River of Love

by Melissa Foster

  “Sam, this looks delicious. You made it? When did you have time?”

  “I can’t tell you all my secrets. Besides, I’ll always make time for us.”

  She was looking at him like she was seeing him for the very first time, wide-eyed and full of wonder. “You put me to shame. My dinner usually consists of a PowerBar and ice cream.”

  “Hey, a guy’s got to learn to fend for himself. Well, that and after spending enough nights living in the woods, you find new pleasures in the little things you took for granted when you had a roof over your head.”

  “I bet that year off did wonders for your survival skills. Thank you for going to all of this trouble.” She speared a shrimp and put it in her mouth. “Mm. This is really good.”

  They ate and chatted about Sam’s year off after college, and the conversation circled back to Rough Riders. Sam told her about Lira working for him, which she said she’d seen on the Women Against Cheaters website.

  “Lira said you found a therapist for her to speak with, too,” Faith said.

  “Actually, Tempe found her. She found a few therapists who are willing to talk about helping your members. I’m not sure if they’ll offer free sessions or discounts, but I’ve got their information in the truck.”

  “You talked to Tempe about my site?”

  “The morning after the car wash I had breakfast with my family. Tempe is a music therapist, and she knows so many people. I asked if she knew of anyone. No big deal.”

  “Sam, that’s a huge deal. Thank you.” She hugged him. “You’ve done so much, between helping Lira, the donation, connecting me with Brent, and now this. Thank you.”

  “I told you at the car wash that I wanted to help.”

  She nibbled on her lip. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

  “It’s okay. I might not have believed me either.” That earned him a genuine smile that warmed him to his core. He set their dishes aside and took her hand as he rose to his feet. “Walk with me?”

  “I love that you like taking walks.”

  “I like them more when you’re with me.” He grabbed her sweatshirt and helped her put it on. “It’ll get chilly since your bathing suit is wet.”

  They walked along the shore, listening to the water lap gently against the rocks.

  “How did you end up in Peaceful Harbor working for Cole? Did you always want to work in the medical field?”

  She nodded. “I love helping people, and I love medicine.”

  “But why Peaceful Harbor? It’s not exactly a booming metropolis.”

  “I went to college near home, and I always thought I’d graduate, work in my hometown, get married…” She gazed out over the water with a pensive look on her face. “Things changed, and it was too hard to stay in Oak Falls, so I started looking for a job online and saw Cole’s ad. It’s close enough to drive home whenever I want, and Cole and Jon are so nice.”

  “So, a few interviews with them and you were sold?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Sam could see there was more to this story, and he wished she trusted him enough to share it with him. But he wouldn’t push the subject. She was here, and that was enough for him until she was ready to talk about it.

  They walked to the other side of the cove, where they climbed to the top of a big boulder and sat with their feet hanging over the edge, looking out at the moon’s reflection dancing off the inky water. When Faith leaned her head against his shoulder, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to it. The affection he felt for her grew insurmountably every time they were together. His father’s words sailed through his mind: Your first real taste of adult love. The type of love that consumes your every thought. Once you get a taste of that, you’ll do anything and everything for more. You’ll want to drown in it.

  “I left Oak Falls because my boyfriend cheated on me.”

  Faith’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, and the high that he was riding deflated with her confession. He bit back the immediate reaction of wanting to slaughter the guy who hurt her, and focused on the trust she was placing in him. He wrapped her in his arms.

  “I’m sorry. That must have been very painful.”

  “It wasn’t fun, that’s for sure. He said I didn’t give him enough attention, that I didn’t really want him, or have room in my life to make him happy. It was unexpected, to say the least, but staying in my hometown wasn’t an option. We’d dated for so long. I thought I’d graduate and marry JJ.” She shrugged, but the hurt in her eyes, in her voice, was thick as tar.

