Page 18 of The Whisper Place (To Catch a Storm #3)

And that was the most surprising part of this relationship.

I’d never been crazy about sex. It had always seemed awkward and messy.

I hated how vulnerable it made me feel, exposing myself to someone who might do something unexpected, who could hold me down or hurt me if their mood changed.

But Charlie was different. Charlie was careful and eager to please.

He acted like I was a gift, like my body was something to unlock and worship every time.

If I told him to stop, he did immediately.

If I told him to go harder, he leapt to perform.

I never thought I could feel comfortable with someone as big as he was and it was honestly strange how my claustrophobia didn’t kick in when his hands squeezed my hips, when he closed the space between us. I was safe with Charlie inside me.

He sat up and pulled me against him, our bodies locked, arms winding around each other and holding tight.

“I’m not getting my cardio in like this,” I murmured, rocking my hips to make us both groan.

Charlie kissed me, pulled back to look me in the eye, then stopped my heart when he said, “I love you, Darcy.”

My shoes hit the pavement in a steady rhythm as each syllable of Charlie’s declaration seeped through me.

Even out here, with the brilliant blue bowl of sky for company, with oxygen pounding in and out of my lungs, it was impossible not to hear the echo of the last time I’d heard that.

My mother’s words, wet and fierce, as she hugged me.

“I’ll love you forever, sweetheart.” The press of her cheek to my jaw.

The way she’d looked at me as if memorizing every detail of my face.

She said forever , knowing it was the moment our forevers would part ways and never find each other again.

I hadn’t believed it. My brain was in survival mode.

I couldn’t process anything beyond the next moment, let alone the rest of our lives.

Did I say it back? Did I tell her how much I loved her?

I couldn’t remember. So much of those last few days were a blur, punctuated by sharp flashes painful in their clarity.

But every day I spent as Darcy, each tick of the clock that expanded our separate forevers, I thought of more things I hadn’t said.

How I saw every good thing my mother had done for me, how strong she’d been, how brave.

I didn’t blame her for what happened. Had I told her that?

I’d talked to her every day of my life until two months ago, and I don’t know if I said the things that mattered.

I loved my life in Iowa City. I adored Blake and Charlie.

But I couldn’t ignore the part of my mom I carried inside me.

When Charlie said what he did this morning it felt like waking up, like I was an amnesia patient with sudden, awful memories.

Because I knew what love meant. I knew what it could make you do.

The road rose and fell like the swell and fade of music set to the sunrise. Birds called to each other and a distant irrigator rained water on a far field. Sweat dripped off my forehead and down my chest as I reached the bottom of a hill and the place where Charlie and I had met Silas Hepworth.

I stopped at the end of his driveway, wiping my forehead with my shirt, my heart pounding. The house at the top of the hill was dark. Without pausing to think, I walked up to it.

Silas answered the door on the third knock. He had bed hair and pillow creases down his face.

“What?” he demanded, pulling himself taller as soon as he saw me.

I smiled, showing my teeth. “Do you remember me?”

He made a noise that I took as a yes.

“I don’t think we were properly introduced before.” I took a step forward without offering my hand. “I’m with Charlie Ashlock. He’s sweet and caring and generous, and he doesn’t have any idea how to handle someone like you.”

“What’s that supposed to—”

I stepped in again, close enough that I could look down at the bristling old man. I could smell his outrage.

“You’re the kind of person who destroys people like Charlie.

And you enjoy doing it. You think it gives you some kind of power, that it makes you important.

But the thing is, deep down, you know,” I tilted my head, scanning the quivering folds of his face that were flooding bright red, “even while you’re doing it, you know you’re not special.

You know you don’t matter, to anyone or anything.

If you fell over dead, your bloating corpse would stink up this house for weeks before anyone cared enough to even check on you.

Charlie would probably be the one to call 911.

He’d come to your funeral, even after you blackmailed him, and feel bad for you while standing over your sad-ass grave. ”

Silas edged further back into his house, his face almost purple now.

I braced for him to start yelling, but he turned and reached for something behind the door.

Before I fully registered what it was, I lunged inside the house, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, twisted it to the side, and used it to shove the old man to the floor.

He went down with a crash, bouncing off some furniture before landing on the floor.

Adrenaline flooded my body as the walls tried to close in around me.

The room, already dark, went almost black in front of my eyes, but I didn’t run.

I stood in the doorway, letting the sunshine heat my back and the breeze cool the sweat on my skin.

I held the shotgun like a talisman against the dark place where moans and vicious cursing garbled together.

“Tell Charlie you’re done. You’re not going to extort any more money from him. If you don’t, I’ll be back. And believe me when I say no one will miss a piece of shit like you.”

I walked out into the morning air, feeling every pulse of blood beating against my veins.

The sun was higher now, illuminating the giant rolling fields, green with new life.

I could run for miles. I could bake a hundred loaves of bread.

Tossing the shotgun in the ditch at the end of Silas’s driveway, I turned to the west and started jogging home to the rhythm of the words in my head.

I love you, Darcy. Love you, Darcy. Love. You. Darcy.

It was going to be a gorgeous day.