She let out a tiny squeal when she realized what I was doing, and I pushed up on one arm so as not to squish her beneath me. My other arm was next to her head, my hand still in her hair.
"It was time for the pictures to go, Grace. Regardless of my dating status, we don't need a shrine to Olivia in the living room. There are still plenty of photos around the house and in the kids' bedrooms, and I can always pull them out of the garage when the kids want to look at them. I didn't take them down for your sake. But I'm not going to lie and say you, and my feelings for you, didn't have something to do with it."
"You'd be doing it even if I wasn't in the picture?"
"Eventually." I could tell my answer made her uncomfortable, so I simply leaned down and kissed her. I nipped at her bottom lip until she opened for me, and then swept my tongue through her mouth, trying to convey even one fraction of the way I felt about her in our kiss. It was deep, passionate, all-consuming, and made me breathless. "I don't want to talk about the pictures anymore," I said, pulling back slightly. Only enough so that I could speak.
"Okay," she whispered back. "What should we talk about?"
I kissed her bottom lip again, this time tugging gently on it only because I knew she liked it. I was rewarded with a small groan from her. I smiled, moving my lips over her cheek and down her throat. "I want to talk about how much I love you," I said against her neck, grinning when she moved her head to the side, giving me better access.
"How much?" she said, half moaning the words and half pushing them out on a breath.
"More than is reasonable," I said, smiling against her. I placed one more kiss against her neck, just behind her ear where I knew she liked it, then pulled up to look her in the eye. "I love you, Grace. More than I think I deserve to, sometimes. I don't know how I got so lucky to find you, to find this happiness again, but I'll never stop trying to make you feel my love for you."
Her hand ran up my chest, stopping right over my heart where I was sure she could feel it thumping. "I love you too. I love you. And I'm so scared," she whispered, her eyes narrowing.
"I know," I said, my voice matching hers. "But I promise you've got nothing to be afraid of. I'll spend the rest of my life loving you, if you'll let me."
"I want that."
I leaned down and kissed her again, slowly this time, letting our words seep into her, hoping they'd fill some of the cracks I knew were left behind.
"Do you remember the first night we met?" I whispered to her a while later as we lay in my bed, nothing between us except love.
"Back in Fairbanks?" she asked, drawing a circle on my chest with just her finger.
"Yeah."
"Of course." She looked up at me, gorgeous hair crazy and wild, eyes so blue that not even the ocean could compare.
"I remember telling you that every day I woke up and only hoped that day would be better than the last."
"I remember that too."
"You make every day better, Grace."
Chapter Seventeen
Grace
"Oh, God, that's good." My eyes closed and my head dropped back as I savored the first sip of coffee that morning. Devon hadn't let me sleep at my apartment in days, and I was still paranoid about the kids finding me there, so I'd been getting up at the crack of dawn and it was beginning to take its toll.
Curling up in my recliner next to the window in my living room, I let my thoughts drift back to the night before and all the revelations Devon had shared with me. With my coffee cup resting on my knee, my hands still wrapped around it for its warmth, I let my head fall to the side, against the smooth leather of the chair. My eyes closed and immediately the images of Devon from the night before flooded my mind.
His face as he told me he loved me. The way his eyes stared right into mine as he moved over me, inside of me. The sincerity in his eyes as he spoke of our future together and what he saw for us.
The sound of my phone vibrating against the wood of my end table snapped my eyes open, and I saw Shelby was trying to FaceTime me. I accepted the call and then smiled when her face appeared on my screen.
"Hey, you," I said.
"Oh, look, you're alive and answering your phone. And at your own house, believe it or not." Her tone was playful and teasing, but I still blushed, a little embarrassed to be one of those people who disappeared at the beginning of a new relationship.
"I'm sorry."
"Are you kidding? Do not even think of apologizing. You can make everything up to me by telling me, in explicit detail, everything that's been happening while you haven't been returning my calls." Shelby sat down on her own couch, pulled her fuzzy blanket she'd had since college over her legs, and got comfortable with her own cup of coffee. "Spill," she demanded.
"I don't really know what to say." I laughed, blushing even harder.
