Page 160 of At the Edge of Surrender

But I couldn’t help but believe there was a reason for this.

That she was here, right where she was supposed to be.

“How do you feel?” I finally asked.

Her tongue stroked out to wet her dry lips. “Like I’m both drifting away and weigh a thousand pounds.”

I brushed my fingertips along her jaw as I whispered, “I’ll hold all of it.”

A frown pinched her brow. “I don’t understand what’s happening between us.”

“Something magical.” The words rough. “No other explanation for the way you make me feel. Something that’s always been impossible until I met you.”

Pain lanced through her expression, though her fingertips were soft as she ran them over my lips. “That’s what this is. Impossible.”

“It’s not, though, is it? To me, it’s irrefutable.”

Her eyes dipped before she admitted, “I’m scared of it.”

“The things that are most important to us always are, Emery. Terrifying because they mean the most.”

“You don’t think it’s wrong? Us doing this?”

The pad of my thumb stroked over the indentation between her eyes.

Soothing it.

Hoping I could soothe her.

“How could it be when you make me feel like this?”

“What do you feel?” Emery’s question was earnest. Her spirit so close to being laid bare. The way she had me.

Exposed.

While the secrets I carried felt like a barricade in the middle of us.

“I feel like my heart has been frozen in time. In the grief and torment and the mistakes of my past. And there was no one in the world that could bring it back to life than you. You and Maci who make me feel like I’m truly alive for the first time since I lost my mother.”

When all hope died.

Through it, I’d somehow found it in my patchwork family.

But this was different.

“I just…don’t want to do wrong by my sister. I…I miss her so much.”

Emery was suddenly hugging me fiercely again, sorrow pouring out with the admission.

My chest squeezed tight. In affection. In empathy.

I carefully peeled her from me and set her on the edge of my bed, then I rose and moved to where I’d left our clothes a pile on the floor.

I pulled on my underwear, then I grabbed the slip of lace that was bound in her shorts and shifted around to walk back to her.

Nearly tripped at the sight.

Emery sitting on my bed.

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