Page 89 of The Only Heart that Matters
I fucking love Mia and her little boy.
There is nothing I need more than to make them happy. For a lifetime. Can I really spend the rest of my life pretending sheisn’t it for me? Am I going to watch her eventually meet someone else, fall in love, and live a life with him?
The thought makes me sick.
My world has been out of focus for far too long. Now it sharpens, turning crystal clear, as if I’m seeing it in HD.
It’s time to tell her everything. The truth about Chris. The extent of my feelings for her.
Tomorrow I’m not hiding at the bar.
Tomorrow night, I’ll be home for dinner. Bath time and bedtime. I’ll read Sawyer a story or two or three, then I’ll pour his mom a glass of wine and bare my soul.
What could go wrong?
Feeling good about my decision made by the refrigerator light, I pop my dinner in the microwave. I’ve just hit start when I hear a cry coming from down the hall.
Sawyer.
My dinner all but forgotten, I race to his room where he’s sitting up in his fire truck bed holding his stuffed dog. Tears stream down his face.
“Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?” I ask, wiping tears from his cheeks.
When he sees it’s me, he holds his arms up, his lower lip quivering. “Gus Gus.”
Seeing him upset like this is a punch to the gut, and I can’t pick him up fast enough. “I got you, bud. I got you.”
He wraps himself around me. Arms around my neck, legs around my middle, he holds on for dear life. He rests his head on my shoulder. His crying has ceased, but his body shakes with every breath as he settles himself in my arms.
“That must have been a nasty dream. I’m so sorry. I know how scary they can be. But I got you. I’m not going anywhere.” I rub soothing circles on his back. His little body, growing lax.
An unexpected pride sneaks its way into my psyche. He reached for me to comfort him, and that’s just what I did. I comforted him. And it worked.
He is one of the most important things in my world and to be there for him in this tangible way validates everything I’ve been feeling.
Turning away from his bed to walk around the room until I’m sure he’s completely back to sleep, I find the rest of my world standing in the doorway, watching us.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mia
Angus and I were naked in a pasture. Our horses tied to nearby fir trees as we made love on a red and gold Pendleton blanket. I’m in the middle of a recurring dream I’ve already had several times this week, only tonight, when I got to the part where my best friend's brother moans my name, as he rocks in and out of me, he says “Sawyer.”
“What?”
Rolling off me, he says his name again. “Sawyer.”
It’s then that I wake up because of the crying coming from the room next door.
In a rush, I step into my slippers and race to his room only to find him in the arms of the man I had just been dreaming about.
“That must have been quite a nasty dream. I’m so sorry. I know how scary they can be. But I got you. I’m not going anywhere,” Angus says against the top of his head.
My hand covers my mouth as sobs threaten to overtake me. The emotions of seeing this man from my dreams so sweetlycalming my little boy mixed with the heartache of hearing him acknowledge his own nightmares takes me by surprise.
What I wouldn’t give to soothe his pain, to rescue him, like he’s rescued Sawyer and me these last few months.
When he finds me watching them, he drifts in my direction, a slight bounce in his step to help Sawyer fall back to sleep if he isn’t already. He doesn’t stop in front of me, though. Instead, he gives me a soft smile as he passes by, walking circles around the room.
