Chapter 6 – Jonathan
The morning light filters through my blinds, painting gold stripes across Cassandra's bare shoulder. I've been awake for twenty minutes, just watching her sleep, afraid to move and break whatever spell brought her into my bed.
Into my life.
She's curled on her side, facing me, one hand tucked under her cheek like a child.
Her curls fan across my pillow in a copper tangle, wilder now after my hands spent hours buried in them.
The sheet drapes low across her hip, revealing the soft curve of her waist, the freckle just below her right shoulder blade that I discovered with my lips last night.
I never thought I'd be this man, the kind who watches a woman sleep, who catalogs the patterns of her breathing, who feels something crack open in his chest at the sight of her wearing his faded Whitetail Falls High t-shirt.
Yet here I am, still as stone, afraid to wake her. Afraid this might vanish like morning mist.
In the military, I learned to catalog threats, to assess situations in seconds, to trust the instincts that kept me and my team alive through two tours in Afghanistan.
But nothing in my training prepared me for Cassandra Green and the way she dismantles every defense I've built since coming home.
How to explain that level of recognition? That bone-deep certainty?
I reach out, unable to help myself, and brush a strand of hair from her cheek. Her eyes flutter open, whiskey brown, warm and drowsy with sleep.
"Were you watching me?" she murmurs, voice morning-rough in a way that makes heat pool low in my belly.
"No," I lie.
Her smile is slow, knowing. "Liar."
"Maybe a little." I trace my thumb across her cheekbone, marveling at the softness of her skin. "You snore."
"I do not!" She swats at my chest, indignant.
"Like a chainsaw. The whole shop probably heard."
She narrows her eyes, fighting a smile. "You know, I'm reconsidering this whole sleeping-with-the-boss thing."
My hand stills on her face. "Is that what this is?"
Her expression softens, and she turns to kiss my palm. "No. That's not what this is at all."
Relief washes through me, more powerful than I expected. I pull her closer, tucking her against my side where she fits perfectly.
"Good," I murmur into her hair. "Because I don't think I could go back to being just your boss."
She trails her fingers across my chest, tracing idle patterns that leave fire in their wake. "What are you, then?"
It's a loaded question at six-thirty in the morning. What am I to her? What is she to me?
"Hungry," I say instead, making her laugh. "Starving, actually."
"Smooth deflection."
I kiss the top of her head. "I'm working on an answer. Give me coffee first."
She stretches against me, cat-like and sinuous, before slipping from the bed.
My t-shirt hangs to mid-thigh on her, revealing long legs and a tempting glimpse of the marks I left on her inner thighs last night.
When she bends to pick up her underwear from the floor, the shirt rides up, and I have to close my eyes or we'll never make it to breakfast.
"You coming?" she asks from the doorway, knowing exactly what she's doing.
I force myself out of bed, pulling on a pair of sweatpants. "You're dangerous in the morning, Green."
"You have no idea." She winks and disappears into the hallway.
My apartment isn't much—a small bedroom, bathroom, and an open kitchen/living area. It's always felt like enough, a space that's just mine above the garage my grandfather built. But watching Cassandra move through it transforms everything.
She pads barefoot across the worn hardwood, opens cupboards like she belongs here, hums quietly as she measures coffee grounds.
Morning sun streams through the east-facing windows, catching in her hair and turning it to fire.
She finds mugs without asking, somehow selecting my favorite one for herself—the chipped one with the Caldwell Auto logo my dad had made when I took over the shop.
"Your kitchen is surprisingly organized for a bachelor," she observes, measuring water into the kettle.
I lean against the doorframe, content to watch her. "My mom would drive here just to reorganize it if it wasn't."
"I'd like to meet her someday." The words slip out casually, but they hang in the air between us, weighted with implication.
Meeting my mother. Future plans. Permanence.
"She'd like you," I say, meaning it. "She's been after me to find someone who can put up with my 'stubborn, workaholic tendencies' for years."
Cassandra grins, turning to face me. "Stubbornness runs in the family, I see."
"Among other things." I cross to her, unable to resist the pull any longer. My hands settle on her hips, drawing her against me. "The garage. The terrible handwriting. The thing with muffins."
"What thing with muffins?"
"We can't resist them." I kiss her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "Or women who bring them to us."
She laughs, the sound filling my kitchen, my home, spaces that have been too quiet for too long. "Is that why you hired me? For muffin access?"
"Hired you for your qualifications." I nip at her earlobe, loving how she shivers against me. "Kept you for everything else."
The kettle whistles, forcing me to release her. As she pours water over the grounds, the rich scent of coffee mingles with something floral from her hair, creating a new smell that I already know I'll associate with mornings from now on.
"What do we do now?" she asks, passing me a steaming mug.
I take a sip, buying time. "About work, you mean?"
