Page 37 of Hearts Adrift (A Texas Beach Town Romance #4)

River and I glance at each other after she’s roped into a game of foosball with some Fair employees. “So?” he asks with a playful smirk. “Do you believe our hearts knew they belonged together when we first kissed?”

I give our bungalow a glance out the window.

“I think it was long before they touched, the moment I ran after you that first night … right down there on that rocky shore.” I let out a chuckle, remembering it vividly—how my heart pounded in my ears, battling the rage of the crashing water, and then the moment I slipped and River was there to catch me. “It was my heart running to you.”

River’s hand is in mine before I know it, squeezing. As I gaze back into his eyes, I find the laughter in the room all around us fading to nothing—even the silly dance Brooke is doing after scoring another point in her foosball game—until the only face that exists is River’s right before me.

“I love you, Finn,” he tells me.

My breath catches.

We’ve danced around that word. A lot. Maybe he was giving me emotional space between him and Theo.

Or just allowing me as much time as I need before I’m ready to truly commit to something long-term and serious, to see if I can cope with the insane schedule River may at times have in his line of work.

That word hovered over our heads like a gull over the salty rocks, circling and circling, never once seeming to land, never touching the ground, always up in the air like an idea, like a faraway dream, untouchable.

Until this moment. When it flees his lips. Washes over my ears. Arrests my heart like it always belonged there.

Then panic sets in his eyes. “Too soon? I … just felt it. It felt right. The look in your eyes. This magical day … and night. I-I just thought—”

“I love you, too,” I cut him off. River’s eyes shimmer, stunned to hear it. “Of course I do. I have all along. Why’s it so surprising? Weren’t you the one who taught me the Acting 101 lesson? Look into my eyes.” I point at them, coming close. “Do you see the truth in them, Mr. Peters?”

River’s mouth curls into a happy smile that spills over his whole face like a wave of light. “I’m gonna make you my husband someday,” he promises me. “Then it’ll be you and me down on that beach renewing our vows. You and me, Finn, ‘til the end.”

If anyone else had said those words after knowing me for just a handful of months, I’d freak out and bolt.

Hearing them from River is like a gift.

An anchor in the storm of my life.

Locking down my boat on the shore of our own island.

Exactly what I wanted to hear .

Later, after the crowds thin and the very last burger is flipped and eaten, River and I make our goodbyes and head down the calm, quiet road back to our bungalow.

It’s never a true goodbye; River is going to get to enjoy these parties and the locals on the island for as long as he wants, again and again, until he’s just another boring, ordinary, expected face to everyone in Dreamwood Isle—which, for River, I would imagine is just as close to paradise as one can come.

It’s such a beautiful and incomparable feeling, to come home with the man you love, entering a space that belongs to the both of you.

To enjoy his caress at the door like he’s been waiting to hold me all night.

For one kiss to become a dozen, each more feverish than the last. For his fingertips to run over my skin like I’m made of glass one second, then gripping my body like a slab of meat and dragging me to the bedroom.

To lose our breaths to each other as every article of our clothing finds a new home somewhere else in the room, lost, forgotten, as we make love under a window dripping with stars, to the faraway whispers of the Gulf and its countless secrets.

I think it’s about time we lay to rest all the silly rumors haunting our bungalow and start a whole new one: that this is where two hearts, long adrift at sea, at last found a home. Now that’s a rumor I wouldn’t mind lasting forever .

The end.

Thank you for reading!