Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
PIPER
The estate sale is in a converted warehouse on the east side of Reno. Three floors of mid-century furniture, industrial lighting, reclaimed architectural salvage. Exactly the kind of inventory that would've had me vibrating with excitement forty-eight hours ago.
Today I'm numb.
My car needed a new alternator. The shop in Whisper Vale had the part, had it installed by five, and I was on the road to Reno before the sun went down.
Found a motel. Took the hottest shower of my life.
Cried in the shower because that's private and doesn't count.
Slept badly in a bed that didn't smell like wood smoke.
Drove to the estate sale at eight this morning with my game face on.
The seller is a retired architect named Frank who's downsizing. His collection is stunning. A pair of Eames shell chairs in original fiberglass. A walnut credenza with brass hardware that makes my chest ache. A set of Danish teak dining chairs, six of them, upholstery intact.
My hands photograph everything. My brain calculates shipping costs, restoration needs, resale margins.
The professional part of me is functioning fine.
The rest of me keeps hearing a quiet voice say three days, Piper, like that's all it was.
Like I imagined the way he held my hand after. Like the flannel shirt meant nothing.
"You want me to hold the credenza?" Frank asks, watching me run my fingers along the walnut grain.
"Yes. All of it. The chairs, the credenza, the dining set. I'll wire the deposit this afternoon."
He shakes my hand. First major buy for the business. The beginning of everything I've been working toward for two years. My stomach should be doing backflips.
Instead I sit on a crate in the loading bay and press my palms against my eyes until the burning stops.
My phone has signal again. Twenty-three missed calls from Mom. Fourteen texts from my brother Danny. One from my business partner Courtney asking about the sale. Nothing from a number I don't have, belonging to a man who doesn't own a phone that works half the time anyway.
What did I expect? A smoke signal?
The loading bay door is open. June heat pours in. I'm working on the deposit paperwork when a shadow blocks the light.
A big shadow.
Looking up from the clipboard, my breath catches.
Beck Craine stands in the loading bay entrance. Jeans, boots, a clean henley with the sleeves pushed to his elbows. His hair is pushed back. His beard is the same. Those scarred hands hang at his sides. He looks like he drove three hours without stopping and possibly without breathing.
"How did you find me?"
"Parker called the estate sale company. They gave him the warehouse address." He steps inside. Stops about six feet away. "I would've been here sooner but I had to finish something first."
"Finish what?"
He reaches into his back pocket. Pulls out a piece of dark cloth wrapped around something small. Unfolds it on his palm and holds it out.
A key. Hand-forged iron. The bow is shaped into a simple curved design, hammered thin, the metalwork precise. Not decorative. Functional. The kind of key that fits an actual lock.
"I put a new lock on the cabin door this morning," he says. "Made two keys. This one's yours."
My throat closes.
"I was wrong." His voice is low. Steady, but rough underneath.
"Everything I said yesterday was fear dressed up as logic.
I told you this life wasn't enough because that's what I believed.
Because someone told me that once and I let it become true.
But you standing in my forge, holding my work, looking at my hands like they built something worth seeing.
" He swallows. "You made me want to be found, Piper.
And when the road cleared, I panicked. Pushed you out before you could choose to leave because that's easier than hoping someone stays. "
"Beck."
"I'm not done." He takes a breath. "You said you were going to ask to come back.
So I'm asking instead. Come back. Not to give up your life.
Bring your life with you. The business, the vintage pieces, all of it.
Reno's ninety minutes away. Vegas is a flight.
You can build your business from anywhere with a laptop and a truck.
And I'll build you a studio if you want one. With my hands. Whatever you need."
The key sits on his palm. Iron, warm from his pocket. Made in his forge with the same hands that held me, touched me, let me go.
"You drove three hours to bring me a key."
"I would've driven thirty."
Standing up from the crate. Closing the distance. Taking the key from his hand. The iron is smooth, heavy for its size. Real.
"You're an idiot," I tell him.
"I know."
