Chapter 8 Jace #2
Except Talia Quinn wasn’t a research subject. She was a woman I’d known as a child and was rapidly developing feelings for as an adult. Feelings that complicated the easy friendship we’d been building, that made cooking lessons feel like more than culinary education.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, echoing her words without knowing I’d been thinking the same thing.
“Because this place was ours. Before everything got complicated, before we grew up and learned to be careful with people, we had this meadow and it was perfect.” I set down the stone I’d been holding.
“I wanted to know if it still felt the same with you here. If the connection we had as kids could translate into something real now.”
“And does it?”
“Yes.” The word came out more intense than I’d planned, and I saw her breath catch. “Being here with you feels exactly right. Like this is where we’re both supposed to be.”
She held my gaze, and I watched something shift in her expression. Awareness blooming into something more active. The same pull I’d been feeling for weeks, finally acknowledged out loud.
“Jace...”
“I know this is complicated. I know you’re focused on the bistro and rebuilding your life here.
I’m not asking for anything you’re not ready to give.
” I shifted slightly closer, drawn by gravity I couldn’t entirely control.
“But I need you to know that these cooking lessons, this time we’ve been spending together, it matters to me.
You matter to me. Not just as my friend from childhood, but as someone I’m actively choosing now. ”
Her eyes had gone wide, hazel irises catching sunlight and turning amber. “You choose me?”
“I’d always choose you,” I confirmed. “And I think you’d choose me too, or you wouldn’t have agreed to come out here with me on almost no information about where we were going.”
“I think I would. I care a great deal for you, Jace.” Her voice had gone soft, slightly breathless. “More than I expected. More than I know what to do with.”
The admission made something warm unfurl in my chest. I reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away, and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. My fingers brushed her cheek, and I felt her sharp inhale.
“We don’t have to figure everything out today,” I said quietly. “We can just be here. In this place that was ours. And see what that feels like.”
She leaned into my touch slightly, and I had to actively stop myself from closing the remaining distance and kissing her. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to claim this moment, to make the attraction we both felt into something concrete and real.
But something in her expression held me back. Not fear exactly, but uncertainty. Like she wanted this but wasn’t sure she should, like there were complications I didn’t fully understand yet.
So instead of kissing her, I let my hand drop and stood, offering her my hand to help her up. “Come on. I want to show you something else.”
She took my hand, and I pulled her to her feet, trying very hard not to think about how perfectly her palm fit against mine. How right it felt to be touching her even in this simple way.
I led her along the creek to the far side of the meadow where a massive cottonwood tree grew at the edge of the forest. Its trunk was easily four feet in diameter, bark deeply furrowed with age.
The kind of tree that had been here long before we discovered this meadow, that would still be here long after we were gone.
“We tried to climb this tree once,” Talia said, laughing at the memory. “You made it about six feet up before you got scared and I had to talk you down.”
“I wasn’t scared. I was being strategically cautious.” I ran my hand over the bark. “But look.” I pointed to where someone had carved initials into the trunk, now weathered and grown over but still visible if you knew where to look. “JM + TQ. Friends forever. Summer 2001.”
Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh my god. I’d completely forgotten about that.”
“You carved it with your grandmother’s pocket knife. Said friends forever needed to be memorialized properly or it didn’t count.”
“I can’t believe it’s still here.”
“Trees remember,” I said simply. “They carry marks forward even when we forget we made them.”
She traced the carved letters with her fingertips, and I watched her face as she processed the evidence that our childhood friendship had been real and important enough to document. That we’d thought forever was possible back before we learned how easily people disappeared from each other’s lives.
“We were so sure about everything back then,” she said quietly. “So convinced that friendship was simple and forever meant something.”
“Maybe it does. Maybe we’re just complicating it by growing up.”
She looked at me, and something in her expression made my breath catch. Vulnerability mixed with want, confusion tangled with certainty.
“Jace, I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“I’m confused. About a lot of things.” She leaned back against the tree, putting a little distance between us.
“Coming back to Hollow Haven, starting the bistro, trying to figure out who I am when I’m not performing for critics or trying to please someone who couldn’t be pleased. It’s all overwhelming.”
“That makes sense.”
“And you’ve been this constant good thing.
These cooking lessons, the easy way we fall back into friendship like no time passed at all, the way you make me laugh and remember what it feels like to enjoy cooking instead of treating it like combat.
” She bit her lip. “But I think we both know it’s not just friendship anymore. Or not only friendship.”
“No,” I agreed carefully. “It’s not only friendship.”
“And I don’t know what to do about that. Because I came here to rebuild my career, not to develop feelings for someone. Especially not someone I care about enough that messing it up would actually hurt.”
The admission that she had feelings for me, that she cared enough to worry about messing things up, made something sing in my chest. But I could see the conflict in her face, the fear that wanting something meant risking everything.
“So don’t do anything about it,” I said simply. “Not yet. Just let it be what it is. We’re friends who are attracted to each other and enjoying spending time together. That’s enough for now.”
“Is it? Enough for you, I mean?”
I thought about that. About whether I could actually be satisfied with friendship and attraction when what I wanted was to pull her close and kiss her until neither of us could think straight. To claim her in ways that went beyond carved initials on a tree.
But I also knew pushing would destroy whatever we were building. Talia needed space and time and the freedom to figure things out without pressure. And I wanted her whole, healed, choosing me because she wanted to, not because I’d rushed her into something she wasn’t ready for.
“It’s enough,” I said. “Because you’re worth waiting for.”
