Page 30

EDEN

As it turns out, living with Murph is a dream come true. Not just waking up with him—even at six in the morning—but everything else I’ve always wanted. I love cooking with Murph, heading down to the cove with beer and Doritos, accompanying him on the odd longer trip… and above all, sharing our evenings, or our mornings, or whenever the tide is right.

I still can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have found this quiet, steady love—and that it’s one that actually pays attention to me, and still swoops in to rescue me from time to time.

“At least from now on, I’ll be able to rescue myself a little more often.”

I grin as I clink my glass Coke bottle against Murph’s. We’re sharing a picnic on a beach that feels a million miles from anywhere, in the afterglow of things we definitely shouldn’t have done on a beach. It would be a champagne picnic to celebrate passing my boating license test—we won’t talk about how many attempts it took—except that I still have to drive the boat back, too.

“Maybe even you—” I start, and then I just giggle. “Who am I kidding?”

Murph just smiles at me. “You already did,” he tells me with that slow, sweet smile of his.

Everything feels so easy now that I’m living on land. Murph’s pulled Dawn’s Embrace out of the water over the winter, and he keeps talking about repairing the hull. We’re going to make it into a floating art gallery of my very own. Then, next summer, we can take a couple of weeks to explore the coastal islands, find my artwork some new customers—and share the only kind of vacation we really want to take together, one that starts and ends on the water every evening.

I bet it’ll be an adventure like none other—especially if I’m driving.

“Are you proud of me for passing the test, though?” I prompt Murph with a teasing little grin. I know he still sometimes has to be nudged to use his words, although he’s getting better at it.

He sticks his Coke bottle into the pebble beach and hastily clears his throat. “Yeah. I always am, Eden. I just hope I love you the way you deserve.” Then he pauses. “Good?”

“Perfect,” I laugh, draping my legs over Murph’s lap as he hastily moves things out of the way. “And you do, baby. When you tell me what you’re feeling… it makes me feel so safe. I think that’s how you feel when I stop chattering and show you with my body, isn’t it?”

Murph hums and nods, looking away again to pick through the apple slices, looking for another perfect one to feed me. “I reckon so,” he even manages.

“I know it’s not easy… but it means a lot,” I tell him softly, squirming a little closer, until I’m almost sitting in his lap.

Murph chuckles, transferring the apple to his other hand so he can haul me up into his lap, the way I secretly—but not that secretly—wanted him to do. Now that it’s October, the days aren’t that warm, and it was chilly out there on open water.

Once I’m warm and snuggled into him, Murph feeds me the apple a bite at a time, while I work on avoiding his fingers. We’ve had that problem before, with strawberries and whipped cream and an overabundance of enthusiasm on my part.

“I don’t care about easy, sweetheart,” Murph says when I’m done and his fingers are still safe. “I care about you. All you have to do is ask—however you can—and it’s yours. I’m proud of how far you’ve come, my love.”

Now, that’s a good way of using his words. I shiver with delight, beaming up at him as he chuckles gently. “And I want to keep telling you what I need, instead of everything but that.”

“Mmhmm,” Murph grunts, like he’s being serious. I swear I just felt his hand—there it is again, right on my ass! I blush and swat at him, but he just grins slowly. “But sometimes you don’t have to. Sometimes… I just know what you need. Especially on a deserted beach with nobody around for miles.”

“Well,” I murmur, tilting my chin as I squirm around in his lap until I’m facing him—which puts me squarely on top of him. “I have a boating license, and way too much confidence. And, as we’ve established… you do have a great basement.” I grin down at him, lifting my chin as I try out my commanding voice. “So I think it’s high time I put your day off to good use.”

Murph pauses in surprise and then laughs up at me. “Yes, Captain Eden, sir. You’ve got the wheel,” he teases me.

I don’t take that for granted. And at the end of it all, I finally trust myself to make sure we get home safe at the end of our voyage together. Every day, in all weathers and any tide… I’m his home port, and he’s mine.

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