Page 48 of Willow Vale

“What are you doing out here alone?”

River frowned and looked around. “Amelia was doing garden work. She said I could play here.”

The cute way he said “garden work”—turning his r’s into w’s—made me smile.

“Want me to keep you company?” Knowing my mother, she was bound to be out here for a while. If I didn’t see her back here, that only meant she was in the front working away on anything she deemed in need of some loving. It had been almost a month since Delilah started dropping River off with my parents and it was clear as day that River was comfortable being here.

River nodded and scooted to one side to make room for me on the chair. I ruffled his hair, accepting his invitation. “What are you doing there?”

“Coloring, want to see?”

I nodded and before I knew it, he was crawling onto my lap and swinging his little legs. I blinked, surprised that he felt comfortable enough to do something like this.

There wasn’t a kind bone in Irene North’s body, so I knew that the reason he was such a loving kid had everything to do with his sister.

I could count on one hand the amount of people in my life who knew how to get under my skin. And the one who took the number one spot was Delilah. In more ways than one, she had single handedly managed to rile me up, throw me off, andfrustrate me to no end. She was also kind, patient, and selfless to a fault. It made me think about how lonely she must have felt, putting everyone else before herself. Sacrificing so much to do the right thing.

Thinking about her led me back to the other night when I’d almost kissed her...again. I wanted to kiss her so bad I couldn’t think about anything else when we were in the stockroom. I nearly lost all sense of self-control with her when she mentioned Amanda, of all people.

If she’d sounded the tiniest bit disinterested, like any friend would, then I would have ignored her words and moved on. But she wasn’t my friend. I was a fool for pretending we were in the first place. She’s never been just a friend no matter how many times we say it.

The jealousy brimming in her chocolate brown eyes relit the fire I’d been trying to extinguish when it came to what I felt for her. If she didn’t care—if she wasn’t interested in me—then she wouldn’t have been so adamant to pretend she didn’t want to know if I was seeing anyone. But she did.

I knew it. I felt it with every stuttering beat of her heart that nearly matched mine.

If only she knew how jealous I’d been imagining she’d been with another man. One second, I was jealous like a madman over a woman I was obsessed with, and the next I was seething at her words for encouraging me to go off and see other women. As if it wasn’t eating away at her.

It ate away at me, seeing the hurt flash in her eyes when I admitted I had been with other women. If I could take it back I would, if only to avoid hurting her. But life always seemed to throw us off any course we’d chosen to take together years ago.

If I needed proof that Delilah still felt something for me, she showed me just by that one look alone.

I would have kissed her then and there if she hadn’t told me she couldn’t do this.

Pleaded with me.

Seeing the conflict on her beautiful face put a stop to the fire burning me from the inside out. I wanted her more than anything, but I also wanted her to feel ready to tackle what this was between us. The more she ran, the more I thought I was losing her.

Then again, I wasn’t one to give up that easily.

River flipped the pages of the sketchbook he had, showing me all his drawings, and telling me stories about what each meant. Painting a world before me. It was only when he flipped over to the last page, the most recent one I’d seen him drawing, that I stopped him.

“What do you have there, buddy?” It looked like he drew two people standing outside on a rainy day. One of them was smaller than the other in height. Holding hands. What caught my attention was that they both looked sad.

River shrugged. “Just a drawing.”

“Can I ask what it’s about?”

He hesitated before pointing to the little kid in the drawing. “That’s me.” He dragged his finger toward the taller stick figure with long brown hair. “That’s Lila.”

“Why do you guys look so sad?”

“Because…when Lila is sad, I’m sad. And she’s sad today.”

I started rocking us back and forth, wanting him to have a sense of safety to talk about this with me. His head hung low when he spoke about Delilah, as if his mood really was dependent on how she was feeling. Because he loved her that much.

“Why do you think she’s sad?”

“Because when our mom calls, she cries a lot. She doesn’tthink I hear her because I’m supposed to be sleeping, but I’m not actually sleeping.” He whispered that last part to me by cupping his hands over his mouth.

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