Page 84 of River
The sense of comfort I felt in his arms was like sinking into a warm bathtub with scented candles and relaxing music all at once.
“I want to kill whoever hurt you.”
“He’s already dead.”
“You think it was the cult leader?”
I nodded. “Who else?”
Noah kissed the top of my hair and pulled back to look at me. “If I give you a second chance, you have to swear never to run like that again. We have to be able to talk about things. Even when it hurts.”
I nodded and felt butterflies in my stomach.
“And River…”
“Yes.”
“I’m never accepting a no-contact order from you again. That was a shitty thing for you to do. I had questions, and I needed closure.”
“I know that I ignored your calls the first few weeks, but if you’d given me time and contacted me again later, I think I would have picked up the phone.”
“You specifically told me to leave you alone.”
“Yes, but isn’t that something people say when they need space to heal?”
Noah muttered under his breath but kept hugging me.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Taking my hands, Noah turned and gestured for me to come with him. “Come and meet the puppies. It’s warm in the stable, and I named one after you.”
“You named one of the puppies River?”
“No, I named it Skipper.”
“That’s not my name.”
“Skipper is the name of a butterfly that lives around here. There’s the Dingy Skipper, the Small Skipper, and the Essex Skipper.”
We walked hand in hand as I summed it up. “You named a puppy Skipper because it’s the name of a butterfly, and you used to call me butterfly.”
“Yup.”
“Why not just call it butterfly then?”
“Because that’s not a good dog name, is it? Skipper, however, is perfect, and the puppy agrees.”
I laughed. “You can talk to puppies now?”
“Sort of, but just to be sure, I had Fleur ask for me.”
Noah held the door open, and as I walked past him, he whispered, “Wait.”
I turned my face to him and saw raw emotion in his eyes just before he kissed me.
