Page 56 of At First Flight (Coral Bell Cove #1)

I’m rinsing off the cutting board, humming under my breath while the smell of garlic and tomato sauce lingers in the air.

The kind of scent that clings to your skin and clothes and makes the house feel like a home.

My mind drifts toward bedtime routines—bathwater, tiny pajamas, and storybooks read twice just because Evelyn insists the ending sounds better the second time.

Then I hear it. A sharp and high-pitched scream. But it’s not the kind that spikes your adrenaline, not the kind that means someone’s bleeding or hurt. It’s pure joy shouted at the top of small lungs.

Then I hear her name.

“LILA!”

I drop the dish towel. My heart doesn’t just race—it sprints. I’m halfway across the kitchen before I realize I’ve moved, drawn by instinct more than anything else. The screen door creaks as I shove it open.

And there she is.

Lila. Standing in the middle of the backyard, sunlight haloing around her, both of my kids wrapped around her legs like they might never let go again.

Oliver’s talking a mile a minute, hand flailing, face split in a grin that could light the whole damn town. Evelyn clutches Lila’s leg like a lifeline, little fingers digging into the fabric of her dress, her cheek pressed against Lila’s thigh.

My knees go weak. She came back. I didn’t expect her to.

I thought… God, I thought that was it. That she'd disappeared into the fog of my past, just another person I couldn’t hold on to. My true ghost girl. But she’s here. And everything inside me fractures under the weight of relief.

I don’t breathe until she looks up and sees me. Our eyes lock across the yard. There’s a tremble in her lips, something uncertain and fragile.

“I want to stay if that’s still okay,” she says, voice barely more than a whisper.

My chest tightens. I swallow hard past the lump in my throat and nod.

“It’s more than okay.”

It’s everything. It’s every prayer I never admitted I whispered at night. Every silent hope I buried beneath layers of guarded silence and responsibilities I didn’t think I deserved to ask for more than.

Lila’s back. And she’s looking at me like she missed me, too.

Dinner is quiet in the way only families can be.

Clinking spoons, soft giggles, and whispered conversations between two kids who haven’t quite figured out how to keep secrets from their dad.

Evelyn’s pinky is looped around Lila’s as they share a plate of garlic bread.

Oliver is showing her the new drawing he made, a fire-breathing goat who also happens to be a ninja.

She hums in appreciation like she never left, like there wasn’t a whole night where her side of the house was cold and silent.

Lila moves around the kitchen like it’s muscle memory. She doesn’t ask where things are and doesn’t fumble. She just moves. Sliding plates in front of Evelyn. Tucking Oliver’s napkin under his chin even though he’s old enough to hate it. Brushing crumbs from the table with the side of her palm.

And every time she looks up, her eyes catch mine. Neither of us says a word. Not yet.

Because how do you begin again when everything you’ve ever wanted just walked back in through the front door? You don’t want to shatter it by moving too fast or asking for more than she’s ready to give.

So I let the silence stretch, warm and full. Because the kids are glowing. Because I’m terrified that if I speak, the spell will break. Because I’ve never been this thankful to just sit and watch someone exist in my world again.

After dinner, Evelyn insists Lila read the bedtime story. There’s no negotiation. No other option. She climbs into Lila’s lap and opens the book like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Oliver grumbles but joins her, scooting in close, his little head resting on Lila’s shoulder.

And I stand in the doorway, arms crossed over my chest, breath held, watching how she wraps herself around them like she’s never been anywhere else.

When the story ends, she tucks Evelyn in, then ushers Oliver to his room. One kiss to each forehead. One whispered promise I can’t quite hear. And then the rooms go still. The kind of stillness that makes you feel everything more acutely.

I wait for her on the screened back deck.

Two glasses of wine. One tiny candle flickering on the railing. The summer air is thick with heat and the hum of cicadas. Somewhere far off, a dog barks. A boat cuts through the water. Life goes on.

And then she’s there.

She steps outside barefoot; her arms wrapped around herself like maybe she’s holding in more than just warmth.

Before I even think about the waiting wineglass or the hundred things I want to say, I move toward her. Lila stands like she’s not sure if she belongs, arms crossed tightly over her middle, chin dipped down, those big blue eyes cautiously watching me like she expects me to shatter.

I reach out, gently curling my fingers around her wrists and coaxing her arms away from her body, from that guarded stance that tells me she’s been holding herself together with sheer will.

