Chapter 30 Hunter
Hunter
I shouldn’t open the app again.
I wanted her to follow my rules, but I am breaking every single one of them for her.
I know that before my thumb even taps the screen. I know it the way you know not to touch a bruise that hasn’t healed yet—because the pain doesn’t surprise you anymore. It just confirms what you already feel.
Still, I do it.
Wind’s last message sits there like it’s been waiting for me. Like it hasn’t aged a day, even though everything else in my life has shifted around it.
I read her message from that night, lost in the woods, the words thin and shaking.
The next one more desperate, that she needs a friend.
And then the final one, wanting to meet me.
That was it. That was the part that should have broken through every wall I built. The part that should’ve had me responding instantly, asking where she was, telling her I was there.
Instead, I stayed silent.
I told myself it was restraint. That it was responsible. That if I answered, I’d have to admit I knew who she was, and once I crossed that line, there was no going back.
I reach for that excuse again now, and it still sounds like a lie.
She never messaged after that night. Not once, no explanation, not even anger. Just… gone.
Maybe she thought I didn’t care.
Maybe she decided she was done trusting a voice that vanished when she needed it most.
The irony doesn’t escape me.
I’ve spent most of my life surviving abandonment, and the moment someone reached for me honestly, I disappeared.
I lock my phone and set it face down on the desk like it might burn me if I keep looking at it.
The house is quiet tonight.
Not empty, never empty anymore, but calm in the way that comes after something settles. Aunt Jane is asleep. Mrs. Lane turned in early. Adaline’s room is dark, her door closed.
A few weeks ago, her presence felt temporary. Now it feels like gravity.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling, my mind doing what it always does when I’m exhausted, rewinding, replaying, and refusing to rest.
Wind saw me without context.
She didn’t know my last name. Didn’t know the business headlines, or the way Rose Hills learned to turn my name into an accusation. She didn’t look at me like I was dangerous or damaged or something to be handled carefully.
She just… talked to me. Asked questions. Pushed when I deflected. Stayed when I expected her to leave.
Losing that feels like grief. And that scares the hell out of me. Because grief means I let myself want something.
My mother taught me what happens when you want people too much.
You get left.
Adaline is different, I tell myself that every day now.
Like repetition might make it safer. But the truth is, she’s stronger than she was when she arrived. I see it in the way she moves through the house, the fear that once lived in her shoulders easing. Connor’s shadow doesn’t follow her the way it used to.
She’s not trapped here anymore.
When she first came to Rose Hills, she needed safety, distance. A place to hide while she rebuilt herself.
Now?
Now she could leave.
Her car is fixed. Her options are open again. She doesn’t need this town or this house—or me.
And the thought of that unsettles me in a way I don’t want to examine too closely.
Because I don’t want to be needed.
I want to be chosen.
That day on the tree, we both opened ourselves to each other and shared our childhoods.
I know she felt the connection too. She jumped into my arms when I wanted her to trust me blindly.
I think about the truck, how close we were, how the air between us tightened… until it felt inevitable.
How her breath hitched, mixed with mine. I wanted to kiss her.
But I didn’t.
And for once, restraint wasn’t fear; it was respect.
Because I won’t touch her until she knows the truth. She deserves that much.
The truth is a loaded thing. It’s not just a confession, it’s a risk. One that could erase everything we’ve built in a single breath.
I’m North.
Two words that could end this before it ever really begins. I’ve played out the outcomes in my head a hundred different ways.
She laughs, soft, disbelieving, then goes cold when she realizes I’m serious.
She’s hurt, furious, and feels betrayed. She walks out.
She stays but never looks at me the same way again.
There’s a version where she understands, where she sees why I stayed silent, why I was afraid.
But hope has never been a smart investment for me. I rub a hand over my face and exhale slowly.
I can’t keep doing this, living in halves. Holding one version of myself online and another in the real world, both circling the same woman like I’m daring fate to expose me.
Adaline already knows something’s there. I see it in the way she looks at me now. Not careful or guarded anymore.
Her heart is slowly opening up. And that openness is a gift, I’m not sure I deserve if I keep lying by omission.
The house creaks softly as it settles for the night. Somewhere down the hall, a door closes. Footsteps fade.
I go to the kitchen to get water and see a sandwich in the fridge. I sit down to eat while I’m looking at the app on my phone.
I bite into the sandwich, I stop, and then take another bite.
I smile. She’s been leaving them for me the last few nights now. And that makes me feel happy, excited, and a little sad. I don’t know.
I start typing into the HeartLines App.
My heart is pounding harder than it should be for a man who’s faced worse things than this, because this isn’t danger.
It’s choice.
But none of that compares to this moment.