Chapter 11
ELEVEN
QUINCY
Closing the apartment door behind me, I drop my luggage at my feet and release the heaviest of sighs.
“What a day,” I murmur. “Whoever thought it was a good idea to book a flight home with three connecting flights is an idiot.”
It was me. I’m the idiot. But at the time, it hadn’t seemed like there was another option.
I couldn’t stay in Alaska.
Especially not with Knox’s new—real—bride around.
Of course, there’s no one here to reply. Not even my cat, Lacy, is around to offer a comforting—if judgmental—meow after being gone for so long.
In anticipation of my then-upcoming wedding and honeymoon, I’d sent her for an extended stay at my co-worker Devony’s place. Axel had hoped it would be a permanent extended stay. I’d insisted he’d get used to having her around.
I should have known then it wasn’t going to work out between us.
That I’d been too willing to compromise, too eager to please.
Too afraid to be alone.
I glance around the apartment—clean, orderly, perfectly curated down to the simple but cheerful floral art pieces on the walls and the color-coordinated velvet pillows on the couch. They’re all things I thought I wanted.
So why does it feel like nothing I need?
Dropping my coat onto the back of a chair, I sink down beside my suitcase and press the heels of my hands to my eyes. Maybe I’m just exhausted. Jet lag and heartbreak are a mean cocktail. I’ll cry tonight, have an actual cocktail, and sleep it off. Then, in the morning, I’ll rebuild the fractured pieces of my life.
Again.
A knock on the door startles me from my gloom.
I freeze.
No one knows I’m home yet. Besides the, “I’m fine, I’m in Alaska” messages I sent to my loved ones more than a week ago, I haven’t texted anyone.
Heck, I only turned on my phone to order a car at the airport.
There’s only one person who might have an inkling I’m home.
There’s a second knock. It’s even firmer. My heart flutters at the possibility. Maybe it’s Knox. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he’s here to apologize.
Maybe—after some serious explanations for why he kept in touch with his mail-order bride even after we’d been falling for each other—I’ll give him a second chance.
Pushing myself to my feet and inch toward the peephole, pulse racing.
I nearly choke on my gasp.
It’s Axel.
The wrong him.
With a groan, I turn and push my back to the door. “You might as well leave.”
“Quincy, please.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I think we have a lot to say. Especially you.” He heaves a hefty sigh. “Do you have any idea how humiliating it was to have you run out on me like that. With a room full of hundreds of people.”
“Humiliating.” I scoff at that. “Not heartbreaking or worrying.”
“Well, those things too, obviously.” He huffs again. “I don’t understand what came over you. Running out on me like that. After all we’d been through.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get over it.” I push away from the door and reach for the handle. I’m mad enough to face him now.
I even feel strong enough.
Pulling the door open, I turn the full force of my glare on the man who once held my future in his hands. Apparently my expression is as fierce as it feels. He takes a step back, nearly bumping into the fire extinguisher on the wall behind him.
“Listen up, you little shit.” I narrow my eyes. “I heard everything you and your ‘boys’ had to say while you were cooling your heals before the wedding.”
“Look.” He takes a nervous breath. “I don’t know what you think you heard but?—”
“Stop. Just stop. Don’t you dare try to gaslight me right now. Don’t you dare try to pretend that you said you weren’t marrying me for love, but because it was expected.”
“That was just cold feet.”
I snort. “Was it cold feet when you fucked your co-worker? Or the woman you met at the bar? Or my high school lab partner?”
He opens his mouth, but no words come out. Good. They’d probably be more lies. More excuses. But none of those matter now.
“You know what? I’m glad you did it. I’m glad you said it all.”
He blinks rapidly. “You are?”
“I’m especially glad I heard it all.”
His expression softens. “You’re right. It’s good we don’t have any secrets.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.” I smile too brightly at him. “So now I’ll tell you one of mine: I’m so glad I’m not married to you and I will never—ever—get back with you.”
“But—”
“You’ve said your piece. I’ve said mine. It’s time to call it what it is and now I think it’s best we go our separate ways.” I slam the door in his face. “And if you see her again, be sure to tell my old lab partner I say ‘hi.’”
My body is thrumming with energy and I release a shaky laugh. That felt… so damn good. I meant every word I said to Axel. Well, maybe everything besides wanting him to tell one of his affair partners that I say hello.
But I meant that I’m glad it all came out. It save both of us from being in a marriage that was only ever going to end in heartbreak.
There’s another loud, insistent knock on the door. Blood boiling I pull it open, ready to not just give Axel a piece of my mind, but the whole damn thing.
“And another thing?—”
I freeze as my gaze lands on the man on the other side of the threshold.
“Knox,” I whisper.
It’s him.
The right him.
Wearing the same heavy flannel I last saw on myself. Hair wild, the way it is after he’s run his hands through it a million times when he’s worried. The lines around his eyes tired.
His expression completely wrecked.
