Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
SADIE
Even from the safety of Gillia’s tree, the shift in the weather is palpable. It’s warming up, the sun melting the snow and clearing the trails enough for me to make it back to my post. With each passing minute, my mood sours even further.
When I go back, I’ll still be able to visit, but it will never be like this again. Not really. Short, stolen moments will never be enough for me. Not when I know what it’s like to be tucked under her bearskin blanket, my head using her bosom as a pillow.
If I stay away too much longer, people will start to miss me.
It’s not unusual for me to go a couple of days without contact this time of year.
My colleagues are used to me spending long days trekking in the forest. Plus, radio communications can be unstable during big weather systems. But eventually, someone is bound to worry and come looking for me.
I glance around the room, stopping to smile at Gillia’s soft features.
This whole situation would be a lot to explain.
I’d never be able to come up with anything to say, at least not anything that could adequately convey everything I’ve experienced over the last few days.
Instead, I’d have to make up some story about getting turned around and waiting out the storm in a makeshift shelter.
It’s plausible, but not terribly believable.
They’re likely to ask a lot of questions, most of which I don’t have an answer for.
My stomach churns thinking about the lie. I’ll never be able to tell anyone what transpired over the past few days, but it’s more than that. I can’t go back to a life where Gillia doesn’t exist, where we don’t exist together.
What did Gillia call it? Forest magic? There’s been a lot of that these last few days. Whatever it is, something is pulling me close to her. I can’t explain it, but for once, I don’t want to. I’d rather enjoy what it’s brought me.
“What’s wrong?” Gillia rolls over and wraps her arms around my midsection.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me,” she commands.
I bite my lower lip, trying to decide what to say.
I’ve been called crazy many times in my life, a word I hate.
But for once, it applies. I’d be crazy not to say something and at least find out if there’s a chance.
I have no idea what a life together might look like—or if she’d even want that—but not knowing is worse than getting turned down.
“With the weather improving, it’s time for me to leave.” She stiffens beneath me. “But, I don’t want to be without you.” There. I said it. Whatever happens next, at least I tried.
“I can’t go with you. Your cabin is too far from my tree.”
“What if I didn’t leave?” It’s an option that’s been rattling around in my brain since last night.
If she’ll have me, of course. I’d never ask her to leave.
Even if she could, the cost would be too high.
The forest needs her. “I’d need to go back and pack up a few things.
Give my boss notice that I’m vacating the post. It might take a little bit for me to finalize things, but I can come back and forth for a few weeks while I iron out the details. ”
“But you love your job.” Gillia releases her hold on me and sits up straight, her face serious and fraught with emotion.
That’s true. I love what I do. How could I not, when it’s been my dream ever since I discovered someone would pay me to live in a forest and spend my days with the trees?
It’s not the job that excites me, it’s the environment.
There’s no way I’d trade it for an office job, but for the chance to live here? With Gillia? I’d do it in a heartbeat.
“No,” I reply. “It’s not the job I love.
It’s the forest. Being here, with you, allows me to experience it more deeply.
” I’ve always felt tied to nature, to the idea of not ending up stuck in a city skyscraper, working at a computer all day.
This position allowed me what I wanted most. Maybe that makes me a little bit crazy, but now that I know there’s a whole world filled with things I only imagined, I can’t help but wonder if there were bigger forces at play.
“Plus,” I add, “I’ve completely fallen for you. In this short time, you’ve managed to turn my world upside down.”
“Is that a good thing?” she asks, her eyes narrowing as she stares at me.
“Very. I don’t really know what all this means”—I gesture around the inside of the tree—“but I’m not done finding out.”
“You’ll be bored.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. Besides, I can do all the same things I do now, hiking, looking at nature, sketching things.” The upside is that it won’t come with paperwork. The thought of not having to write a two-page report after every trek sounds decadent.
“What about your friends? Family?”
I suck in a breath. That’s a little bit harder.
There aren’t many people I’m close to, probably because I prefer the company of nature to people.
Only about three people in the world matter to me, and they live on the other side of the country.
“I don’t have a lot of friends, and none of them live nearby.
As long as I can talk to them a few times a year, I’ll be happy.
” And that’s not much different than how I function now.
“And family?”
“There’s no one.” I crawl into her lap, wanting to feel our physical connection while we talk. “I’m an only child, and my parents passed away years ago.”
Saying the words brings a little bit of sting to my heart, even though the wound is several years old.
Gillia must sense my discomfort because she wraps her arms around me, giving me time to pull my thoughts together before I continue.
“My mom went first, but my dad followed quickly, partly because he couldn’t imagine a life without her.
” It’s a love I always envied and wanted for myself. Maybe one I’ve finally found.
A long moment passes between us. I appreciate that she’s not filling the space with half-hearted condolences or apologies.
“You’d really stay? With me?” Her words come as such a surprise that I need to run them back through my head a few times to make sure I heard her correctly.
“Forever, if you’ll let me. At least for the rest of my life.”
“If you tether yourself to me—to my tree—you will live as long as I do, our lives intertwined at every level. We’ll be mates.”
My whole body warms at the idea. It makes me realize how much it means to me to know death won’t separate us, especially considering the difference in our mortality. I’m not sure I could grow old knowing I’d leave Gillia behind, not for a short time but for centuries.
“Yes,” I say without any further thought. It’s exactly what I want. “Please.”
“Of course, my love.”
Hearing her call me her love, as though I’ve been in her heart for years, rather than a matter of days—there are so many words I want to say, things that have been swirling around in my mind, but they aren’t fully formed yet.
Now that I know I’ll have years to keep telling her those things, the rush falls away.
Instead, I pull her close and pour all my emotions into a kiss.
Where previous kisses have been feverish and desperate, this one is slow and meandering, neither of us in any hurry to turn it into anything more.
I press myself against her, needing to be as close as possible, to feel Gillia on every inch of my body.
Tendrils from her fingers wrap around my back, tightening and pulling me closer, until I can’t imagine there’s even the smallest space between us.
“I love you,” I whisper, knowing it’s too soon, but unable to stop myself from saying the words that have been on the tip of my tongue for the last day.
“My love,” she says as she peppers soft kisses along my jawline. “You are my everything. The forest and I will live to serve you.”