Page 15 of At the Edge of Surrender

Flustered,I pushed out through the front door of the bar and stepped onto the wood-plank sidewalk that ran the trendy main street of Moonlit Ridge, California.

Cool air gusted across my overheated flesh.

My skin flushed and flaming.

My heart still erratic and the vestiges of bliss still tickling through my nerves.

Did that really just happen?

I had to wonder if I’d made it up since the second I stepped out from the sanctity of those walls, the grief rebounded, reminding me of what I’d come here to do.

Except, I could still feel the burn of his hands and the imprint of his touch.

It was as if I’d been marked in some intrinsic way.

Altered and recalibrated.

Maybe there’d been a reason for me stumbling into this dive bar looking for a reprieve, after all.

But the reprieve I had found had gone so much deeper than I ever could have imagined.

Verging on impossible.

A bare hope I’d thought would never find fruition.

Guilt threatened to cut off the beauty of it. Guilt that I’d taken even a minute for myself.

For searching for something when this couldn’t be about me.

But maybe I really had needed the affirmation that Iwasalive. That I could stand after everything.

I hurried down the sidewalk in the direction of the hotel where we were staying. With each step, the hollowed-out cavern inside me howled.

Sorrow rushed in as I was set firmly back in reality.

There were only a few people milling about the small town at this time of night, the sidewalk and streets next to barren.

We were staying on Culberry Street in an old hotel that had been renovated into posh suites that overlooked the upscale street that ran through the main part of the town. A town that had a gorgeous lake and was surrounded by mountains on each side.

A beautiful small town that I was afraid was going to steal the last bit of joy from my mangled, shredded heart.

Head down and heart hammering, I passed by a high-end jewelry store, a bakery, and a tattoo shop called River of Ink. A single light shone from within, and I couldn’t help but think of the man who I’d left behind at the bar.

Of the designs that covered his flesh.

God, I doubted there was a chance I’d ever forget him.

Hugging my arms over my chest, I made it to the intersection and pressed the button for the pedestrian light.

I shifted on my feet as I waited, and my shoulders went rigid when I felt it.

An awareness that washed over me.

A rash of chills erupting on the nape of my neck.

Not the kind the stranger had written on me—a stranger who I’d been so wrapped up in that I hadn’t even caught his name—but the kind that sent unease sinking to the pit of my stomach.

A sense that someone was watching me.

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