Page 17 of The Whisper Place (To Catch a Storm #3)

It’s incredible how one life could become something entirely different. You got so used to going from day to day knowing your limits, memorizing the walls of love and fear that surrounded you. Those walls told you who you were and who you weren’t, the things you could and couldn’t do.

And they were all lying.

Someone told me a story once about a guy who got eaten by a whale.

He’d been recruited by God for some shit job, and when he refused it and tried to run away, God made a whale eat him and bring him back, to rebuild the walls around him.

But here’s the thing: that story’s not true.

The real story is that the guy had the courage to run away.

He saw the colors on the horizon and knew what his life could be; he wasn’t tied to God’s will or anyone else.

When the whale rose up and swallowed him, he didn’t panic or repent or pray. He pulled out a knife and got to work.

I left my life. I broke down the walls. I ate the goddamn whale.

When I left Kate behind, I had no idea what lay ahead.

I didn’t realize there could be a new home, a new career, even a new name.

A friend whose laugh infused me with a kind of buoyancy my body had never felt.

A boyfriend who murmured sweet words into my hair at night with his arms wrapped tight around me.

That I could smell of cinnamon and coffee and yeast as I took breaks behind the bakery to lift my face to the sun, and when I felt the light and warmth sinking into my skin I could almost imagine I was whole.

I was viciously happy despite the ache in my chest when I thought of my mother’s last hug.

No one else could see the dirt embedded beneath my fingernails, the whale flesh that wouldn’t scrub away.

I was new. Clean. Joyful. I became a person I never dreamed I could be.

I’d lived in Iowa City for two months now. Been Darcy long enough that I answered to it automatically. Charlie and I became almost immediately inseparable and Blake, although she bitched about it for a while, loved seeing the two of us together.

The first morning he stayed over, he came downstairs in pajama pants and Blake’s bunny slippers looking for free coffee. She elbowed him in the gut right as he leaned down to kiss me good morning, making him grunt into my mouth.

“Figures I’d have to do everything for you.” She shoved a cup at him. “Feed you, water you, find you a perfect woman.”

“Thanks for the slippers, too.” He nuzzled me before going back upstairs and I caught Blake smiling dopily at us when he wasn’t looking. She wiped her eyes and disappeared to the front room, yelling that she was taking a bigger cut of the edibles money this month for shoe reimbursement.

Charlie slept over a few nights a week and I started taking Tuesdays off so I could spend Monday and Tuesday out at the farm with him.

The more time I was there, the more I craved the wide-open space, the endless unbroken horizon in all directions.

There were no buildings or turnpikes or forests to cast shadows, no barriers in any direction I faced.

For as much as I loved Blake and the bakery, it was still in the city with the constant flow of people in and out all day, and as comfortable as I’d become, my heart still raced whenever I heard a sharp voice or the bang of the front door.

I still couldn’t bring myself to work the register, staying in the kitchen as far away from people as possible.

Not that I expected to know anyone here, or that anyone would know me, but I was uncomfortably aware I hadn’t run as far as I should have, stopping nowhere near the mountains or the mindless blue of the sea. I’d left Illinois, but not by much.

I still went to the library every week and checked the local papers and police blotters.

There was never a mention of a missing person report or a body being found.

The longer it took, the better. All the cop shows I watched claimed that evidence would degrade the longer it was left to the elements.

I hoped by the time they found him, there would be nothing left except a broken, ugly skeleton.

“What are you thinking about?” Charlie murmured behind me, stroking my hair away from my face.

It was Tuesday morning, and I’d have to drive back into town later today.

We stayed in bed longer on Tuesdays, bringing coffee and snacks into the bedroom, sometimes binging shows on Charlie’s phone while we snuggled under the covers, or just talking about the news or our days.

I turned to face him, this giant, hairy, sweetheart of a man whose only crime was growing a plant that helped people relax and feel better.

It was impossible to tell him what I’d been thinking, to share more about my past beyond what I’d told him and Blake over a bonfire at the farm, that I’d needed to start over.

They’d accepted that, like they accepted everything about me, and didn’t press me for more than I could give.

“I was thinking about running.”

“Running?” He spoke the word like it was the first time he’d heard it.

“It’s an exotic, fringe form of exercise.”

He made a noise and ran one of his big hands down my ribs, notching it in the dip of my waist. “You don’t need to exercise. You’re already perfect, so if this is a trick to make me start running—”

“It’s not.” I snuggled into his side, amazed every time by how perfectly I fit into the crook of his arm.

Maybe it was always like this. Maybe people were just meant to fit together this way.

I’d had no way of knowing before now. It made me think of the rom-coms Mom always insisted on seeing and the light playing over her face while we watched them.

She’d been trying to tell me something in a language I didn’t speak until now.

“I like the idea of starting the day outside. Seeing the sunrise. Watching the world wake up.” It felt like something Darcy would do, and I suddenly longed for it.

I wanted to run through the fields alone and inhale the morning, to do a sun salutation with only the birds and wind for company.

And I could. There was nothing stopping me.

“Not much of the world out here.”

“This is the best part of the world.” I hugged him closer, waiting for a reply that didn’t come.

When I propped myself back up, he was staring at the ceiling with the strangest look on his face.

His jaw was tense and eyes were hard. He looked almost angry.

I’d never seen him like this and I instinctively shrank away, retreating to a safe distance at the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Where will you run?”

“Wherever I feel like it. Why?”

He sat up and glanced out the window. “I want you to be careful. There’s someone who . . . One of the neighbors . . .”

“What?”

Then he told me about Silas Hepworth, a guy we’d bumped into once on a walk.

He was a customer of Charlie’s and had started blackmailing him.

I moved closer while he talked, my body slowly thawing as I realized none of Charlie’s anger was directed at me.

By the time he finished, I was just as angry as he was.

“Does Blake know?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want her to worry.

” Then he cupped my face in his big hands.

“I don’t want you to, either. But if you’re heading out on the roads by yourself, you need to know about him.

It’s not just the money. He said some things about you the last time I saw him. He’s kind of an all-purpose asshole. ”

“I know all about those.” It was out before I could help it. Charlie looked at me, the anger melting into something closer to concern, but before he could ask any follow-up questions, I redirected the conversation back to Silas and how much he’d taken from Charlie so far.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way to handle it. I just want you to watch out for him. You remember where he lives?”

I did. And I promised Charlie I’d steer well clear of Silas.

He seemed relieved, but there were still traces of anxiety around his eyes.

His hands bunched like they did when he got nervous or distracted.

We watched a few reels on his phone, neither of us paying much attention, until I finally crawled out of bed and started putting on clothes I could run in.

Charlie’s focus suddenly improved. He hummed in approval of the lacy green underwear and glared at the full-coverage sports bra as soon as I fastened it.

“Running’s a terrible sport.”

“Oh yeah?” I grinned into the tank top as I pulled it over my head.

“It’s bad for your knees. And your skin.”

“How?”

He pulled me back onto the bed until I was straddling him. “You could get skin cancer. Here.” He ran a finger over my collarbone. “Or here.” The finger dipped along the edge of the bra, tracing the route above my breasts and over my heart.

My head tipped back, giving him room to explore. “I’ll put on sunscreen.”

“I should help you.” His hands bracketed my ribcage before sliding further back and unclasping the bra. “So you don’t miss any spots.”

I let him find a bottle of sunscreen in the bathroom and apply it thoroughly, until my interest in running went from aspirational to nonexistent. Grabbing a condom from the nightstand, I pushed him onto his back.