On the first strike of lightning Patch ran over to the nearer barn that stood in the crest of wheatfield beside the house.
He opened the large door to six bents, the bays between empty. A ladder at the far side led to a mow he could not see.
Rain lashed down so hard he closed the heavy door behind him.
The darkness total.
The days caught him then, the fear and the hope, the sheer exhaustion of it all.
He sat on hard wood slats and smelled hay and closed his eye.
The sky chorused and rained down harder on the old roof as he wondered what he had found, certain it was her home but not knowing if she’d lived there since, if the place had been sold or just left to ruin.
There was nowhere left to look, no avenues he had not walked down, no corner of his mind that had not been sifted.
Patch lay back and swallowed drily, and for a wretched moment felt tears brim in his eye as he tried not to feel the devastation he had wreaked, the lives he had dictated in his search for a girl that had spanned the better years of his life. From boy to man. From Monta Clare to robbing banks, art exhibitions to prison. He had lost a daughter, a friend, a love, and a parent. He had lost more than could ever be counted.
And when he felt a hand slip into his, he knew that it was in his mind, that it could not be real. That maybe it had never been real at all.
His breath caught as she let go and traced her way up his chest and across the hollow of his throat.
Her fingers moved through his tears as she gently stroked his cheek.
He tried to shake her from his head, to find himself once more, but then she spoke in a whisper he could recall, from a memory he would never forget.
“Someone once told me you could hear a smile.”
And when he spoke he was thirteen, and he had his chance to do it all again. “Bullshit.”
Her voice began to break. “Say something and I’ll tell you if you are.”
“Though it’s dark, I’ll always find you. Though you’re stronger than me, I’ll always make sure that you’re safe. To me, you’ll always come first.”
“You’re smiling.”
“Because it’s true.”
She pressed her head to his.
“Grace,” he said.
“Yes.”