Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lou
“Are you the one dating Blaze Stevens?” The young girl at the desk stared at me like I was some mythical character come to life. Blaze Stevens’s girlfriend. A veritable unicorn—a.k.a. something that didn’t ever exist.
“No, I’m not,” I told her, adding for good measure. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read online.”
“Oh man.” She was genuinely disappointed. More than genuinely. “That was the whole reason I told my parents we should come here for vacation. I thought he’d be here.” She let out a dramatic groan.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that… planning a vacation around a celebrity sighting… I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea. But there were plenty of people who could.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah…” Her hand slid off the counter dejectedly.
“Do you want a pastry?” I lifted the box I’d stashed on the shelf under the counter, two massive cronuts sitting inside. Hopefully, something sweet would cheer her up.
“Sure.” She reached over and took one with a small smile .
If I hadn’t pitied Blaze before, I did now. The way people circled around him like vultures even when he wasn’t physically around was frightening. Even now, in the days after that final article, they still called and asked. Stopped in. Left when they realized there wasn’t a story.
Mostly though, I tried not to think about the recovered actor or his handsome brother. It was hard since Joanna had visited every day since Wade walked out.
She wanted me to know how Blaze was… she also thought she was helping to tell me how tortured Wade was. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it only hurt to hear all that and know he still kept his distance. It hurt even worse to hear the hope in her voice.
“Lou.”
I turned at Frankie’s voice. I hadn’t seen my sister since Wade left. I’d called her and told her what happened, sobbing from the floor in my room. She’d talked me down in the way that only Frankie could and said she wanted to come, but Logan was sick and then got her and Chandler sick, so she couldn’t leave. It was better that way. I hadn’t wanted to see anyone. I was afraid what they would see.
A woman who’d taken a risk and gotten her heart broken.
In a blink, her arms were around me, and I was crying silently into her shoulder.
“It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay,” she promised, gently rubbing my back.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I’m fine, I promise?—”
“Lou… I love it,” Frankie cut me off, drawing back and staring behind me. “I love the painting. I love that you hung it here. I’m sorry, but I’m so glad my photo is gone.”
“What?” I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“What?” She cocked her head.
“You didn’t want your photo here? Why didn’t you say?—”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t care where my photo is, I just never thought it belonged here.”
“You got married here… ”
She waved me off. “So, hang it in the living room or on the stairs or in the hall, but not here. This is your post, the beating heart of the inn. It’s where you belong, not me. Not my wedding.”
I blinked slowly and then nodded. “Why didn’t you ever say?”
Her eyes widened and then turned soft. “Because I love you, Lou, and I’m happy to be what you need. I’m happy to be the focus or a distraction, but that’s not what I want. All I’ve ever wanted was you feel safe enough to be who you are. To stand up for what you want.”
I felt the tears threaten to spill again, and I quickly wiped my eyes. I was so tired of crying.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Frankie smiled, and then her head turned toward the opening front door. “I’ll let you handle that. I’m going to go find some pastries in the kitchen now that I can keep food down again.”
I nodded and turned to greet the guest?—
“Blaze?” I gaped at the man who’d walked through the door as though he were a dead man come back to life. In a way, he kind of was.
“Hi, Lou.” The tousled hair. His tipped smile. The shadows still covered his eyes but not like before.
“Hi,” I choked out. “It’s good—I’m so glad to see you—to see you’re doing alright.”
“I am, thank you,” he said, but all I could focus on was his eyes. They were just like Wade’s.
I flushed and lowered my head. “Is there something I can do?—”
“I wanted to apologize.”
I balked. “No?—”
“I’m sorry for how I acted the day that I fell. I wasn’t… in a good place. And I’m sorry for how I left the room?—”
“Really, it’s no problem. It’s fine.”
“I also wanted to thank you for everything you did for me. While I stayed here, and then afterward.”
Heat exploded into my cheeks. Embarrassment but also pain. I didn’t want to be thanked for lying and breaking my own heart.
“Who… told you?” I swallowed.
“My mom.”
“Then you know you don’t need to thank me,” I said and lowered my voice. “I’m so sorry for what happened and then for lying about who I was… to you. I just panicked, and then things spiraled?—”
“Please, Lou. If anyone is an expert in the ways life can spiral, it’s me.” His grin tipped higher on the right. “I know I’ve got a few days left on the reservation, but I’m leaving town today, so I’m just going to get my things.”
“Oh.” My heart sank like a stone. “Of course.” I forced a smile, trying to revive the sluggish beat in my chest.
Of course, he would come back for his things. Why wouldn’t he? His stay was almost up? Why would I assume it would be Wade who’d return for all of his brother’s possessions?
