Page 92 of Quietly Falling
“We want to make our community better, make sure everyone is getting the help they need, and then expand our reach,” Archer murmurs but I hear him loud and clear.
“What do you think?” Montana asks, but I’m already nodding because I’d stumbled into Blackstone Falls with little more than hope and a prayer.
A prayer that had been answered over and over again.
Because we’d come for a job and found a home.
And love.
And family.
And for the first time in my life, I’m exactly where I belong.
44
BODHI
4 MONTHS LATER
The cemetery is quiet when I pull up, the trees swaying gently and my heart beating uncontrollably in my chest. Guilt floods my veins as I try to remember the last time I was here—the last time I’d come to see her.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Ella asks from the passenger seat, beautiful and sweet and somehow…mine.
“Please.”
“Always.”
Nodding once, I swallow down the lump of emotion in my throat and push out of the car, taking a minute to enjoy the sun on my face. I don’t jump when Ella places her hand over my heart, her energy something tangible, something that whispers to my soul.
It’s a peace I’ve never known.
Never allowed myself to feel.
“Let’s go see her.” Her words are a whisper, her hand slipping into mine as I open my eyelids and meet her gaze.
“Okay.”
She doesn’t push me as we take the path I know by heart, the one I’ve traveled both here and in my dreams. And I know the others too, the ones that line this walk, the gravestones I’d cleaned and loved when no one else had.
It feels like so long ago.
My steps slow as I near her plot, the one that had been a simple marker in the ground— the one I’d scraped and saved to replace so that there’d never be any doubt that she was loved.
Is loved.
And forever will be.
The flowers in my hand shake, the magnitude of this moment so much more than I ever could have prepared for.
We did it, Audrey. We finally did it and he’ll never hurt anyone ever again.
Ella squeezes my hand and smiles. “Hi, Audrey, it’s so nice to meet you.” I choke on the sob that tries to claw its way from my chest. “I just want you to know that I love him and I promise to protect him the way he tells me you did. I’ll protect him for both of us.”
Taking the flowers from my hands, she pulls the old ones from the vase and tenderly replaces them with the pink carnations.
Audrey’s favorite.
When she’s done, she stands with the dead flowers and presses a soft kiss to my lips. “I’m going to go take care of these; take your time.”
