I just nod, my bottom lip worrying between my teeth to prevent the endless stream of tears from starting again. “I know.” My voice is so quiet, happiness and sadness overwhelm me.

She reaches down and squeezes my hands where they’re clasped in my lap. “If a baby’s meant to be, Ry, it will happen. I know it doesn’t make you feel better to hear me say it, but in the middle of the night when you’re sad, you’ll be able to hear my voice telling you. Remember, life isn’t about how you survive the storm, but rather how you dance in the rain.” She leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom,” I reach out and wrap my arms around her, her words of wisdom dancing in my head. “Thank you.”

Goodbyes are said quickly with everyone else since the car is in the loading zone. Beckett is last to say goodbye. He reaches into the car and gives me a quick hug while Colton talks to Sammy about something outside of the car. He starts to close the car door and then stops a moment and looks at me with a shake of his head. “That lifeline thing goes both ways, you know? Use it. Use him. He won’t break if you do … but you just might if you don’t.”

“Thanks, Becks. You’re a really good friend to him.”

“Asshole’s more like it!” Colton says, sliding into the seat beside me. “He’d be an even better friend if he got his hand off of my girl and let me take her the fuck home.”

“Speaking of our mild-mannered friend,” Becks says with a laugh, squeezing my hand. “I love you too, Wood!”

“Ditto, dude!” Colton laughs as he pushes the button on the dash and the engine roars to life.

“Keep him in line,” Becks says with a wink to me and a shake of his head before he shuts the door.

We pull out of the parking lot, both of us falling into a comfortable silence as we drive. I’m anxious to get home, sleep in my own bed with Colton’s reassuring warmth against me. I close my eyes and lean my head back, my mind racing over every chaotic event that’s happened in the last few weeks. I sigh into the silence and Colton switches the radio on before reaching over to hold my hand.

Sarah Bareillis’ voice floats through the air, and I can’t help but hum softly and smile at the poignancy of the lyrics. I know Colton hears the words too because he squeezes my hand, and when I open my eyes to look over at him, I’m startled by the sight in front of me.

“Colton, what…?”

“I know you’re still sore, but I wanted to bring you somewhere that made you happy.”

“You make me happy,” I say, locking eyes with him to reinforce my words before looking out at the stretch of beach beyond us.

“I’m prepared this time around.” He smiles shyly at me. “I have blankets, jackets, and some food if you’d like to go sit a while in the sun with me.”

Tears well in my eyes again and I start laughing. “Yes. I’m sorry,” I say in reference to the tears I’m wiping away. “I’m an emotional mess. Pregnancy hormones and …” My voice fades, realizing I’ve touched on the taboo topic we’ve yet to discuss. The uncomfortable silence settles between us. Colton grips the steering wheel tight and blows out a loud breath before climbing out of the car without another word.

He opens the back door, and collects some things, and then helps me out of the Rover. “Easy,” he says as I slide gingerly off of the seat.

“I’m okay.”

We link hands and walk a ways down the beach in silence. There are people here today, unlike the last time we were here months ago—our first official date. The fact that he thought to bring me to a place I find solace in makes my heart happy.

“This okay?” he asks as he lets go of my hand and lays a blanket out onto the sand. He sets a brown paper bag down and then puts his hands on my hips as I start to sit down.

“I’m not going to break,” I say softly to him even though I love the feeling of his hands on me—strength, comfort, and security—all three things given with their simple placement.

He sits down behind me, frames my legs with his, and pulls me back against his chest, leaving his arms wrapped tight around me. He lowers his mouth and chin to the curve of my neck and sighs. “I know you’re not going to break, Ry, but you came damn close. I know you’re strong and independent and used to doing things all by yourself, but please just let me take care of you right now, okay? I need … I need you to let me do this.” He ends his words with a kiss pressed to my skin but never moves his mouth, he just keeps it there so I can feel the warmth of his breath and the chafe of his stubble.

“Okay,” I murmur, a deep sigh on my lips and a twinge in my abdomen reminding me that we need to talk. I tilt my chin toward the sun and close my eyes, welcoming the warmth because I still feel the cold inside of me.

“Just say it,” he tells me, exasperation lacing his voice. “I can feel you tensing up, pretending your mind isn’t going a million miles a minute with whatever it is you want to ask me. You’re not going to relax like you need to until you say it.” He chuckles, his chest vibrating against my back, but I can sense he’s not too thrilled.

I close my eyes a moment, not wanting to ruin the peace between us but at the same time needing to address the underlying tension. “We need to talk about … the baby …” I finally manage and am proud of myself that my voice didn’t waver like it has over the past few days every time I try to bring this up. “You’re not talking to me and I don’t know what you’re thinking … what you’re feeling? And I need to know …”

“Why?” The single word snaps out, a knee jerk reaction I’m sure since I can’t see his face, but can feel his body tense up. “Why does it matter?” he finally asks again with a little more control in his voice.

Because that’s what you do when you’re in a relationship, I want to tell him but exhale softly instead. “Colton, something major happened to us … to me at least—”

“To us,” he corrects, and his comment throws me for a moment. It’s the first time he’s really acknowledged the baby we lost. Something we created together that linked us together indefinitely.

