Page 16 of Road Trip With the Ghost Hunter (Love Along Route 14 #10)

Lucas

There was something about Heartstone, Missouri, that sealed my fate. It only felt appropriate to lay things to rest here. Li and I arrived two nights ago. We had every intention of just passing by and leaving later that evening for Virginia, but Dawn and Kathy weren’t having any of that.

Poor Jeremy just stood against the wall, signature ball cap pulled low, hiding his grin. When Li brought those puppy eyes my way, I rolled mine, knowing we weren’t going anywhere. Somehow, our old room was available. We got to live out some fantasies we both had from that extremely hard morning.

Yeah. I made a dick joke. But I remembered waking up with her body wrapped around me. The tips of my fingers grazed her breast. Her smooth skin on her thigh as I pulled that leg closer.

We really had to learn to be quieter. The red on Li’s cheeks every time we came down for breakfast only made it worse. It was like walking in with neon signs on our heads flashing, we had fan-fucking-tastic sex last night. And this morning.

I didn’t remember ever being this sex obsessed before. It wasn’t just the mere action of having sex. It was her. Everything Li said, did, didn’t do, drove me wild. And thankfully, with the way she pounced on me last night when we got back from dinner at Kathy’s, she felt the same way.

Bjorn updated me that things were going well back home. He encouraged me to take all the time I needed. He knew what I meant to do with the ashes. I promised that when I got back, I’d be present and help him figure out the future direction of the company.

Li and I held hands in front of a pristine lake by Lover’s Stroll Park.

The sun bounced off, glinting against the ripples.

The trees swayed with the summer wind. It was the most peace I’d ever felt other than lying in Li’s arms. She held my sweatshirt with the pottery shards in the other arm, and I had Uncle Filip’s ashes in a container in mine.

“Are you thinking in the river or into the dirt?” she asked reverently.

“Maybe, both?”

Nodding, she let go of my hand and bent down, opening the folded-up sweatshirt. All the white and blue painted designs created a mosaic on the ground.

“How about you release some into the river, I’ll place some of her shards at the shoreline, then the rest, we bury by this tree?”

The tree rested at the shore of the river. It was tall and full. Heavier branches sagged with leaves shading the entire area where we stood.

“Yeah,” my voice sounded thick. “This is perfect.”

Li smiled up at me with tears in her eyes.

Together, we set pieces of the vase in the water, the running river, gently passing over them.

Then, together, we opened the container and emptied half of it into the water.

Neither of us said anything out loud. We kept our eulogies to ourselves.

We felt what the other felt. The pain, the loss, the release, the love. It was freeing.

Once we buried the rest at the base of the tree, we stood in each other’s arms, watching the river flow. Li held the now-empty sweatshirt against her stomach, her cheek on my chest. The end of one thing, the beginning of another. The circle of life.

Later that night, Dawn did up her veranda with Edison bulb string lights, candles to keep the mosquitoes away, and a small electric fire pit to roast marshmallows.

Dawn and Jeremy rocked on the two chairs, sitting side by side, holding hands.

Jeremy busted out the whiskey. Li sat on my lap in the Adirondack chair she raved about to Dawn.

Wait till she sees the two in my backyard when we get home.

Smiling, I sipped my glass of whiskey neat.

Li leaned into me, sipping hers with ice.

Her and Dawn were laughing about something Kathy did last night.

I glanced over and saw Jeremy watching me.

A soft, knowing grin appeared as he subtly tipped his whiskey glass my way.

Giving him a nod of gratitude, I did the same with my glass.

There’s nothing a large beer and a good woman can’t fix.

Well, Uncle Filip, we’re drinking whiskey, not beer, but you were right. Tipping my face up, Li looked down at me, smiling. Dawn and Jeremy added to the conversation I was only half listening to, but in that moment, it was just us, Li, and I, in our own bubble.

We hadn’t said the three words. Not officially, even though we both admitted to falling in love.

But I felt them. Looking at her now, her eyes softened.

She saw it in mine. And without saying the words, we both leaned in and pressed those words into the other’s lips.

This kiss and every kiss with Li felt like breaking through the surface and finally taking your first breath.

I was going to love this woman for the rest of our days, fight for us, and appreciate each moment while we had them.

We still had a lot of living to do. Together.