Chapter 21
Hallie
It was enough to be there with him,
walking beside him in the quiet.
~ Nicholas Sparks
Greyson leads the way into the kitchen and gestures for me to take a seat at the center island. He opens the sparsely-filled fridge to reveal two neat rows of protein drinks and several drawers of meats, cheeses and vegetables. The rest of the shelves are empty.
“Where’s the fun food?” I ask.
“At your house, I think.”
“I do have a seven year old.”
“And a sweet tooth.” He smiles over at me.
“Guilty,” A warm hum flows through me, knowing he remembers.
“I’m going to grill you a sandwich that will blow your mind,” he declares.
“Okay then. Bring it on.” I pause. “On one condition.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“You have to tell me about how you picked out this house. And the story has to contain at least five sentences. With adjectives.”
He chuckles low. “Adjectives?”
“Yeah, you know. Those words that express something extra by enhancing a noun. Like impressive biceps. That kind of thing. Impressive would be the adjective.”
“You like my biceps?” He literally flexes—doing the ultimate Dustin impersonation.
I double over with laughter. I do like his biceps and their neighbors, the triceps, but I’m holding my tongue.
“I thought we’d take a walk to the pond after lunch,” he says casually.
“You have a pond!”
“Not me. I do have a little creek, though. It’s a neighborhood pond. It’s sort of all ten of ours.”
“Ten?”
“Ten neighbors in this area. We all have access to the pond. Anyone does, but no one comes out here much.”
“Just the way you like it.”
“That’s true.”
“So, get to it,” I say. “Tell me how you ended up in this house.”
He lays the cheese on a cutting board and slices it. “I had some money. And I wanted … Wait. I had some green money. Very green.” He looks up at me from where he’s spreading hot honey on one of the slices of bread. “That’s two adjectives if you want to keep count.”
“You’re ornery today.”
“I think you like it when I’m ornery.”
“Carry on.”
I do like it when he’s ornery. A lot. It’s this rare playful side of him that feels like something I own and don’t have to share with the rest of the world. I like it too much.
“Okay. Well, I had very green money. And I wanted to be very much alone.”
“You can’t keep using very.”
“Okay. I wanted extremely peaceful solitude.”
I nod.
“And I was thinking a house should be something permanent. A place you set up a life.” His face grows serious, a cloud passing behind his otherwise bright blue eyes. “I wasn’t in a good headspace.”
“Had you just come back?”
“It was about six months after.”
The expression on his face tells a thousand stories—ones I know he’s carrying inside himself forever.
“We lost Zach. I wasn’t … It was a lot.”
“Oh, Greyson.” I reach my hand out and place it over his. “I’m so sorry.”
He looks up at me and I catch a glimpse of the soldier boy at the station inside this man. Our hug goodbye. The way Zach was so full of life.
He places the cheese on the bread. Then he pulls out a Tupperware of precut peppers and onions.
“Yeah. So, I wanted to invest in something but it had to be secluded. I never needed all this space, but there was something about this property. It was the first house the Realtor showed me. We walked through from the front porch, upstairs and out to the back just like I took you. And when we got to the spot at the railing and I saw the woods sprawling out past the yard, I looked at her and said, ‘Sold.’”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. She made the offer. Let’s see. She made a generous, fair, immediate offer.”
“Stop!” I giggle.
He has me giggling.
“And the next day I was in a short, efficient, straightforward escrow.”
“Greyson!”
He chuckles. “And this big, oversized, excessive, rustic home was mine a month later.”
“A-plus for adjective use.”
“I always aim to excel.”
“I know.”
The room stills around us, but there’s this sweet heaviness lingering—Munich, Zach, our shared memories, this unbelievable reunion. All of it.
“So, what about you?” he asks.
He’s placing veggies on an indoor grill and the bread with cheese, open faced and then the other slices of bread. I watch as he sets it all there, as meticulously as he does everything.
“Me?” I ask.
“Yeah. Tell me about how you went from surgeon to single mom, firefighting baddie.”
“Baddie,” I laugh again.
“What do you call it?”
“Most days, hanging on by a shoestring.”
“Mmmm.” His hum is low and thoughtful, his gaze fixed and intense. “You make it look effortless.”
My breath literally hitches. Of all the things he could have chosen to compliment.
“Well, basically, the short story is Mia happened. I was on the med school track. I got pregnant. Danny got weird. I felt unstable, so I stepped back.”