“… to us. But I don’t know how you feel. I know my world has been rocked and I’m reeling with everything. I just … You’re here and going through this with me, but at the same time I feel like you’re closing yourself off, not talking to me.” I sigh, knowing I’m rambling but not sure how to break through to him. I give it one last try. “You tell me you need me to let you take care of me. I understand that. Can you understand that I need you to talk to me? That you can’t shut me out right now? The last thing I need to be right now is worried about where we stand.”

I force myself to stop rambling because I can hear the desperation in my voice, and he still hasn’t responded, so now we’re surrounded by an awkward silence. Colton starts to pull away from me, and I immediately prepare myself for the emptiness of him distancing himself when I need him the most. Then I feel his nose nuzzle into the back of my hair and just breathe me in. I close my eyes as chills dance over my skin because I know he’s not going to push me away, but rather is taking his Colton way of taking a minute to gather his thoughts.

“Rylee…” he sighs my name in that way that makes me hold my breath because there’s so much emotion packed in it. He rests his forehead against the back of my head as his hands squeeze my arms. “I can’t talk about it. I just can’t.” And the way he says it tells me that he’s referring to the baby. “I can only deal with one thing at a fucking time, and right now I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I almost lost you.”

He rocks his forehead back and forth against my head. “I’m not used to feeling, Ry. I’m used to being numb … running the first time shit gets too real. And you, us, this …” He sighs “… it’s as fucking real as real can get. I feel like I’ve been sucker punched by what happened when I was just getting used to the new fucking normal. I’m shaken up. I don’t know which goddamn way is up, but I’m dealing with it the best way I know how right now. And that means dealing with getting the image of you looking like a lifeless Raggedy Ann doll out of my head.”

His words reach into the depths of my soul and give me back the tiny pieces of hope I lost with the miscarriage and the fears that ate at me from his silence. So he doesn’t want to—can’t—deal with the baby, at least he’s told me. And as much as I want and need to speak to him about it, reassure him that he’s what I need and everything else can be figured out later, I keep quiet and let him deal with what happened to me.

I shift between his legs so I’m sitting sideways in his lap, my legs resting over the top of one of his. I need to see his face, need to show him I’m okay. I look into his eyes brimming with confusion and reach a hand up to rest on his cheek with a soft smile on my lips. “I’m okay, Colton. You saved me.” I lean in and brush a tender kiss on his lips that I can’t seem to ever get enough of. “Thank you for saving me.”

“I think I should thank you.” He subtly shakes his head. “You’re the one who’s saving me.”

His words rob all thoughts from my head except for the words I can’t tell him. I love you. I love you more than you’ll ever know or I’ll ever be able to express. Doesn’t he realize the only way I could possibly save him was because he finally let me in? When is he going to accept that he is worth saving? Our eyes are locked onto one another’s as unspoken words are exchanged. I’m surprised by the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and the shuddered inhale of his breath.

“We’re fine, Ry. I just need a minor pit stop to work through all the crap in my head I’m not used to, okay? I’m not asking for space or time apart, just a little patience as I try to figure it all out.”

I nod my head, bottom lip between my teeth because I can’t speak—physically can’t speak—because he’s just rendered me speechless. He gets my biggest fear and wants to assuage it before my mind can over-think and over-analyze everything, as I typically do.

We sit for a bit, the silence settling around us into an easy comfort. “You hungry?” he asks after a while. I just shrug, enjoying my head nuzzled under his chin and his arms wrapped around me. “The first time we came here, you threw me for a loop.”

“Why?” My voice is sleepy and content. There is nowhere else I’d rather be right now.

I can feel his shoulders shrug against me. “I don’t know. I was expecting you to get pissed that I brought you to a beach and fed you salami and cheese and wine out of Dixie cups.” He chuckles. “Little did I know you were going to rock my fucking world.”

Warmth floods through me. Images flicker through my mind of sitting here months ago with this achingly handsome man, wondering what in the hell he saw in me. And I get it now. He saw the pieces of me that could make a whole. Accepted the jagged edges that needed to be healed, because he too had the same thing. And here we sit again, in parts and pieces, needing to be put back together. But this time we have each other to lean on, to look to for help.

“God you were cocky as hell but I just couldn’t resist you, Ace.”

“Oh, baby, I’ve still got all of the arrogance and definitely a whole lot of cock.”

I roll my eyes and giggle. “My God!” I can’t stop laughing as he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “The man has arrogance in spades.”

“Nope,” he says. “Just in aces.”

“Lame!” I say, enjoying the lighthearted banter between us and leaning back to look at his face. “Seriously? That’s all you can give me? You can’t come up with anything better than that?”

“Oh, Ry.” He smirks at me, a salacious look in his eyes, as he leans in and presses a quick kiss to my lips. “No worries about the coming or the getting it up part because you’d be hard pressed to find any man that can give a fucking better than I can.”

Before I can even respond, his lips are on mine, his hands winding around my back, and our hearts entwining in a way I never thought possible.

We’ve loved.

We’ve lost.

And now we’re just finding our footing again. Us again. And it’s never felt so good to lose myself in someone so I can find myself again.

* * *

“You sure you’re okay?”

I feel his weight on the bed as he sits down next to me, his cologne momentarily masking the antiseptic smell the cleaning crew left behind. “Mmm-hmm. I’m just tired,” I tell him as I roll on my side so I can look at him. “Thank you for this afternoon,” I say, thinking about our time on the beach. Our conversation, our food from the deli reminiscent of our first date, and of the silence between us that isn’t so lonely or pained any more. “Are you okay?” I ask the same question back to him.