Wren unwrapped her scarf, hanging it over the coat rack and gently placing the sketchbook I’d made her on my dining room table before running her fingers over the polished wood as she looked around. We were both quiet, yet comfortable, and I stood back with my hands in my pockets and watched her take it all in.
“It’s exactly what I’d imagined it’d be,” she said softly, crossing the room to the large windows that lined the back of the living room and overlooked the river. Now that she was inside, it was exactly what I’d imagined it could be, too.
Ever since Ron had verbally smacked some sense into me, my hands had been working on her sketchbook while my mind worked on what I’d say to make her see she belonged with me. I’d barely slept, my stomach in knots over how she’d react. But it was better than I could have imagined, and though I knew there were still a million questions we needed to answer, I wasn’t worried about a single one.
Wren turned, the evening sunlight a soft glow behind her as she made her way back to me. I still hadn’t moved from the front door, and she carefully threaded her hands behind my neck, playing with the edge of my hairline as her green eyes flicked back and forth between mine.
“I’m so sorry, for everything,” she said again but I shook my head, lowering my lips to hers to silence her apology. I’d missed her—God, I’d missed kissing her—and having her in my arms again almost felt like a dream.
I pulled back, brushing the sliver of fallen hair from her face. “These past two weeks have been hell, but I needed them as much as you did, Wren. I think being away from each other made us realize that everything we felt when we were together was real. Before, when we were spending every day together, it was too much. It was too good, and neither of us felt like we deserved it. Or like it was right.”
She nodded. “There’s still so much to figure out... I still have to go back to Seattle. At least, for a little while. Maybe forever.”
“I know,” I assured her. “And we’ll figure it out.”
Wren smiled, hands sliding down from where they were hooked around my neck to rest on my forearms. Then her eyes fell to the corner behind me and she paused. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
I didn’t have to turn to know she was looking at Dani’s picture, the one that’d been by my front door since I’d moved in. And I didn’t have to answer, because she already knew.
Wren slipped from my arms and reached for the frame, running a finger along the edge as she looked into the eyes of the first person to ever show me what family was. Dani would have loved Wren, and for a moment I felt a stab of pain low in my stomach at the realization that they’d never meet.
“I went to see her,” I said after a moment, my voice a little raw.
Wren set the frame back down and turned to me. “Dani?”
I nodded. “I knew I had to let go of the guilt I held over her death. I’ve been harboring it for so long. It changed every fiber of my being, so much so that I didn’t even know who I was when you first met me. But being around you, talking to you about her, about me, about dreams and hopes again... it woke me up. You woke me up. And I realized that I couldn’t keep living with that guilt, whether you were in my life or not.”
She swallowed. “Momma Von told me about that day... about what happened.”
My heart raced a little faster, that same guilt I’d just said I’d abandoned surging again. It wasn’t gone just because I’d chosen to let it go. It still existed, and knowing Wren knew what happened to Dani and how I’d been a part of it terrified me.
But she stepped into me again, this time wrapping her arms around my waist.
“It wasn’t your fault. And I know it’s hard to see that, but it wasn’t. Just like it wasn’t my fault my marriage didn’t turn out the way I’d always planned. The guilt isn’t easy to let go of, neither is the pain, but you’re right. We have to live again—without that fear. Both of us.”
“Together.”
Wren’s eyes lit up and she pressed onto her toes to kiss me. “Together.”
I slid both hands back into her hair, grip tightening as I pulled her into me. She sighed as I deepened the kiss, and I took my time, lips pressing to hers in a steady tempo. I kissed her softly, tongue sweeping against hers, teeth nipping at her bottom lip before I started all over again. I could have kissed her just like that for hours or maybe even days, but she slid her hands just under the hem of my sweater, tugging at the belt she’d made, and I heard what she didn’t have to ask.
I bent, sweeping her up easily and keeping my mouth on hers as I cradled her slight frame against mine. I climbed the stairs with one hand wrapped around her ribs and the other arm hooked under the bend of her legs, just like I had that first night I’d met her. I felt the measurement of our time together as both a flash of light and the span of a lifetime. Maybe it was because a new life had started for me when I’d met her. She’d opened my eyes, shared her light, and pulled me from the shadows.
My heart hammered harder as I rounded the top of the stairs and carried Wren into my bedroom. I dropped her gently to her feet just at the edge of the bed, pulling back as both of us breathed harder. Wren’s eyes bounced between mine, her lips parted, and then she simply lifted her arms above her head.
I trailed my hands down her ribs, her waist, until they hooked at her hips and dragged the thin fabric of her long-sleeve shirt up and over her head. She unclasped her nude, lacy bra with her eyes still locked on mine, and I pulled my sweater off next. She smiled a little as her hands reached for my belt, and she unhooked it at the back, the expert hands who’d made it stripping it off me like that’s what she’d made it for in the first place.
It was so quiet in my cabin and I was sure Wren could hear how hard my heart pounded as we stood there, face to face, peeling off our clothes and laying our souls bare at the same time. Wren laid back on the bed when only her leggings remained and my hands dipped under the band of them, working them down over her hips as she lifted them from the bed to help me. The fabric clung to her legs and I slipped each leg off slowly, one by one, hands running the length of her creamy skin once the leggings were gone.
Wren was porcelain, fragile and smooth, spread out in my sheets like she didn’t care that I could break her. But as I pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her ankle, I realized it was because she wasn’t the only breakable one. And maybe that’s what love was, giving someone the power to shatter you and trusting that they wouldn’t.