Page 74 of You Met Me There

I nod. “I’ll get some for you in the morning,” I say.

“Thanks. I’ll come back to bed with you.” She smiles up at me.

We return to the bedroom together, and she sits in the bed, tucking the blankets around her waist.

“Sorry I woke you,” she says again, her voice sleepy. More than sleepy—exhausted.

I lie in the bed and turn toward her, lifting my arm in a silent welcome. She slides her body down to lie beside me, and I wrap my arm around her waist, tugging her close until her chest is against mine. Her breath glides across my bare skin.

“Did you have a nightmare?” I ask.

Silence stretches for a few seconds before she nods. “Yeah.”

“Was it the same as always?”

“Mm-hmm. The same.”

My hand splays across her back. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m used to it.”

“It doesn’t make me wish any less that I could take them away. The nightmares,” I clarify.

“I know,” she whispers. “Thank you for wanting to, though.”

“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to make your life a million times better if I could. I’d take away all the nightmares if only I could enter them and take your place in the darkness.”

She snuggles her face into my chest, then lifts her face to mine. “I know. You’re my knight in shining armor—you always have been.”

A hundred emotions cross the blue of her eyes in a matter of seconds, but she doesn’t say more. I press my lips to her forehead, lingering for several seconds, capturing the warmth of her against my mouth. When I pull back, her eyes are closed. A small smile tugs at her lips.

“I’ll hold you,” I say. “I’m always here for you. You just sleep, and I’ll keep the nightmares away.”

She hums, her body relaxing between my arms. I hate that she still has these nightmares—that she can’t rest peacefully like the rest of us.

I lie with her and hold her like this until she falls asleep. Her breathing slows, and her body relaxes against the mattress as she sinks into rest. Even before we got married, when we lived in separate rooms at my parents’ house, I’d sneak into her room and comfort her. There’s never been a day that I didn’t want to make her feel safe.

I begin to drift away, comforted by her as much as she is by me. For a long time, holding her was all I could do. I couldn’t promise her the future she wanted or stop the dreams from invading her sleepless nights. But I want to do so much more now.

And like I told her when I came to Maple Lake, I’m going to prove to her that I can love her better. I’ll hold her forever, yes, but I’ll also hold her hand more tightly as we move toward that future she so desperately wants.

Chapter 37

Natalie

In the morning, I drive to Juliet’s house to talk to her. Luke is still trying to work out some complications with the latest house he acquired in Florida, so he stays behind to make phone calls and answer emails. The place is a total dump. I can see that it wears on him. I wish he’d never purchased the property in the first place.

Luke bought it knowing it would be more work than any of his other properties, but he wanted the challenge. I encouraged him to do what he felt was right, but now I feel like I should have given him better advice. He paid nearly half a million dollars for a bungalow in Overtown, and now it’s falling apart.

We both knew it would need to be totally gutted and remodeled, but it turns out there were bats living in the roof, a hole in the wall under the foundation, and a barrage of other catastrophes just waiting to be discovered. He’s had pest control go to the property at least three times, and the ground around the home is being dug up to repair the hole and prevent any water damage in the future.

But thanks to the hole in the wall, there’s mold in the building. The whole property is a headache, and Luke’s having a hard time being far away from the chaos. In a few days, he’ll have to fly back to Miami to meet his dad and work it out.

I knock on the white front door, and it’s only a few seconds before Jules opens it.

“Hi,” I say. I hold out an iced coffee, and she eyes it with a conflicting look of disgust and longing. She takes it without eye contact and leads me farther into the house.

It’s quiet.