Page 87 of She's Like the Wind

We ate until we couldn’t breathe.

When the bride’s grandmother got up and sang a Cajun waltz in a voice like cracked porcelain, Naomi leaned into me and whispered, “This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” I teased.

“Please let this not be a dick joke,” she groaned.

I laughed, kissing her softly on her cheek. “I booked us into a boutique hotel that I renovated many moons ago. You’ll like it.”

“I will?”

I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively. “All the rooms have clawfoot bathtubs.”

CHAPTER 30

Naomi

We checked into the old plantation-turned-boutique hotel, just outside of Lafayette.

According to Gage, it had a complicated historyandclawfoot tubs.

White columns stretched up like they were holding the sky together, and the floorboards creaked with every step like they had stories they weren’t quite done telling.

Our room had a four-poster bed, gorgeous antiques, and a handmade quilt.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my dress riding up my thighs, feet aching, hair already falling out of the updo I’d attempted.

I kicked off my heels and sighed. “I can’t believe your cousin got married in cowboy boots to a man who wore a Saints jersey under his suit.”

Gage laughed.

He’d been doing it a lot, and I loved hearing it and him. The man I was meeting now was open like he’d never been before. Seeing him with his family was revealing, telling me he was someone who could connect with his whole heart when not afraid.

“I can’t believe Lisette’s mama didn’t throw a shoe at him,” he chuckled.

He looked good in his rolled-up sleeves and post-wedding glow.

“Today was…” I paused, not trusting the lump in my throat. “It was good. Better than good. You, with your family—I saw pieces of you I didn’t even know existed.”

He stepped closer.

He brushed my hair back with one of those gentle touches he didn’t use often, but always landed like a prayer.

“It’s always been there.” His eyes gentled as he looked at me. “I just didn’t know how to give it to you.”

He was giving it to me now. So, I stood up and kissed him.

Not tentative.

Not testing.

Not amaybe.

A kiss that said, “I’ve wanted this. I’ve missed this. I’m still scared, but I’m not walking away.”

We undressed each other slowly, like the layersweren’t just fabric but everything we had to show one another.

I pulled him down with me, into the cotton-soft bed, dissipating the weight of everything we’d carried between us.