Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Before I can stop myself, I pull my cousin into an embrace – a little awkward, a little restrained, but still, a promise that I’m here now and I don’t intend to leave again.
For a moment, he resists, but then he lifts his arms and returns it. My little cousin, there in my grasp. I don’t know what it’ll take to piece together the harm I’ve caused, but at least I know where to start.
"Good to have you back, cousin,” he mumbles, and I look over his shoulder to where Cora is sitting with Woodward, her hand in his rough fur, a small smile on her face.
"Good to be back," I reply. And, for once, for the first time in the last few years – I actually mean it.
CHAPTER 12
Cora
Boone wraps his hand around mine as the two of us make our way back towards his cabin, the sunshine enough to make me believe that the storm is actually gone for good. Boone’s warned me that it’s just the way of these things, and it’ll come back around soon enough, but this time, I feel as though I am ready for it.
"It’s beautiful out here in the sun," I remark softly, as his fingers interlace with mine. I am still reeling from the enormity of everything that I discovered up there at Elias’ cabin – that they’re family, that Boone was the one who pulled away. That he was willing to leave his family behind if it meant living without the pain of losing more people.
And, while I’m sure that not every problem between the two of them has been resolved, Boone’s promise to his cousin has gone a long way towards it. I said goodbye to baby Daisy and June before I followed him out of the door, promising to come back and do another check-up in the next few days to make sure everything was alright. A glint in June’s eye suggests to me that she might have a guess at where I got my skills from, but we can talk about that in due time. Right now, I need her to stay focused on herself and the baby. Everything else comes second.
"It sure is," he remarks, and there is a careful edge to his voice. I glance over at him, to find his eyes pinned on me, scanning my face for something I’m not even sure I have in me yet.
"What is it?” I murmur to him, giving his hand a squeeze to let him know he can tell me whatever’s on his mind. God knows the only way we’re going to get through this is with honesty, and I am not willing to deny myself that any longer.
"It’s even prettier around here with you at my side," he confesses, lifting his chin slightly and fixing his eyes on the path ahead. "I was just trying to figure if you planned on stayin’, is all."
I fall silent for a moment, the only sound between us our feet crushing the leaves and twigs on the ground. I know it’s something I’d have to contend with eventually. The question has been running around my mind all morning, ever since I woke on the floor of their cabin to find Boone wrapped around me. Nestling back into him, it’s hard to imagine being anywhere else, or with anyone else, for that matter.
I could try to go back, if I wanted to. I’m not entirely sure what that would look like – throw myself over the edge of a ledge again and hope that I end up in the right time and place? I still don’t know how this happened, let alone how I can put it back.
But even if I could...would I want to? Everything that happened with June has just underlined to me how much good I could do in a community like this, with the knowledge I can claim. Sure, it might not be easy, but I could help so many women, so many babies – I could teach and pass down my learnings through generations and spare hundreds the suffering that they’d have otherwise had no choice but to face.
And what waits for me back there? The pain of failing, of facing it all alone? There are dozens of people trained in what I had done, in my own time, but here, not a single one. If it hadn’t been for my presence, the sheer chance of it, June and Daisy might not have made it.
Plus...it’s not as though I could bring Boone back with me. And the thought of leaving him after everything that has happened, it doesn’t sit right in my heart. This man, for all his hard edges, has shown himself capable of change, of kindness, of an openness to connection that I might never find again. At least, I’ll never find it again wrapped up in such a gloriously gorgeous package, nor one with hands as rough and wanting as his are.