  “It was humiliating, and it hurt for a long time. It was like we were on this path, and then we weren’t. Or he wasn’t. Same thing.” She paused and drew in a deep breath. “It took me months to shake off the idea that he’d cheated because I’d somehow done something wrong, or hadn’t been enough for him. Now I know he did me a favor, but then? I guess I was so busy with school and work that I never gave it much thought. Or maybe I never gave him much thought, which is worse, actually.”

  “Baby, cheating is never the answer.” It took effort to soften the anger he felt toward this JJ asshole. “Even if you two were having trouble, that’s not the way to handle it. The guy didn’t deserve you.”

  She gazed up at him. “It’s so weird that you, of all people, would get that. You said you’d never had a girlfriend.”

  “I said I hadn’t had a girlfriend since high school. Since I was sixteen, to be exact.”

  “First love?” she asked with a curious smile.

  “I don’t know. First everything, I guess,” he admitted. “But I was a kid. I didn’t even know what love was. First infatuation is probably more accurate.”

  “First heartbreak?”

  “First and last.” He gazed into her eyes, wanting to share what he’d never shared with anyone before. “We only went out for two months, but at sixteen our hormones were on fire, so every minute felt like a lifetime. Her name was Keira Jacobson, and she lived twenty minutes outside of town. Man, I haven’t thought about her for so many years, it seems like a lifetime ago. But she was all I thought about back then. I met her at a football game and saw her a few times each week after that. And one day I showed up early. I can’t remember why. Maybe I cut my last class or something. I went to her school and saw her kissing some other guy.” He shrugged.

  “So you broke up?”

  He shook his head. “Not right away. Not until later that night, after she told me he meant nothing to her, he was just a friend, and they got carried away—a few times.”

  “Oh, Sam.” She climbed onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry. I hate that you know what that feels like.”

  The empathy in her eyes was real, and it touched him deeply, especially since she knew he’d never committed to anyone since then. “I was a kid. I blocked her out of my mind and carried on.”

  “And decided nothing lasts forever,” she said, clearly remembering what he’d said about wabi-sabi. “And that’s when you began your no-commitment lifestyle.”

  “You remembered.”

  “I remember everything you ever say. It’s bordering on obsession.” She grabbed his cheeks and kissed him. “Don’t judge me.”

  The teasing glint in her eyes made him want to tell her he loved that she remembered his words. That he wanted to be her obsession. It sure as hell wouldn’t be teasing if he did.

  “My only judgment is to say you’re incredibly brave. You moved away from your family, friends, the future you had planned, and you started over in an unfamiliar place.”

  “Look who’s talking. You go on all sorts of adventures that I’ve never even thought about trying. Skydiving?” She rolled her eyes. “So scary.”

  “You’ll try them with me.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “We’ll try everything together. But there’s a world of difference between bravery with physical things and the courage to leave everything you know. I still live in my hometown, surrounded by the people who love me unconditionally, and I�
�ll probably never move away from them.”

  She searched his eyes with a serious gaze. “That’s different. I never would have left my family and friends if I’d thought I could deal with seeing my ex all the time, but I couldn’t. But you? After you got hurt, you were brave enough to stick around and lock away that huge heart of yours that I lo—like so much.”

  Sam couldn’t stop the greedy grin from spreading across his face. “You love my huge heart.”

  “I like your huge heart.” She pressed her forehead to his chest. “Like, like, like.”

  He didn’t need to hear her say it. He’d seen her emotions in her eyes, and that would hold him over until they were both ready to admit that what was happening between them was above and beyond anything they’d ever felt before. But he couldn’t resist teasing her. “What other huge things of mine do you love?”

  “Sam!” Her cheeks flamed red.

  He pulled her into a chaste kiss. “I love your huge boobs—I mean heart.”

  She smacked his chest and they both laughed.

  “Stop thinking about my boobs. Tell me what happened with Keira.”

  “She didn’t have huge boobs.”

  She smacked him again. “You’re such a guy! I meant have you stalked her on social media or anything like that?”