I grip the doorframe to keep myself upright.
“How—what are you—how are you here?” I stammer.
“The usual way.” He drags a hand through his hair, making it even messier. “I caught a red-eye. Spent the whole flight tracking down your contact information. Rented the first car I could find. It smelled like corn chips and had three pine air fresheners. But I cracked a window and didn’t stop driving until I got here.”
“You made good time.” I suppose that was the benefit of booking a more direct flight than the one I took, with all its connections. “But why?”
“You left.”
“Of course, I left.” My irritation reignites. “Because your freaking bride showed up!”
“She’s not my bride. She was never my bride.”
“Oh, please.” I roll my eyes. “I met her. I spoke with her. She said you’d been writing to her. That you made her feel safe and loved. That you realized you’d developed feelings for her and changed your mind about wanting her there.”
“I swear, I didn’t write her.” He exhales slowly. “Boone did.”
I blink. “What?”
“Using my profile. I didn’t even know she really existed until I saw her standing on the tarmac.”
“Boone wrote her.”
“Apparently he started up again when she reached out to apologize for never showing. He wrote back. Again. Somewhere along the way he fell for her.”
“Oh.” It knocks the air out of my indignation.
“You believe me don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” And, I mean it. Unlike Axel, who proved time and time again that I couldn’t trust or count on him, Knox has always been dependable. He’s always been honest with me.
I should have given him the benefit of the doubt before hopping the first flight out of there.
“Good.” He hesitates. “You left without saying goodbye.”
“You weren’t there.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I was fueling the plane.”
My throat tightens. “I thought—” I break off, folding my arms across my chest like armor. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Silence hangs between us like the thick fog that settles in the valley near the mountain he calls home.
“You should probably come inside.” I open the door wider and step aside.
Knox walks into the apartment silently, almost reverently. As if he’s walking through an ancient cathedral. His fingers brush the back of the couch, the edge of Lacy’s scratching place.
“I imagined this place a hundred times,” he says. “It’s so like you. Pretty. Sweet. Calming.”
“It's fine.” I shrug. “It’s what I always thought I wanted.”
He turns, his gaze steady. “And now?”
“Now… Now, I’m not sure,” I admit. “I think I needed to leave to realize what I was missing.”
He takes a step toward me. “So did I.”
I stare at him. “Is that why you came?”
He nods. “Because I couldn’t let you leave without knowing just how damn much I love you.”
My breath catches.
“You said once that you needed to prove to yourself you were strong on your own,” he says. “That you needed to learn how to rescue your own self.”
I nod slowly.
“Now, I hate to argue with you," Knox says, a crooked smile tugging at his lips and wraps his arms around you. "Especially after I’ve just gotten you back in my arms. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Really.” His expression sobers. “You didn’t need me or my mountain or your adventures in the wilderness to prove anything.”
“Oh really?” My brows pull down into a feigned frown. “You’re really going to tell me how I think and feel?”
“You should know me better than that.” He raises a hand to cradle my jaw. “Just like I know you.”
“Well…” He’s right. I do know him better. Never at any moment in the time we’ve spent together has Knox tried to mansplain something or make me feel like an idiot. He’s always trusted me to know what to do, and filled in any little gaps of knowledge I might have along the way.
Just like he’s been every bit as willing to learn from me.
“And what exactly do you know?” I whisper.
“I know you’re brave. And smart. And capable. And that you didn’t need to go to the end of the earth to prove it. You already were everything you ever needed to be and more.”
A tear slips down my cheek. His thumb catches it and wipes it away.
“I also know I’m better with you.” His voice drops, soft and gravelly. “Not because you fix me. But because you’ve reminded me I was never broken in the first place.”
“Oh, Knox…”
“I spent years thinking I’d failed. That leaving service meant I didn’t live up to my promise. That I couldn’t be enough for anyone.”
“You are enough.”
“So are you.”
I throw my arms around him and he tightens his hold on me, lifting my feet nearly a foot off the air. We cling to each other, our foreheads pressed together, breath shaky.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you, too.” His voice is gruff with emotion. “I’d chase you around the world if that’s what it took to make you see that. Just like you see me.”
I laugh through another tear. “That’s pretty poetic for a mountain man.”
“What can I say?” He kisses the corner of my mouth, his familiar beard tickling my skin. “You bring out the poet in me.”
I pull back just enough to look at him. “So… what happens now?”
“Now, I convince you to come back with me.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t know. I’ve seen your pantry. It’s mostly peanut butter and protein bars.”
“I’ll build you a spice rack.”
“And your cabin has one bathroom. And no closet space.”
“I’ll add a walk-in.”
I smile.
He sobers. “You don’t have to decide today. You can come for a visit. A week. A month. A lifetime. Whatever you want.”
“I want you.”
“Then that’s what you’ll get.” His lips brush over mine. “You deserve the world, Quincy. And I plan on being the man to help you get it.”