She lets me. And the second I pull her against me, she melts.

Just folds right into my chest like she never left.

My arms wrap around her, strong but careful, like she’s something precious I’ve only just been given permission to hold again. She buries her face against me, and I feel her inhale deep, like she’s trying to memorize the smell of me, the feel of this, of us.

We stay like this—still, quiet, wrapped in something that feels more like a lifeline than a hug.

Her hands fist in the back of my shirt, and I press my lips to the top of her head, breathing her in.

This isn’t just comfort. It’s a need we’ve both been starving for.

A moment we’ve been aching to return to.

And I’ll hold her for as long as she lets me. Because she came back. Because she’s here.

“I missed you,” I say, nodding toward the wine as I reluctantly release her and grab the glass.

Her fingers brush mine as she takes it. That simple touch almost undoes me.

“I missed everything,” she says. “You. Them. This.”

I want to say a hundred things. I want to ask where she went even though I know, why she left, what changed. But instead, I study her face. The shadows under her eyes. The tight line of her shoulders. The part of her mouth that lifts just slightly like she’s holding something back.

“I love you, Lila,” I say, the words steady and sure. “I’ve been in love with you since the second week you were here. Maybe before. I just didn’t know what to call it.”

She freezes.

Her eyes shimmer in the low light. “Say it again.”

I set down my glass and reach for her, tilting her chin so she’s looking directly into me.

“I love you.”

She kisses me. And it’s not slow or cautious. It’s not careful. It’s the kind of kiss that says she’s sorry. The kind that says she missed me too much to admit. The kind that erases every moment she was gone.

Her breath shudders out of her. “I love you, too.”

She sets down her glass and then kisses me like she means it. Like she never wants to stop. Like this deck, and this moment, and this life could be enough.

Like we could be enough. We don't make it to the bed right away.

Instead, we're a tangle of limbs on the hallway wall, halfway between the kitchen and my room, where she halts with her back pressed to the drywall, her breath shaky and her eyes impossibly wide. I kiss her again, slower this time, savoring it. Her lips part for me like they remember the shape of this, and it’s something she never wanted to forget.

“I thought I lost you,” I whisper against her mouth.

“You didn’t,” she breathes. “You just… scared me. This scared me.”

I close my eyes, forehead against hers. “I know.”

The apology is unspoken, tucked between the lines of our breath, our touch. We’re both tired of explaining ourselves in words. For now, our hands do the talking.

Lila slides her fingers into the waistband of my jeans, and I grip her thighs to lift her against the wall. Her legs wrap around me like muscle memory, her back arching as she grinds against me with quiet desperation.

She clings to me like she’s trying to anchor herself, like I’m her only tether to the ground. Just like she is for me.

Inside the bedroom, the room that hasn’t felt full since she walked out, the air changes. Softer. Slower. Her breath catches as I lay her on the bed. Her hair fans across my pillow like she never left it. She’s watching me with a look that’s part hunger, part hesitation.

I pause, kneeling beside her. Letting her see that I’m here, waiting. Not pushing.

“I need you to say it, Lila.”

She nods slowly, eyes never leaving mine. “I want this.”

Relief cracks through me like thunder. I lean down and kiss her collarbone, her pulse fluttering against my lips. Every inch of her skin feels sacred now, mapped in memory and stitched together by longing.

I trail kisses down her chest, slow enough to make her sigh, soft enough to make her tremble. Her hands roam over my shoulders, nails digging in when I find the sensitive dip of her waist, her thighs opening beneath me with silent invitation.

When I finally slip inside her, it’s not just heat or pleasure or lust.

It’s home.

Her breath stutters, and I still, letting us both feel it—really feel it. How we fit. How this was never just physical.

She cups my face, her thumbs stroking over my jaw. “I’m right here.”

And then we move. Together. Every thrust is a question and an answer. Every moan, every gasp, every whispered name is a vow we haven’t dared say out loud.

She clings to me, body trembling, mouth pressed to my shoulder as I push her higher and higher. Her breath hitches, and she breaks. I follow seconds later, letting go in a way I haven’t let myself in years.

After, we stay tangled in each other, skin slick, hearts thudding in sync.

“I love you,” I murmur against her damp temple. “Even if you’d chosen to leave. Even if all I had left was a memory of you. I would’ve loved you anyway.”