  “You know me better than that. I don’t stalk, although I’d stalk you.” He leaned in for another kiss. He loved that Faith wasn’t jealous of what he’d felt for Keira as much as he loved that she didn’t judge him for the way he’d lived his life.

  “I heard her father took a new job and they moved away a few weeks later. What about you? Did you love that guy’s huge heart, too?”

  “I thought I loved him, but…”

  She bit her lip, and he brushed his thumb over it.

  “I like when you touch me like that,” she admitted quietly.

  “And I like hearing what you like.”

  “Sam, this is going to sound like a line, but it’s not. I promise. In those two years, I never felt for him what I feel for you, and we’ve only been together for a few days.”

  “Ditto,” he whispered, kissing her again. “But I was infatuated with you for way longer. The whole time I’ve known you.”

  “Ditto.”

  Sam had known she was into him from the way she became flustered and shy around him when he visited Cole at work, but hearing her say it gave him immense pleasure. “You were my forbidden fruit.”

  “Forbidden?”

  “Cole warned me away from you from the very first time I saw you.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Don’t get upset with him. He’s a smart man. He didn’t want me to ruin your life. He values and respects you as an employee, and he cares about you as a person. And unfortunately, he, like everyone else in town, knows what I was like. Too risky for your protected heart.”

  He remembered the afternoon in her office when she’d said that to him and how conflicted she’d looked despite her confident and earnest tone.

  Her cheeks pinked up at her words coming back at her, and in the space of a breath she harnessed that embarrassment and it morphed into a tease. “You’re not bad without your book cover.”

  “Not bad, huh? I’ll have to try harder.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder again. “Just keep being who you are. I really like my version of Sam.”

  He knew he’d never stop being the best man he could be for her. Not in a week, a month…a lifetime?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  SAM AND FAITH stayed at the lake until after ten, talking and kissing and doing what they did when the end of each of their dates neared. Procrastinating. Faith watched Sam stow the towels and blanket behind the seats, anxiety burgeoning in her chest. She began making up excuses to stay out later. We could go out for ice cream. Take a walk on the beach. Go dancing. But she was wearing a bathing suit, and she didn’t want any of those distractions. She wanted more time with Sam. To learn more about him, spend more time in his arms. The degree with which that desire consumed her knocked her off-kilter.

  They walked around the truck to the passenger door, and as he reached for it, she said, “Sam—” at the exact second he said, “Faith—”

  His lips curved up. “You first.”

  She fought the urge to bite her lip, fought the anxiety tingling in her chest, and borrowed courage from the loving look in his eyes.

  “I don’t want the night to end.”

  “I was trying to figure out how to get you up to my place without sounding like a letch.”

  “Okay.” The word came fast, and as she said it, her anxiety fell away. Being with Sam was the rightest thing she’d felt in as long as she could remember. Probably since the day she walked into her first physician assistant class, that’s how clear her mind had become. She knew then she was making the right choice, and as Sam’s eyes gleamed with happiness, she knew she’d found the right path again.

  He lived down a long, heavily wooded road. Butterflies took flight in Faith’s stomach as they pulled down a gravel driveway and parked beside his motorcycle, a four-wheeler, and a Jeep.

  “Do you have company? You can take me home if you do.”

  Without a word he kissed her, taking it deeper in answer to her offer. “Still want me to take you home?”

  “Only if you’re coming, too.” Her eyes widened. “I mean…”

  “You meant exactly what you said, I hope.” He kissed her again.

  It was a kiss so different from the urgency they’d shared before their date. Everything felt different, less frantic, more real. Their relationship had somehow shifted through the course of the evening. Or maybe it had been shifting since they’d first come together.

  Sam stepped from the truck and helped her out. “I don’t have company. They’re my toys.”

  “Ah, I should have known,” she teased.

