Page 100 of Love Bound

My legs are boneless. I want him so badly—so badly, it must show on my face.

"You have to swim for it, pinhead," he says, just as my feet touch the bottom again. He pulls me to him and gives me one, long, sweet salty kiss, breaks away with a grin and says, "You want it? You gotta catch me." Then he pushes off with long firm strokes parallel to the shore.

A challenge. That's it. He knows me so well.

I zip the suit up to my chin and duck my head. Then, I start paddling. Right stroke, breathe. Left stroke, right stroke, breathe. Left stroke. And then I'm skimming across the top of the water and I can hear him slicing waves with me.

"There you go. Babe, I love you. Look what you're doing. Look what you're doing!"

We swim for half a mile and I'm exhausted. I can't believe I used to do a mile swim every morning.

I falter once, go under, cough and splutter. He catches me immediately and pulls me up. Then we cut in toward the shore.

Finn holds me around the waist as we stumble in the froth of waves crashing onshore and make our way back.

He kisses me on the temple when we hit the beach. "You did it," he says. "You did it."

He's right. I did.

Looking back, I never once thought of Steven Miller. Or the curling ribbon of dark red trailing into the water. Or the mask on my face. I didn’t think of any of those things.

All I could think about was Finn. His body. Those muscles in his chest and back and thighs and what I would do to him when I got him back to the house.

I kiss him once more, just to feel him against me, and know he is mine.

Epilogue

Claire

It's been ten months since it all happened and spring carries tendrils of warm air. The scent of lilacs in full bloom wraps around the house. I think of it now as a house. A house, with my clinic on the first floor.

For the first time in forever, it feels like home.

Cory's sitting on top of Salty, bareback, and I'm leading them in a circle in the paddock. Soon, Cory hopes he’ll be able to ride him along the cliff pasture or through the woods to the Christmas tree farm.

I smile. It’ll be a while before that happens.

That farm was harvested and replanted in early November and I had my portable imaging machine a month later.

“An early Christmas present,” Finn had said with a laugh, carrying it up the stairs to our bed.

It's already saved Tipsy, an eleven-year-old yellow tabby with a festering hairball. It also delivered terrible news to Mr. Pomfroy. Sheila, that beloved, panting, blue-ribbon Cairn Terrier of his, was impregnated by not one but two dogs. And the second father was not a purebred.

In March, we had the acre of tree stumps pulled and Finn and I worked with several local gardens, gathering up their discards from their new deliveries, buying plants, shrubs, some trees, then blueberry and raspberry bushes for parents and siblings to pick in the garden. Finn commissioned local stone cutters to make some stone benches, and there were a few picnic tables set near the trail to the beach. And then, all over the garden, there were small stones and rocks to make cairns. Places for people to go and just be in the moment. To be in the present and remember their child, their sister, their brother.

By June, the flowers had bloomed. I told Finn that in another year, the garden would truly be spectacular.

And Finn and I are together. Every day, he swims with me, except on the really windy, choppy days. Now he's got the neoprene masks and gloves so we can swim comfortably into late fall. Some days, I roll out of bed and I'm the one leading him to the water. It's almost as though I have no need for his strength and yet I do, every day. I'm always grateful he's by my side in the water, swimming, making that effort. That we are partners.

I am content, and more often than not, my mind and body have a sense of security and profound grounding I can't remember ever having, except maybe when I was a kid and all things seemed possible. It’s hard to believe, but that chronic worry—that worry about something lurking in shadows of the unknown—has disappeared. There are still balls in the air, but I don’t have to worry about them all.

It’s a new feeling—this feeling of acceptance. Of trust.

"Hey, you," Finn says, as he comes up and rests his folded arms on the top railing. "Looking smart up there, Cory."

Cory beams. He continues to surprise us. Going out with Devon to the firehouse on her first day off, to see where she works, should have set him stimming. With all the lights, reflective surfaces, and loud noises. But she said he clung to her hand quietly and then, ten minutes later, told her he had a meeting at The Inn with Finn.

That's become code for: “Get me outta here—now!”