Her eyes got bright with tears she didn’t let fall. “That’s a hell of a thing to say to someone.”
“It’s true. You’re worth waiting for, Talia Quinn. However long it takes for you to figure out what you want.”
She pushed off the tree and closed the distance between us in two steps, wrapping her arms around me in a hug that felt like gratitude and apology and promise all at once.
I held her carefully, letting myself feel the warmth of her body against mine, the way she fit perfectly under my chin, the vanilla and honey scent that I was starting to associate with home.
“Thank you,” she said into my chest. “For bringing me here. For being patient. For making this easier instead of harder.”
“That’s what friends do,” I said, even though friend felt inadequate for what I was feeling.
We stayed like that for a long moment, holding each other while the creek murmured and birds called from the forest and the meadow existed in its own perfect bubble outside of time and complication.
When we finally pulled apart, I said, “Want to eat lunch by the creek? I brought sandwiches.”
“You made sandwiches?”
“I can do basic sandwich construction unsupervised. Don’t act so surprised.”
She laughed, and the sound filled the meadow like music. “Then yes. Let’s eat lunch by the creek like we’re kids again and nothing is complicated.”
We settled on the sun-warmed grass near the water’s edge, and I unpacked the lunch I’d brought. Nothing fancy, just turkey sandwiches and apples and trail mix, but Talia ate like it was a feast.
“This is perfect,” she said between bites. “Simple food in a beautiful place with good company. This is what cooking should feel like.”
“What do you mean?”
“In Chicago, every meal was a performance. Every dish was about impressing critics or meeting impossible standards or proving I belonged in professional kitchens where women weren’t always welcome.
” She finished her sandwich and lay back in the grass, staring up at the sky.
“But food should be about nourishment and pleasure and sharing something good with people who matter. Like this.”
I lay down beside her, careful to maintain space between us even though I wanted to close it. “That’s what you want for the bistro? That feeling?”
“Yes. Exactly that. Food that makes people happy instead of food that makes people feel inadequate for not having sophisticated enough palates.”
“Hollow Haven will love that. We’re not exactly known for sophisticated palates.”
She turned her head to look at me, and we were suddenly very close. Close enough that I could see gold flecks in her hazel eyes, close enough to count the freckles across her nose.
“I’m glad I came back here,” she said softly. “Not just to Hollow Haven, but to this meadow. With you. Today.”
“Me too.”
The moment stretched between us, charged and trembling with possibility. I could lean over and kiss her. Close those few inches and make this attraction into something concrete. She wouldn’t stop me, I could see that in her eyes, in the way her breathing had quickened.
But I also saw the uncertainty, the fear that wanting this meant risking too much too soon.
So instead of kissing her, I reached over and took her hand, lacing our fingers together like we had as kids. Simple contact that meant everything and nothing in equal measure.
“We should probably head back soon,” I said, even though the last thing I wanted was to leave this perfect bubble. “I’m on call this evening and I need to check in before shift change.”
“Ranger responsibilities,” she said, but she was smiling.
“Always.” I sat up, pulling her with me. “But same time next week? I found a patch of hen of the woods mushrooms yesterday that should be perfect for harvesting by then.”
“The foraging trip you keep promising?”
“The foraging trip I keep promising.” I squeezed her hand before letting go and starting to pack up our lunch remains. “If you’re interested.”
“I’m interested.” She said it simply, but I caught the double meaning underneath. Interested in foraging, yes, but also interested in spending more time together. In seeing where this attraction might lead if we were both brave enough.
We hiked back to the trailhead in comfortable silence, and I spent the entire walk hyperaware of her presence behind me. The sound of her breathing, the occasional rustle of her movement, the knowledge that something between us had shifted today even if we hadn’t acted on it.
At the truck, I said, “Thank you for trusting me. For coming out here on basically no information about where we were going.”
“When it comes to you, Jace, I’m never going to have a problem trusting you. I just can’t believe that after all this time you remembered how much this place mattered to me.”
“It mattered. You mattered.” I opened her door, then leaned against it slightly. “And you still do. Just so we’re clear on that.”
“We’re clear.” Her voice was soft, full of things she wasn’t saying.
I drove her back to her cottage, and we talked about easy things. Upcoming weather patterns, the bistro timeline, funny stories from my ranger work. Nothing heavy or complicated, just the comfortable conversation of people who genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.
When I pulled up in front of her place, she hesitated before getting out. “Jace?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you moved back to Hollow Haven. Really glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
She climbed out, then leaned back in through the window. “See you Thursday for cooking lessons?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
I watched her walk to her door, watched her turn and wave before going inside. Then I sat in my truck for a long moment, processing what had happened today.
I’d taken Talia back to our meadow. I’d told her she mattered to me. I’d held her hand and nearly kissed her and pulled back because she needed space more than she needed pressure.
And somehow that restraint felt more significant than acting on attraction would have. Like I was proving something important. That I could want her and still respect her timeline. That patience was possible even when every instinct screamed to claim what I wanted.
I drove back to the ranger station thinking about carved initials and childhood promises. Thinking about how some places stayed perfect even when everything else changed. Thinking about how Talia Quinn had been important to me at eight years old and was becoming important to me again at thirty two.
And thinking that I was probably in love with her, which was both terrifying and exactly right.
Some connections were worth waiting for. Some people were worth the risk of being hurt if things didn’t work out.
Talia was both of those things.
And I had all the patience in the world if it meant she’d eventually choose me back.