She nods, leaning against the counter. The morning light makes her skin glow, but I can see the hint of uncertainty in her eyes. "I still need this job, Jonathan. I came here for a fresh start."
"Nothing has to change at the garage," I say. "You're good at what you do. Better than anyone I've had before."
"But everything else has changed." She looks down at her coffee. "People will talk."
"People in Whitetail Falls always talk." I set my mug down, needing my hands free to touch her. "But they're also surprisingly accepting when it's real."
Her eyes lift to mine. "Is it? Real?"
The question hangs between us, more vulnerable than anything that happened in my bed last night. I move closer, taking the mug from her hands and setting it aside. My palms cup her face, tilting it up to mine.
"I've never been more certain of anything," I tell her, letting her see the truth in my eyes. "I know it's fast. I know it doesn't make sense. But from the moment you broke down in Acorn Circle, something in me recognized something in you."
Her hands come up to grasp my wrists, holding me there. "I felt it too."
"I tried to fight it. Tried to be professional." I press my forehead to hers. "But I'm done fighting, Cassandra. I want you in my garage, in my bed, in my life. However that looks."
"Even if it complicates things?" Her voice is small, uncertain.
"Some things are worth complicating."
She smiles then, slow and bright like sunrise. "Says the man who color-coded his entire filing system to avoid complications."
"That was you," I remind her, smiling against her lips.
"And now you're stuck with me." She loops her arms around my neck. "And my excessive organizing."
"Guess I'll manage somehow."
I kiss her then, slow and deep, tasting coffee and promise. Her body melts against mine, warm and soft. When we finally break apart, her eyes are bright with emotion.
"I need to tell you something," she whispers.
"Anything."
"I think I'm falling in love with you." The words rush out like she's afraid to hold them back. "I know it's crazy and fast and probably terrifying, but—"
I cut her off with another kiss, pouring everything I feel into it. When I pull back, her eyes are wide, lips parted.
"Not terrifying," I tell her softly. "Inevitable."
We abandon breakfast after that, losing ourselves in each other on my worn couch, the morning sun painting our skin gold as we relearn each other in daylight. It's different than last night—slower, more deliberate, with none of the desperate edge of first discovery.
After, she lies sprawled across my chest, tracing lazy circles on my skin, her curls tickling my chin.
"We should probably go down soon," she murmurs against my chest. "Before they send a search party."
"Let them wonder." I run my hand down the curve of her spine. "I'm not sharing you yet."
She props herself up to look at me, hair falling around us like a curtain. "You know, for a grumpy mechanic, you're surprisingly possessive."
"Only about things that matter." I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "And you matter, Cassandra Green. More than I thought possible this quickly."
Something shifts in her expression, softening with vulnerability. "I came to Whitetail Falls looking for somewhere to belong." Her voice is quiet, sincere. "I never expected to find someone to belong to."
The words hit me square in the chest, cracking open something I've kept sealed for years. I sit up, keeping her in my lap, needing to see her clearly for what I'm about to say.
"I've lived in this town my whole life," I tell her, tracing the curve of her cheek.
"Never wanted to be anywhere else. But something was always missing, and I couldn't figure out what.
Then you showed up with your broken-down car and your color-coded filing system, and suddenly my world made sense. "
Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. "Jonathan..."
I reach behind the couch cushion, where I'd hidden it earlier while she was still asleep—a small brass key on a ring shaped like a gear.
"I want you to have this." I press it into her palm. "To my place. To the shop. To everything."
She stares at the key, then back at me. "Are you sure?"
"More sure than I've ever been." I curl her fingers around it. "Stay with me, Cassandra. Not just today or tonight. Stay."
A tear spills down her cheek, but she's smiling—that full, radiant smile that first caught me off guard in my garage.
"I guess Whitetail Falls really does claim its own," she whispers, leaning forward to kiss me softly. "Yes. I'll stay."
An hour later, we finally make it downstairs. Dale takes one look at us, Cassandra in yesterday's clothes with my flannel shirt over them, me with my hand resting on the small of her back, and smirks.
"About damn time," he says, turning back to the engine he's working on. "Mike owes me twenty bucks."
Cassandra blushes, but she's smiling, unashamed. I keep her close as we walk through the garage, not caring who sees or what they think. This is Whitetail Falls, gossip travels fast, but so does acceptance when it's real. And this is the most real thing I've ever felt.
Cassandra leans into my side, warm and solid and real. "What are you thinking?"
I look down at her, this woman who crashed into my town and changed everything, and feel a peace I've never known settle over me.
"That I don't need to fix anything anymore," I tell her honestly. "Everything I need is right here."
She rises on tiptoe to kiss me, right there on the sidewalk in full view of anyone passing by. I hold her close, feeling her heartbeat against mine, knowing with absolute certainty that she's home.
My home. And I'm hers.