Chapter 14 #2
The bedroom with windows facing west, where sunset came in warm and gold.
The tiny strip of land out back where I planted rosemary, lavender, sage, and one doomed basil plant because hope made idiots of men.
By the time I brought her there, I had known for weeks that I loved the house for one reason only.
It felt like waiting for her.
I picked her up after a twelve-hour shift that had left shadows under her eyes and a stubborn crease between her brows. She climbed into my truck smelling like hospital soap, coffee, and exhaustion, wearing navy scrubs and Mandy’s diamonds.
“Please tell me this date involves food,” she said.
“It involves food.”
“And sitting?”
“Eventually.”
“Suspicious.”
“Always.”
She narrowed her eyes, but she trusted me enough to let me drive.
That still got to me.
Her trust.
After everything I had done wrong, every road I had taken away from her, every time I had called leaving love, she still got into my truck and rested her head back against the seat like she believed I would take her somewhere safe.
I drove to the bungalow without telling her where we were going.
When I pulled into the narrow driveway, the sun was dropping low over the ocean, throwing copper light across the renovated porch and the new windows. The house glowed like it knew she was coming.
Destiny sat up slowly.
“What is this?”
“A project.”
Her eyes moved over the house. Fresh white stucco. Blue-gray trim. Pots of rosemary by the steps. Warm porch light already on though the sky wasn’t dark yet.
“This is the project?”
“One of them.”
She turned toward me.
The look on her face told me she was already putting pieces together.
Too smart.
Always had been.
“Dylan.”
“Come inside.”
I got out before I could lose my nerve.
She followed more slowly, one hand gripping her bag strap.
I unlocked the front door and pushed it open.
Destiny stepped inside.
Then stopped.
The entry opened into a living room with restored wood floors, soft white walls, and arched passageways I had fought two subcontractors to keep.
Late sunlight poured through the windows, catching dust motes in the air and turning them gold.
The old fireplace had been cleaned and repaired.
Built-in shelves framed it now, still empty except for a small turquoise vase I had bought because it made me think of the ring on her finger.
Destiny didn’t speak.
That made me nervous.
She walked forward, slow and silent, into the kitchen.
That was where she went still again.
Green tile backsplash.
Warm wood shelves.
Quartz counters.
Deep sink.
A window over it looking toward the messy little backyard I had cleaned, planted, and turned into something that might be beautiful if the basil survived long enough to see daylight twice.
Her fingers touched the edge of the counter.
“You asked me about these.”
“Yeah.”
Her voice was very quiet. “All those random questions.”
“Not random.”
She looked at the tile.
Then the shelves.
Then the sink.
Then me.
“Dylan.”
That was all.
Just my name.
But it came out full of everything.
I shoved my hands into my pockets because I did not trust them.
“I bought it before I knew if you’d ever want it,” I said. “Before I knew if we’d get here. I told myself it was an investment. Then I told myself it was a rental. Then Nate told me I was full of shit, and unfortunately, he was right.”
Her eyes shone.
“I didn’t build it to trap you,” I said quickly. “It’s not a proposal. It’s not pressure. It’s yours if you want it someday. It’s mine if you don’t. It can be sold. Rented. Turned into a cat sanctuary if Lily and Cupcake stage a hostile takeover.”
A wet laugh slipped out of her.
Good.
I could breathe again.
“I just…” I looked around because looking at her was harder. “I wanted to build something that didn’t come from blood. Or guilt. Or running. I wanted to build a place where nothing bad had happened yet.”
Destiny pressed her hand to her mouth.
I wanted to go to her.
I didn’t.
“Say something,” I said.
She dropped her hand.
“You built me a kitchen.”
“I built the whole house.”
Her eyes narrowed through tears. “Do not get literal with me right now.”
I nodded once. “Sorry.”
She looked around again.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
“I don’t know what to do with this.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“That is not true.”
“It is.”
“No.” She turned fully toward me. “You built me a house, Dylan.”
“I renovated a house.”
“With the tile I liked.”
“Yes.”
“And the counters.”
“Yes.”
“And native landscaping.”
“Yes.”
“No fake grass?”
“I value my life.”
Another laugh broke through her tears.
Then she crossed the kitchen and kissed me.
Not careful.
Not polite.
Not the controlled kisses we had practiced for months, full of restraint and timing and the mutual understanding that we were not rushing what had already taken years.