“I figured a place like this… someone is definitely waiting in the wings for a room to open up, and since I don’t need it…”
“Thank you.” There wasn’t anyone waiting, but I appreciated his thought. “Do you need any help?”
Please say no.
I hadn’t been in the room since the morning Wade had walked out. Even to clean it—something I could justify waiting at least a few days to do.
“I’ll be fine. Thanks.”
I listened to the disappearing sounds of his footsteps, exhaling deeply at the distant click of his door opening and then closing.
This was it. My eyes closed. The end. With that room locked—untouched—it was like a piece of this puzzle left unfinished. A loose thread left untied. A small sliver of hope that Wade would be the one to walk through those doors and pull me into his arms.
Instead, it was only the Hollywood heartthrob. I let out a weak laugh. Harper would be beside herself to know the disappointment I felt.
“Lou.”
I tensed, a shiver running up and down my spine.
No. I squeezed my eyes tighter. I was imagining things again. Imagining him. His voice. His musk. His warmth.
“Lou. Look at me.”
My eyes flitted open, sure that what I saw in front of me was nothing more than an apparition. A figment of my desperate imagination. The shorter, light brown hair. The square jaw and straight nose. Full lips, the bottom one still thicker than the top. The slight cleft of his chin and that stare. Earthy and raw like timber set on fire.
“Wade.” I breathed out his name, and he didn’t disappear.
He was real. He was here. But why?
My heart cried out, begging to be put out of its misery. I thought of a thousand things to say, but they’d all already been said. I loved him. I was sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone. To repeat them only risked a repeat of the trampling over my heart.
“Your brother is upstairs.” It was the safest assumption for why he was here—the thing I had to believe out of self-preservation.
“I know,” he rumbled, eyes flicking to the stairs and then to the painting behind me before capturing mine once more.
The heat of his stare felt like a hand around my throat, holding me hostage with its strength. “Is there something else I can help you with?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat, and it hit me then that it wasn’t anger pinching his jaw tight or making him rock side to side. He was nervous. “I need to rent a room.”
“A room?” I blurted out stupidly, and then quickly reached for my tablet. Business. He was here for business. Still, my racing heart wouldn’t quit. “Of course. Let me check for you.” Normally, my availability would be sitting at the ready at the top of my head, but it had evaporated under his stare .
“Thank you.”
“How long do you need the room for?” I kept my eyes focused on the screen, the booking app blurring in and out of focus.
“Forever if you have it—if you’ll have me.”
The world stilled. My heart fluttered like a butterfly free from its tight cocoon. I looked up, blinking slowly as the iPad slid from my hands and clattered onto the counter.
Had I heard him right? Had I really heard him?
“I’m sorry, Lou,” he said, the weight of his voice pinning down my wild thoughts to reality. He was here. He’d come back. To stay.
“Wade…” My voice cracked as tears readied in the corners of my eyes.
“I’m so sorry for the things I said—how I treated you the other day. I can’t—” He broke off with a huff. “I was shocked and upset, but there’s no excuse?—”
“I should’ve told you the truth sooner,” I insisted, unwilling to be blameless. “But I was afraid of losing you.”
“And I should’ve listened when you tried to tell me… but I was afraid I’d never truly had you.”
“You always had me.” My heart cried out for him. “Only you.”
“I love you, Lou. I want you and this inn and this town and your family for all of my days. But mostly, I want to give you what you want,” he said and reached into his pocket.
My brows pulled together as he slid free a folded piece of paper and set it on the counter. It wasn’t paper, I realized as he began to unfold it. My heart stumbled. I knew exactly what it was.
He flattened the image I’d torn out of the wedding magazine weeks ago. The intimate celebration I’d envisioned for myself here at the inn… the fantasy I’d pictured with him.
“You kept it.”
“If there’s one thing the last three days have taught me, it’s that I’ve kept every piece of you with me. Your smile. Your generosity. Your blushes. Hell, even your love of pastries…”
He reached his hand over the counter, holding his palm open for mine. When I set my fingers in his, he led me from behind the desk so there was nothing between us.
“I want to give you this future, Lou. With me,” he said, and then my eyes widened as he slowly lowered onto one knee. “If you’ll have me. If you want me—only if you want me.”
It was better than any ring. He asked me to marry him with a reflection of who I was and what I wanted, and I felt pure happiness burst through me.
“I do,” I said, pulling him up to me, happiness bubbling from my lips. “I do want you.”
Relief snapped through him, and Wade hauled me into his arms. “I love you, my brave heart.”
“I love you, too,” I managed just before his mouth claimed mine.
The kiss was deep and hungry, swallowing me up in its desire until my toes curled and my knees turned to mush, and every other thought was wiped from my mind except one.
I was happy.