Read Online [Invitation to Eden 21.0] Falling or Flying by RG Alexander - Free Book Online Page B

I stand on the shore.
    Is my mind deceiving me? Am I foolish to hope?
    How would she know where to look? After the way I left, why would she try?
    I have no other choice. If there is a chance to see her again,
    I will stand on the shore until the tide carries me away.
    If I can hold her once more and hand her my heart,
    I will carry the secret of this island’s treasure to my grave in thanks.
     
    “Joely? Baby, what’s wrong?”
    Austin knelt beside her and wrapped his arms around her. She hadn’t heard him. She’d been too lost in the story. “Nothing. Nothing is wrong. He survived, Austin. The island brought her to him.”
    He looked over her shoulder, reading the last page in silence. “How do you know it wasn’t just a dream?”
    “Eden dreams aren’t ordinary. It’s not her style.” She shrugged. “And I know. The same way I knew I would meet your friend Theo and come to the island with him. The way I knew Eden would be my first and last real home. The way I know that, for some reason, no one is looking for us. I don’t think they know we’re missing.” She shook her head in confusion. “I’m not sure how that’s possible.”
    The arms around her tensed. “What else do you know?”
    She knew it usually made people uncomfortable when she talked too much about what she could do. “I don’t know everything, and I can’t read thoughts, thank goodness. I don’t know how you were injured. Or why you’ve come to Eden so many times. I don’t know if Vardalos’ new ladylove is going to like me popping over to go swimming or watch movies, and I’m not sure if he would let me build a place here, on the other side of the water from this cave. A girl can dream, but I can’t be sure.”
    And she had. She’d seen a beautiful home here when she’d closed her eyes. Her home.
    Sadly, the commute to work would be a pain in the ass.
    Austin kissed her shoulder. “It was a motorcycle. My accident? It wasn’t in Afghanistan, believe it or not. I was stateside, angry and lost and making reckless decisions. Court tried to help, tried to get me writing again or talking to someone, anything to shift gears, but I wouldn’t listen to anyone. That whole mad-at-the-world thing. I can’t believe I was so irresponsible, but luckily the only person hurt in that accident was me. It was a wake up call.”
    He was a writer. She should have known. The man had a way with words and he was a bit of a romantic. It was hard to imagine him like that. Reckless. Angry. “Before the accident, when you and Court were in Afghanistan, were there any close calls?”
    “Too many,” he sighed. “The worst one—well, that time he nearly died.”
    And Austin had saved him. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind. Court had come with him to Eden because he thought he could finally repay the favor. But Austin wasn’t in danger. Not here. He was healthy and strong again, and no longer lost.
    Unless you counted being stranded without a plane.
    “There’s something I’d like to know, and I have to ask because I don’t have a gift like yours.” Austin sat down beside her and waited for her to look into his eyes. “Your first and only home, you said. Artie, your flying instructor.”
    She shook her head. “Those aren’t questions.”
    “Joely.”
    “What?” she muttered. “Mine isn’t a going-through-a-phase story, with a happy beginning and ending to bookend the maudlin middle. You think you do, but you don’t really want to know.”
    “Tell me anyway.”
    She stared at him until she realized he was serious and he wasn’t going to let it go. She decided to rip the Band-Aid off as quickly as possible so they could move on. “Until I was ten-years-old I lived with my mother. She couldn’t hold down a job, which meant we had keep moving. Moving is expensive, so for a little while we lived in the car.”
    There was no need to tell him how long that “little while” had been.
    “Jesus Christ.”
    “I warned you.” She didn’t