  Sam’s cabin was built atop a grassy knoll with several large windows, nearly all of them open, overlooking the water. There were no gardens or pristine landscaping in sight. Wild shrubs and trees of varying heights and types sprang up like sentinels on the lawn, reminding her of what he’d said about finding beauty in imperfection. Two brightly colored kayaks were nestled on the grass by the woods, and a circle of chairs surrounded what looked like a fire pit. A long dock jutted out over the dark water. It was so peaceful, so different from the concrete streets below her balcony; it felt a world away, not mere minutes.

  “It’s really pretty out here,” she said as they climbed the steps to the porch.

  He kissed her again. “You’re really pretty out here.”

  He was so openly affectionate, greedily kissing her so often, she came to expect it as much as she reveled in it. She still couldn’t imagine how such a loving man could go without a real relationship for so long, but she counted herself lucky. There were plenty of women who’d probably tried to catch Sam, and if they had, she never would have had the pleasure of being with him.

  He opened the front door, revealing a masculine living room–kitchen combination, with dark furnishings, a wood-burning stove, and dark wide-planked wood floors. The walls were littered with pictures of Sam and his family and, she assumed, his friends.

  He turned on the stereo, filling the room with a soft melody. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared through a door to the left of the kitchen.

  Faith checked out the pictures. Sam’s eyes were alight with joy as he hung from a rope on the side of a rocky cliff. In another he sat in an enormous raft with Ty and a few other guys, water spraying over their backs. She moved from one picture to the next, drinking in the rugged, sexy man she was falling for harder by the second. She came to a picture of Sam and Cole, both dressed in waders, standing in knee-high water and holding fishing poles. Sam’s hair was windblown, standing on end, his cheeks pink, probably also from the wind. She imagined a younger Sam, listening to Cole’s advice when he started his business, and she prayed her and Sam’s
relationship wouldn’t hinder his and Cole’s. Knowing Cole had warned him away from her worried her a little, but she wouldn’t let that drag her down. Not when everything Sam did lifted her up.

  She walked around the cozy room and came to a picture of Sam and his parents. He looked like a surly teenager, with lanky arms and legs, his hair in need of a trim. She lingered there, wondering what it must have been like to be his girlfriend at sixteen. She wished she’d known him then. Was he as loving then? Did he treat Keira as special as he treated her?

  “That was taken out at my uncle Hal’s ranch in Weston, Colorado. See the horses in the back?” Sam wrapped his arms around her from behind. His breath smelled minty.

  “I wish I knew you then,” he said, turning her in his arms. “I could have kept you from ever dating the guy who hurt you.”

  Her heart squeezed. “And maybe I could have kept you from getting hurt, too.”

  “I wish I hadn’t wasted all that time fighting my attraction to you. I wish I had asked you out the first day I saw you.”

  “I wouldn’t have gone,” she said honestly. “I was too broken back then. I wasn’t ready, and you probably weren’t ready for me, either.”

  “Then I hope we can make up for that time, because I’m not sure I’ll ever get enough time with you. Even if we spent every day of the rest of our lives together, I think I’d still feel like it wasn’t enough.”

  Could they do this? Build a world of wishes and hopes so fast? Is this what love was? Did it hit you out of the blue, when you weren’t looking for it? With the least likely person?

  He rubbed his nose against hers, swaying to the music. “What’s that look? What are you thinking?”

  Their bodies were so in sync, like they’d been dancing together for years, just as they’d been the night on the roof of Mr. B’s. Could it be that their hearts were, too?

  “That this, us, is so big,” she admitted. “I feel so much.”

  “Me too. Let’s not fight it.”

  His mouth brushed over hers, and she breathed him in. His scent had become familiar, too. One whiff sparked feelings of safety and desire. They danced in a slow circle, feet barely moving, hearts tripping over each other. She pressed a kiss to the center of his chest, conscious of every point their bodies touched and the feel of his hands spread possessively across her lower back. If she could stay right there in his arms forever, she’d die a happy woman.