Chapter 14 #4
The room changed around him as the hours passed. Morning light became afternoon light. The coffee went cold; he didn’t care. Huck curled up at his feet; Finn stayed with Livvie. He could hear her turning pages in the other room. The soft scratch of her pen when she made notes.
This was what he’d been missing. Not just her help with the story—her presence in his home. The sound of another person living in his space. The knowledge that when he looked up from his desk, she’d be there.
“I could tell you that you’re worth more than the space you don’t take up,” Aldric said. “I could tell you that you changed everything. That I was drowning, and you taught me how to breathe again.”
Nate’s fingers paused on the keys.
“But that’s not the thing that scares me,” Aldric continued. “The thing that scares me is what comes after. When the battle’s over. When the world doesn’t need saving anymore. When it’s just you and me and all the ordinary days ahead of us.”
He typed the woman’s response. Her voice, her certainty, her refusal to let Aldric stop, turn back on the journey.
“What about the ordinary days scares you?”
“I don’t know how to have them. I’ve never had them. My whole life has been crisis and survival and putting one foot in front of the other because stopping meant falling apart. But you—”
Aldric reached for her. Kissed her. And Nate felt it in his own chest—the terror, the hope, the decision to stop running.
“You make me want to stop. And I don’t know who I am when I’m not running.”
The woman’s hand in Aldric’s. Her voice, soft and certain:
“Then we’ll figure it out together.”
Nate leaned back in his chair. Read what he’d written.
It was good. It was actually good.
More than good. It was true.
He heard footsteps in the hallway. Livvie appeared in the doorway—and she’d changed clothes. When had she changed clothes? Her hair was brushed now, falling in soft waves. She was wearing something rust-colored and soft jeans that fit better than her everyday ones, ankle boots.
She was dressed for the festival. Even though he hadn’t officially confirmed they were going.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
He looked at her. The way the afternoon light caught her face. The hope she was trying to hide and failing.
He closed the laptop. “Let’s go to the festival.”
Her laugh was bright and surprised and everything he wanted to hear for the rest of his life. “You said that already.”
“I’m saying it again.”
“You’ve been writing for”—she checked her phone—“seven hours. Don’t you want to finish the chapter first?”
“I finished it.”
“The romance scene? The one you’ve been stuck on?”
“Finished.”
She stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“I’m serious. I have one scene left. I’ll finish it tomorrow.” He stood up, and his body protested—stiff everything, that particular ache of sitting too long—but he didn’t care. “Give me twenty minutes to shower and change. Then we’re going.”
“Twenty minutes? That’s optimistic.”
“Fine. Thirty.”
“Still optimistic, but I’ll take it.” She was grinning now, that smile that made him want to write love scenes for the rest of his career. “I’ll be downstairs. Don’t take too long—Edie’s maple bacon bars wait for no one.”
She disappeared down the hallway. He heard her talking to the dogs, her voice light and happy in a way it hadn’t been since the fight about the deadline.
He’d done that. He’d put that happiness in her voice.
He grabbed clean clothes and headed for the shower.
They walked to the festival together.
The late-afternoon air was cool on his freshly shaved face, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and fallen leaves and something caramelized from the direction of town.
The sky was deepening into late-afternoon gold, the lake catching the color and holding it.
From the direction of the town square, he could hear music starting—fiddles and guitar, the opening notes of the Flannel Festival.
He hadn’t been to the festival since Emma died. Three years of avoiding it—the crowds, the memories, the people who would look at him with pity and ask how he was holding up.
But Livvie was beside him, her boots crunching on the gravel driveway, her face lit up with the kind of anticipation he remembered feeling once, before grief had made everything gray.
She was beautiful. He’d been noticing it for nearly two weeks—the freckles, the smile, the way she tilted her head when she was thinking. But tonight it hit him differently. Tonight she wasn’t just beautiful. She was here. With him. Walking toward a future he hadn’t known he wanted.
His hand brushed hers as they walked to the car.
He didn’t pull away.
Neither did she.
“Ready?” she asked.
He thought about the chapter he’d written. Aldric’s words: You make me want things I stopped wanting a long time ago.
He thought about the notebook he couldn’t find and the map he’d found instead and the woman beside him who’d given him more than she knew.
His deadline was in two days. And then Livvie would go back to New York, and somehow, tonight, he had to figure out how to ask her to stay.
But right now, the festival was starting, and she was smiling at him, and he was a wordsmith. He’d figure it out.
And they’d live happily ever after.