"You wasted an entire day being scared when you could've been kissing me."
"I know that too."
"And you need to know that I'm not her. I'm never going to look at your life and see something to escape from. I look at your cabin, your forge, your mountain, and I see a place I want to fill with color and furniture and noise. I see a life I want to design. With you in it."
His jaw works. Those gold-brown eyes are glassy. Beck Craine, the man who carries people off mountains and hammers steel for a living, is about to cry in a warehouse in Reno.
"Okay," he manages.
"Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay."
Grabbing the front of his henley, I pull him down and kiss him. He grabs my waist, lifts me against him. My legs wrap around his hips. The clipboard clatters to the concrete floor. Somewhere behind us Frank mutters "Good lord" and walks the other direction.
"Take me home," I whisper against his mouth.
He does.
The drive takes ninety minutes. His truck smells like forge smoke. My hand rests on his thigh the entire way, his fingers laced through mine. We don't talk much. Don't need to. The key is in my pocket, pressing warm against my hip.
The cabin looks the same. The wildflowers in the mason jar are wilting. Slag is on the porch railing. He jumps down when he sees me, rubs against my ankles, and meows once. Accusatory. Where have you been.
"I missed you too," I tell him.
Inside, Beck locks the door. The new lock. My key's twin.
Then his mouth is on mine. Hands in my hair, my back against the door, his body pressing me into the wood. No hesitation this time. No careful distance. He kisses me desperate, deep, his hands pulling at my clothes with an urgency that's nothing like the controlled precision of the forge.
My sundress hits the floor. His henley follows. He lifts me again, carries me to the bedroom. We fall onto the sheets that still smell faintly like the last time, and the recognition of that makes me pull him closer.
"I need you," he says against my neck. "Right now."
"Then have me."
He strips my underwear down. Unbuckles his belt. Rolls on the condom with hands that shake, which breaks me a little because this man's hands never shake. He pushes inside me in one stroke. Full. Deep. My back arches off the mattress.
This time is different. Harder, faster, rawer. He pins my wrists above my head with one hand, drives into me with a rhythm that says I'm sorry and I'm yours and I was terrified at the same time. My hips meet every thrust. His free hand grips my thigh, pulling my leg higher around his waist.
"Fuck, Piper." Forehead against mine. "Don't leave."
"I'm not going anywhere."
He drops his head to my breast. Sucks my nipple into his mouth while he fucks me deep, and the dual sensation makes me clench around him.
My orgasm builds fast, pressure coiling tight.
His thumb finds my clit, circles hard. Two strokes later I shatter, crying out, nails raking his shoulders.
He follows with a groan that vibrates through his chest into mine.
Afterward, tangled in sheets, his hand tracing circles on my bare hip. Slag at our feet again. The cabin is quiet except for breathing and birdsong and the occasional purr.
"I love you," he says. No preamble. No throat-clearing.
Just his voice in the dim room, rough and certain.
"Not falling. Not almost. I love you, Piper.
Probably since you tried to fight me with that stick but definitely since you held my blade in the forge and looked at me like I'd built something worth seeing. "
My eyes burn. The good kind. The kind where your chest fills up so fast it has nowhere to go but out.
"I love you too." Pressing my lips to his collarbone. "I love your cabin and your terrible coffee and your forge and your grumpy cat. I love that you carried me off a mountain and cooked me eggs and gave me your bed. I love your hands, Beck. Every scar."
His fingers tighten on my hip. He pulls me closer, buries his face in my hair. Breathes.
"I bought a credenza today," I murmur after a minute.
"What's a credenza?"
"It's going against the wall by the fireplace."
"My wall."
"Our wall."
"Our wall," he repeats. Quiet. Like he's tasting the word. "Yeah. Okay."
The key is still in the pocket of the sundress on the bedroom floor. Iron, hand-forged. Made for me by a man who shapes metal for a living but couldn't shape the words to ask me to stay until he almost lost me.
I'm staying.
And that credenza is going to look incredible.