Page 64 of Beyond the Blue Horizon

“Can I think about it?” I asked, not sure how I was even agreeing to that.

“Well, of course.”

“Mommy,wookit. Kids!” Finn once again had his face smooshed to the glass as he giggled at the children who were romping out in the field.

Loneliness pulsed, that longing pushing in from the periphery where I normally never allowed it to invade.

“I see them, sweet boy.” It was a haggard breath, and moisture filled my eyes as I pulled my gaze from him.

It landed on Nelly whose expression had turned to encouragement. “I know you’re afraid, but it’s been years. Your son needs a home. And so do you.”

Sadness billowed. “Isn’t it going to hurt worse if I have to pack up and leave?”

Understanding filled her grayed, hazy gaze. “Maybe. But living is always worth the pain that comes with it. You just have to hang onto the belief that the joys are so much greater.”

The tattoo on the inside of my forearm burned beneath my sleeve.

In sorrow we must stand.

There had been nostandingwhen the only thing I’d ever done was run.

My throat nearly closed off, and I stared at her as a tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m not sure how to do that.”

Hope filled her features, a mix of love and devotion and the fear that we’d shared for all these years. “You take a deep breath, and you step into it.”

A riot of doubt blazed through me.

Worry and dread.

The nightmares of what we’d faced and the nothingness that we’d been running toward.

When would it end?

Nelly was right. Someday it would have to. One way or another.

Nelly suddenly stepped back and let a wry grin slide to her face. “And maybe you should do a little living with that smokin’ hot man who I’m pretty sure would give a new meaning to lovin’ you up right.”

I choked over her suggestion. “Nelly.”

“What? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Every time that man gets within a hundred yards of you, that poor, neglected body of yours just about combusts.”

“It does not, and that is absolutely not going to happen, so don’t get any ideas.”

She knew what happened the last time I got complacent. When I took the chance because I so desperately wanted to live.

Take this time, Piper. Take this time and live it like it’s the only thing you’ve got.

There was no way I could let go like that. I couldn’t open myself in a way that would only leave me trampled in the end.

My mangled heart crushed more than it’d ever been.

Because I had a feeling giving myself to Theo Mallin would be the absolute death of me.

“Mommy! We go now?”

I turned toward Finn’s tinkling voice, my spirit ripping and tearing as I looked at my precious son.

My heart expanded and compressed. The weight of my love for him so great I thought it might obliterate me from the inside.