“You could have still been a surgeon. Surgeons do have children.”
“They do. I couldn’t. I needed Danny to be all in. When he wasn’t, I don’t know. Something shifted. I felt unmoored.”
“I hope I never meet him.”
“What are you going to do? Go all special ops on him?”
“Probably not.”
“Probably? That’s reassuring.”
I’m acting offended, but honestly, the idea of Greyson going all caveman over Danny’s lack of a backbone is beyond attractive. A quiet thrill runs through me. Not because I need rescuing—but because Greyson is ready to stand between me and anything unsettling.
“Danny’s harmless,” I assure Greyson.
“So you say. I don’t see anything harmless in a man abandoning his wife and child. You’ve done amazing. That doesn’t mean he’s off the hook.”
Plain and simple, he’s right.
He grabs some tongs and flips the veggies. Then he closes the lid to the grill.
“What I mean is, he’s flaky, but he’s not malicious,” I clarify.
Greyson pauses in his food preparation. “His harm is not intentional. It’s a byproduct of his irresponsible way of living. Selfish, but not mean.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Like I said, I hope I never meet him.” He smiles over at me.
I smile back. And then I ask, “Are you planning on being around long enough that a crossing of paths could happen?”
I don’t know why I ask. I can’t afford to think outside these four days while Mia’s away. What am I saying, really? Am I asking Greyson for more? I don’t think I have more to offer him.
“No one knows the future,” he says, a hint of something unspoken in his words.
“True. No one does.”
He removes the bread and onions from the grill, places the veggies on top of the melty cheese and sets the other toasted piece of bread on top. Then he plates the sandwich.
“This sandwich is something I made up,” he explains. “I call it the triple threat.”
“You name your recipes?”
“No. I just made that up on the spot. It’s actually just gouda, cheddar and havarti with grilled veggies and hot honey on sourdough.”
“Triple threat.”
He smiles. I stare over at him. His eyes lock on mine. I’m not sure if I’m breathing. My vision’s all light and hazy. He affects me like no other man ever has.
“I really want to kiss you,” he says softly.
And if he thinks for one minute I forgot the first time he said that … No. He knows I remember.
“Then you should.” I repeat the same words I said that night—carefree and so very into him.
He leans across the corner of the island, cupping my chin between his pointer and thumb and looking into my eyes.
Then his lids shut and his lips brush over mine.
Something clatters to the floor. The butter knife?
I run my hand down his jaw and rest it on his shoulder, kissing him softly, remembering him and discovering him.
Greyson makes a soft noise from deep in his throat. I smile into our kiss.
He pulls back with a grin on his face. His hand moves to cup my jaw. Our eyes hold on to one another. My whole body zings. He slowly removes his hand from my cheek, trailing his fingers along my skin to prolong our connection.
When his hand drops, he says, “You should try your sandwich.”
“Okay.”
He glances around his kitchen. “Do you want water? I’ve got tea if you like that better.”
“Yes, please. Water’s fine.”
Are we just going to kiss and then eat, like we didn’t just rock one another’s worlds?
My head swirls. It’s been over six years since I’ve been kissed. My lips feel like they just came back from the dead.
Greyson picks the knife up off the floor and sets it in the sink, then he grabs a glass from a cabinet and pours me some water.
Maybe he goes around kissing women all the time. He’s so nonchalant right now.
I know he doesn’t, though. He’s far too private and principled to be cavalier about relationships.
How long has it been since he kissed anyone? Was it nine years? It can’t have been.
I take a bite of my sandwich and moan. “Oh my gosh. This is so good. Greyson. Wow.”
He nods, taking a bite of his. “I got this hot honey when I was visiting my folks in Nashville. When I got it home I didn’t know what to do with it. Tons of recipes online for chicken. But I wanted to try something different.”
“I love this.” I take another bite.
He beams, eating his sandwich right along with me.
“I’m going to crave this now,” I tell him, licking a dab of honey off my lips.
“You can come over anytime. I’ll make you one.”
“Anytime, huh?”
“Within reason.” He winks.
“You do know that a visit from me will disturb your extremely peaceful solitude, don’t you?”
“I make exceptions.”
I smile right at him, not even attempting to hide how him issuing me a ticket to his inner circle hits me and sinks deep. I’m an exception. I have exclusive access to the world that is Greyson Stone—the man behind the walls.