Page 111 of Ripple Effect
“It was you my heart reached out for though.” I sink one hand into his hair and cup his cheek with the other.
His smile—my smile—breaks across his face. It comes so much easier now. He brushes his lips across each of my cheeks before kissing me softly. “I’m the luckiest man in the world because I got you to fall in love with me twice.”
“I never stopped loving you,” I counter.
“Hmm.” Cal steals another kiss. “You have to admit, it was better the second time around.”
“That’s because I taught you to woo me. You had the inside playbook,” I tease.
Cal reaches up and touches his thumb to my bottom lip. “I hope when we’re a hundred, I get to kiss the sass off your lips. I don’t think I can live without that.”
“I don’t think I can live without your smile.” I trace it with my forefinger. It comes so much easier these days, as if he’s given himself permission to be happy now that the lies and the subterfuge are gone.
Dr. Powell clears his throat. A light flush hits my cheeks. Cal grins, which temporarily scrambles my brain cells. “I’m sorry, Dr. Powell, you were asking?”
“Well, I was asking about your goals,” he begins.
Right. “Dr. Rhumed helped me identify a safe environment to recover from what happened, where I could find out who I was again. It might seem silly, but I couldn’t do that here in Charleston.”
“Why not? I would think with your family, you’d feel safe.”
“I felt smothered, well intentioned as it may have been. But it caused me to forget what I was working toward and frankly—” This is difficult to say. “—my family triggered memories by constantly asking how I was. No one meant any harm, but it still brought me back to the bar on theSea Forcewhen I needed to be safe on dry land.”
“Where did you go?”
I lean back against my husband. “All I did was wait for Cal to find me,” I say secretively.
Dr. Powell looks at Cal in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
Cal kisses the top of my head before sliding me off his lap and tucking me next to him. “I didn’t either. I even knew she was leaving. I had a text telling me where she was.”
“And it still took you two months,” I huff.
Cal smacks his hand to his face before shaking his head.
“Where was safe, Libby?” Dr. Powell asks again.
“There was only one place I remember where I knew in my heart Cal wanted me more than Alliance.”
“Akin Hill?” Dr. Powell picks up his notes and flips through, guessing.
“No, only one. And it was the place where he broke the first date with me. Fortunately, the apartment wasn’t rented since the owner had been remodeling it when students were looking for housing at the beginning of the semester.”
I’ve managed to shock Dr. Powell. “But, you reconnected at Akin Hill, got married there. That wasn’t where you felt him the strongest?”
“I needed the knowledge there was a time and a place he wanted me where he forgot about”—I air quote—“‘the other woman.’ Even if it was just for a moment. That was it.”
Dr. Powell turns his head to Cal. “How on earth did you figure it out?”
Cal growls. I smile beatifically up at him. He shakes his head. “It wasn’t easy. And since she prohibited me from using my job to track her, I had to figure it out the old-fashioned way.”
“How’s that?”
“With my heart,” my husband of the last eleven years says.
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Calhoun
