CHAPTER 34
Aiden
“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell the dog. But he continues to stare at me like I am the world’s biggest fool and I can’t blame him.
Of course I’m in love with her.
I pull at my hair, willing my brain to think straight.
I am not good at this, at feeling things. But Ben was spot on. The fact that I feel this embarrassing primal satisfaction knowing she’s upstairs in my bed, even though we didn’t actually sleep together—she’s bloody married—is pretty good evidence.
And the bit about me staying in this tiny, ridiculous town for almost three full months straight for no other reason than to get to know her and then be near her.
And now, as I sit here wishing I could take back my whole plan and undo the resort that’s halfway constructed, all my life’s goals and dreams, just so she and her friends could keep their Main Street intact…
I think this is, in fact, love.
Shit!
I am having trouble breathing.
People just feel this? Every day? They’re just out living their lives with all these emotions bouncing around inside their souls?
Preposterous.
And now what do I do, now that I know? Now that I can’t think of a world where I don’t love a tiny, fiery baker from a holiday town?
Hell if I know. I’ve done a real bang-up job so far.
No wonder all my gestures had the opposite of their intended effects. To think I bought her a car and almost bought her a house as well. The fame, the money, gifts and dates, “It’s all shit, isn’t it?”
Stuart lays down in reply, bored with our conversation. Or just tired. It is the middle of the night, after all.
And I almost put her in my debt, same as that wanker, acting as if I wouldn’t hold it to her.
I would, I absolutely would. I want her to be mine, thus I’d use all the tools available to me.
I’d use the lawyer gesture as leverage to get her to marry me and travel the world with me.
To leave her town and her dad and all her responsibilities and just be.
I can see it so clearly, taking her to Palm Springs and watching her lay in the sun doing absolutely nothing. Nothing but enjoying herself.
I fully believe she needs to take wing and fly far away from this town. At least for a while. But not because I twist her into it. Or beg her to go. Or make her see reason like the skilled negotiator I am.
I want her to be with me, go with me. Normally that’d be it. I have established the goal: Harper Brown. Thus, I simply do everything necessary until I get what I want.
But.
For the first time in my life there is a but.
But she needs to want it all. For herself. For her sweet, precious, wonderful self.
So wonderful that I am pretty damn sure I’ll stay here forever if she asks me to.
But then she’ll feel she’s trapped me here, whether she admits it or not.
And what if I do feel trapped? What if I start to resent her?
I can see myself marrying Harper but what about children?
I’m such shit at feelings and relationships, how could I ever be a good father to her children?
“And so where the hell, exactly, does that leave me?” I ask Stuart.
He doesn’t reply.
No easy answer comes my way. Soon the sun is up and suddenly, just like that, it’s July 4th. Today marks the end of the negotiated grace period for Juniper Falls. I know what happens next for this town. I am just not sure anymore what that means for Harper, or for me.
Or, maybe, for us.