"Did you sleep with him?"
My mouth dropped open in surprise at her forward question, but then I snapped it closed when I remembered that Shelby was anything but subtle.
"That's pretty personal," I said, trying to keep the answer from being evident on my face.
"So, that's a yes." She let out a happy squeal and I could see her bouncing up and down on her couch. "Was it amazing? Mind-blowing? Did you have an out-of-body experience?"
All I could do was blink in response.
"Oh, no. Was it terrible?" she asked, concern written all over her face.
"No," I exclaimed loudly. "It wasn't terrible at all. It was … wonderful." The blush crept back over my face so I hid it in my arm, the warmth burning in my cheeks.
"Oh, Gracie, I'm so happy for you." Shelby's voice was softer and I looked up. "Now, tell me all about it."
I laughed and took another sip of my coffee, letting her squirm in her seat. "Shel, you know I don't kiss and tell."
"Okay, fine. You can skip all the sexy details, but I wanna know how everything is going. Talk to me. I have to live vicariously through you! I'm wilting away here in Fairbanks all alone. Every single man over twenty-five is either still living with his parents or a complete douche nozzle. So, tell me about Devon and how wonderful he is."
"It's hard to explain," I started, unable to find the exact words. "He's patient and caring, and a wonderful father, and God, so sexy." I think for a moment, trying to get the words straight in my mind. "Before I ran into Devon a few months ago, I thought I had my shit together, you know? I was moving on, had my dream job, was making a life for myself here. But then Devon shows up and all of sudden I've got more insecurities than I know what to do with, and I feel like a crazy person."
"What do you mean?"
"Devon's a single father and a widower."
"Right. And?"
"So, logically, he should be the insecure one in the relationship, right? He should need the time and the coddling and the reassurance. He should need things to go slow. But it's like all the roles are reversed and even though I thought I had my shit together, being with him-even though it's wonderful-is making me go a little crazy."
"How so?"
"Last night when I got to his house, he'd taken down most of the photos of his wife. And there had been quite a few. It was pretty noticeable they were missing."
"Okay … ."
"So I kind of flipped out on the inside."
"Why?" Shelby asked, laughing.
"Because I don't want him to think that I want to take her place! I don't want his kids to think I want to take her place either!"
"So you would have liked him to leave the photos up forever?"
"No, I just wish it didn't have anything to do with me."
"Maybe it doesn't."
"Listen, my situation with Jeff was very different from Devon's with his wife. I know, without a doubt, I'm done with Jeff. I want nothing to do with him, at all. And even though this makes me a terrible person, it's hard to think about the idea that Devon would choose to be with Olivia over me."
"Oh, sweetie," Shelby started, and I knew she was going to say something nice and supportive, and I didn't want to hear it.
"I feel like shit for even thinking these thoughts, but I can't help it. How do you know, when your wife dies, that it's time to move on? How can he be so serious about me so quickly, when he hasn't been with anyone since? What if he realizes he's made a mistake and he's not over her? I'm just supposed to hope for the best? I've put my heart on the line like that before and it didn't end well. Not for me, anyhow."
"Grace," Shelby whispered, trying to keep me from plummeting into the dark, emotional abyss I was currently circling. "Things with Devon have got to be complicated-dating a man with children always is-but you have to either trust him, or let him go, honey." The idea of letting him go made my stomach roll and turn over. "I can't imagine what it would be like."
"How can he be in love with his wife one day, watch her die, and then fall in love again? I mean, I know in theory it happens, but I never thought I would be in this situation. How does someone ever really get over the death of their spouse?" I was asking the universe because I knew Shelby didn't have the answer. Neither of us did. Devon probably didn't either. Which was almost what made the whole thing so damn frustrating. I would never know, for sure, where I stood in comparison. Was he with me only because she was gone? If she were still alive, would they be together? And if so, what if we'd met then? Would he have left her for me? What if he and I were together first and then he met her? There were so many unanswerable questions, so many variables that I would absolutely never get a firm consensus on because Olivia had died. I let out a hard breath, then shook my head. "Man, I am such a bitch."