, everything else that’s still unsure.

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