“Nathaniel said to call him when you’re ready,” Grady says, pulling my attention back. “It sounded like he wants to give you a raise.”
“I will.”
After a few more details, we end the call.
I sit at the small breakfast table, phone in hand, the kitchen quiet except for the tick of the wall clock and the sound of bird song through the open window. The enormity of what’s happened washes over me in waves.
Emily comes back inside, the screen door closing behind her. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Grady called.” A strange stillness settles overme. “The police cleared me for the dock incident. Completely.”
Her worry clears, and she grins, the lines around her eyes crinkling. “That’s wonderful news. What happened?”
I explain everything Grady had just told me, still not believing it.
Emily crosses to me, her hand finding my shoulder. “I never doubted you’d be cleared.”
“I did.” The admission costs me, but it’s true. “I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop since I got here.”
Her thumb traces small circles on my collarbone. “And now?”
Through the window, I can see the garden and the workshop. For the first time since arriving here, broken and kicked out of my hotel, I let myself truly see this place not as a temporary refuge, but as a possible home. A place where I might put down roots that won’t be yanked up by the next storm.
“Now I think maybe I could stay,” I say, the words unfurling like sails catching wind. “Here with you?”
Emily’s hand slides from my shoulder to the nape of my neck, fingers threading through myhair. Her touch sends warmth cascading down my spine, settling in my chest where it blooms like embers coaxed to flame. “I’d like that.”
I shift in the chair, allowing myself to see the future that might be waiting, filled with mornings waking beside her, days working on the island, evenings on this porch watching the sunset.
“So,” Emily says, playing with the short strands of hair at my nape, “a clean record, a secure job, and the town no longer thinks you’re a menace. Not bad.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “Guess I’m respectable now. Who’d have thought?”
Emily tilts her head toward me, her gray eyes warm. “I did.”
A slow heat curls in my hips as I lean in. “You know, my ribs are healed enough.”
As I slide a hand around her waist, she raises an amused eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Mm-hm,” I murmur, tugging her down to brush my lips over hers.
She cups my jaw, her palms cool on my warming skin, fingers tracing the faded yellow bruises before sliding into my hair.
The kiss deepens slowly, unhurried and more certain now that she won’t push me away. Hermouth opens beneath mine, and the coffee-and-cinnamon warmth of her floods my senses.
My hand splays across her lower back, drawing her closer until she shifts to straddle my lap. “Okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answer, my hands finding her hips, steadying her above me.
Her weight settles, warm and solid, her thighs aligning with mine. I slip my hands beneath the hem of her shirt, palms smoothing over the curve of her waist, and her muscles tighten in response.
A breeze sweeps in from the garden, carrying the scent of early August flowers, a scent I’ll forever associate with Emily, as familiar as my own heartbeat. Her hands drop to the buttons of my shirt, fingers working each one free. When her knuckles graze my collarbone, I suck in a breath, the contact electric on my skin.
She pauses. “Still hurt?”
I capture her hand, flattening her palm over my hammering heart. “Not the way you think.”
Catching on to my meaning, she leans forward until our foreheads touch, breathing the same air. Her thumb strokes back and forth across my sternum, a gentle rhythm that matches the pulse in my veins.