This kiss was different.
It came from somewhere deeper than relief.
Her hands went to my face, and her mouth found mine like she had finally reached the end of every road that had kept us apart. I caught her waist, pulling her in before I could remember patience, before I could remember the speech I had planned about choices and no pressure and taking our time.
She tasted like coffee, salt, and tears.
Like home before the word was safe.
I backed against the counter under the force of her, laughing once against her mouth because I was still healing enough that sudden happiness apparently counted as impact.
She pulled back immediately. “Pain?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Worth it.”
“Dylan.”
“Three,” I said. “Four if you keep stopping.”
Her eyes darkened.
There it was.
The thing we had been circling for months.
Not grief.
Not guilt.
Not forbidden.
Want.
Alive and honest and standing in a kitchen built from every secret hope I had never been brave enough to say.
Destiny’s fingers slid down my jaw, then rested against my chest.
My heart beat hard beneath her palm.
“You’re sure?” she whispered.
That nearly killed me.
After all the years I had made choices for her, she was asking me.
I covered her hand with mine. “Beautiful, I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Her breath caught.
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“Me too.”
“Of ruining it.”
“We won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” I said. “But I know I’m done letting fear make my decisions.”
Her eyes searched mine.
Whatever she found there made her step back, take my hand, and lead me through the house.
Not upstairs yet.
She wanted to see it all.
The bathroom with the pale tile and brass fixtures she had once called “not obnoxious, which is high praise.” The little back patio with herbs, lavender, and the doomed basil plant.
She laughed when she saw it.
“You planted basil?”
“I wanted to believe in miracles.”
“It’s already wilting.”
“It’s nervous.”
“It’s dramatic.”
“It lives here. It learned from us.”
Her smile softened.
Then we went upstairs.
The bedroom faced west.
I had not furnished much. A bed, made carefully with white sheets because I had panicked in the store and bought the first thing that looked clean and soft. Two nightstands. A lamp. Nothing on the walls yet. No memories. No ghosts.
Just light.
Sunset filled the room, warm and low, sliding across the floorboards and touching Destiny’s hair until the black turned blue at the edges.
She stood in the doorway, and I forgot how to breathe.
Not because of the bed.
Because of the whole impossible shape of the moment.
Destiny Rourke in a room I had built for her.
No blood.
No bullets.
No grave.
No other woman’s ring.
Just her.
Choosing to stay.
She looked back at me over her shoulder.
“Come here.”
My body answered before my mind could.
I crossed the room slowly.
Careful, because I wanted to remember every second.
She met me halfway.
Our kiss this time was softer at first. Slower. Her hands slid under my jacket and pushed it from my shoulders. I let it fall. My fingers found the hem of her scrub top and stopped there.
She looked up at me.
I asked without words.
She answered by lifting her arms.
I pulled the top over her head and dropped it beside my jacket.
For a moment, I could only look at her.
Not like the starving bastard I had been in the hospital, jealous and ashamed and furious with want.
This was different.
This was reverence.
She stood in the gold light wearing a plain bra, loose scrub pants, Mandy’s diamonds, her turquoise ring, and the mother-of-pearl cuff back on her wrist.
My cuff.
Our history.
Her choice.
I touched it first.
One fingertip along the silver edge.
“You’re wearing it.”
Her eyes softened. “I decided it didn’t belong in a drawer anymore.”
My throat tightened.
I bent and kissed the cuff against her wrist.
Then the inside of her wrist.
Her pulse fluttered under my mouth.
“Dylan,” she whispered.
There was warning in it.
Need too.
I lifted my head.
She touched the buttons of my shirt, opening them slowly, one by one. Her fingers brushed my skin, and every place she touched woke like it had been waiting years for permission. When the shirt opened, her gaze dropped to the scar near my abdomen.
The bullet’s mark.
Still raised.
Still red.
Her fingers hovered above it.
“You can touch it,” I said.
Her eyes flicked to mine.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
She touched the scar so gently I almost broke.
Not because it felt good.
Because it felt like forgiveness had fingertips.
Her palm settled over the wound that had almost taken me away from her. Then she leaned in and kissed it.
I closed my eyes.
There were men who would have wanted a woman’s mouth there for different reasons.
I was sure I had been one of them once.
But this was not that.
This was Destiny kissing proof that I had stayed alive.
My hand slid into her hair.
Soft.
Finally.