Chapter 13 Tessa
Fourteen days felt longer than they should have.
I spent them in Seattle meetings and late nights at my old apartment, the city noise sharper than I remembered.
Every evening, I called Noah. Some nights, Lily commandeered the phone to tell me about school or the birdhouse that now had a second coat of paint.
Other nights, it was just Noah’s low voice and the quiet stretch of distance between us.
We didn’t solve everything on those calls. We simply stayed present.
On the fifteenth morning I drove back into Maple Peak with the windows down. The air smelled of pine and cold earth and the faint woodsmoke of early autumn. The mountains looked the same. I felt different.
I went straight to the workshop.
Noah was outside stacking lumber under the open-sided shelter. He straightened when he heard my car, wiped his hands on his jeans, and waited. No big smile. Just that steady gray-blue gaze and the smallest shift in his shoulders that told me he had been waiting for this exact moment.
I parked, got out, and walked across the gravel. The scent of cedar grew stronger with every step.
“You’re early,” he said.
“I left before dawn.” I stopped in front of him. “I turned down the rest of the Seattle on-site. I’ll handle the remaining work remotely. I gave notice on my apartment.”
Noah’s eyes searched my face. “That’s a lot of decisions for two weeks.”
“They were easy once I stopped pretending I wanted the old version of my life more than this one.” I drew a breath. “I want to stay, Noah. Not as a temporary designer. As someone who’s choosing you and Lily and this place. If you’ll have me.”
For a second, he said nothing. Then he reached out, pulled me against him, and held on like a man who had been bracing for a different ending. His flannel smelled of sawdust and clean soap. His heart beat hard under my cheek.
“I’ll have you,” he said into my hair. “I’ve been ready since the night you walked into Lily’s room and made everything quieter.”
We stood there in the open air while a light wind moved through the pines. When he finally eased back, it was only far enough to kiss me—slow, thorough, and sure. No audience. No hesitation. Just the two of us and the decision that no longer felt like a risk.
Inside the shop, Lily’s latest drawing was taped to the wall near the office: three figures this time, standing beside a birdhouse under a big yellow sun. She had written our names underneath in careful letters.
Noah saw me looking and gave a quiet huff of laughter. “She started that the day you left. Said we needed to be ready for when you came home.”
Home.
The word settled in my chest and stayed.
That evening, we ate dinner at his table—Lily’s favorite pasta, garlic bread, a salad I insisted on adding.
Lily talked nonstop about school and the festival and how I had to help her paint the birdhouse roof “the exact right red.” Noah listened more than he spoke, but every time his eyes met mine across the table, the quiet promise in them made my pulse skip.
After Lily was in bed, we sat on the back steps with the porch light off and the dark mountains rising in front of us. The air was cold enough to see our breath. Noah’s arm rested along the step behind me. I leaned into his side.
“I’m still scared sometimes,” I admitted. “Of wanting this much. Of not knowing exactly how the logistics will work.”
“Me too.” His voice was low and even. “But I’m more scared of the version where you don’t come back. We’ll figure out the rest the same way we got here. One honest day at a time.”
I turned my face into his neck and breathed him in. “One day at a time.”
He kissed the top of my head, then the corner of my mouth, then my mouth properly. The kiss carried none of the desperate edge from the early days. It felt like a beginning that had already decided to last.
Later, when the house was quiet and the only light came from the lamp in his bedroom, we undressed each other without hurry.
The sex was slower than the first time—tender, deep, full of the kind of attention that made me feel chosen rather than temporary.
When I came, it was with his name against his shoulder and his arms locked around me like he had no intention of letting go.
He followed with a low sound that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than desire.
Afterward, we lay facing each other in the dark. Noah’s fingers traced idle patterns along my spine. Outside, an owl called once and then fell silent.
“Stay,” he said. Not a question.
“I’m staying.”
The words felt solid. Real.
We had started with a design contract and a man who kept everyone at arm’s length. We had ended with a little girl’s drawings on the workshop wall and a future neither of us had planned but both of us now wanted.
Maple Peak had room for us.
We were going to take it.