Chapter 32
Rowan
Pushing up from the black leather couch in the seating area of Jason’s lobby, I stare as the most tender, gentle man I have ever met terrifies Baby Bun and the other guys from his team so much they all jump back.
I’ve barely taken a step in his direction before he’s my Jason again.
No. Not mine.
Just Jason. Kind and understanding. Ed’s son. A man who deserves more than what I’ve brought him.
“I’m sorry to show up like this.” My voice is shaky, my heart racing.
He breaks away from his team, closing the distance between us with long strides. And I have to dig deep to keep my emotions in check, to stop from running up to him and burying my face against his chest.
His brows are drawn together, his face strained. He’s practically vibrating with an intensity I can’t quite read through my own whirling relief that he’s here.
That I’ll be able to speak to him before he goes… wherever he’s going. Somewhere, based on the oversized duffel strapped across his chest.
He’s gorgeous, wearing a linen shirt and light slacks. He hasn’t shaved and his damp hair is falling in the kind of mess I made of it after having my fingers in it all night.
“Rowan,” he says, voice like rough stones. Like finding the words after these past weeks is nothing like those easy endless conversations on the island.
Though I’m certain for different reasons.
“What… How are you here?” He shakes his head, looks back at his teammates who are openly staring from a safe distance, and then turns back to me. “I didn’t— How?”
For weeks, I’ve been thinking about what I’d say to this man if I saw him again. Now? I can’t remember a word. “I drove. From South Dakota.”
“You were… home?” he says slowly, some dawning realization I don’t understand beneath the words. And then, his head drops forward, and I’m pretty sure I hear, “Fucking Marsha.”
He has no idea.
“I would have called, but I didn’t have your number. I wasn’t actually sure this was your building. And I don’t even want to tell you how I found it, but—”
His head comes back up, and there’s something in his eyes that wasn’t there five seconds ago. He’s still radiating intensity, but it feels different. He looks taller. Broader.
More like the man cajoling me with stories about his team, about Ed. About the island.
The island.
“Jason, we need to talk. About the island.”
He’s nodding, the corner of his mouth hooking up in a… damn it, distractingly sexy half smile. “Sure. Anything you want.”
“I told Ron about us. About the will and my mom.”
His brow lifts, and his smile… whoa. That smile is… Focus!
“I convinced him to tell her the cabin was overrun with black mold and damage from the storm… W-what are you doing?” I gasp as Jason slowly lowers himself to his knees.
“Oh my God, Jason! Are you okay? There wasn’t any mold!
I swear. I was only trying to delay my mom long enough so I could figure out how to get her to sell you the cabin, without knowing it was you and trying to gouge you on the price because she’s—”
“Marry me.”
I blink, vaguely aware of the round of gasps sounding behind him.
I heard him wrong.
My lips start to form the What?, but he catches my hands in his. He’s not just smiling at me now.
This man is beaming up at me, radiating joy and— “Marry me, Rowan. I love you. I’ve been in love with you from the night we met.
And I totally get that I didn’t fully know you yet and that neither of us were fully formed into the people we’ve become.
But I swear to you it’s real. It’s how the men in my family are.
We fall in love and we know it. It’s real, and it’s till death do us part, even if that love only goes one way. ”
“But…” My head is spinning, and I’m a little nervous that the protein shake from the gas station seven hours ago wasn’t enough and I’m hallucinating.
“The cabin,” I whisper, starting to tremble. There’s no way this man who has every right to hate me is telling me he loves me. That he wants me. That even with everything I’ve cost him… he still loves me?
“I know we lost the cabin.” He shakes his head, still smiling. “But I’m so damn glad I got to spend my last week there with you.”
My voice cracks, and I can’t see past the emotion welling in my eyes and then spilling down my cheeks. “Jason, the cabin… is yours.”
Jason
She hasn’t said yes.
Okay, and maybe this is too much. Maybe I should have led with the being in love with her and then worked up to the marriage proposal. But all I could think when I turned around and saw her was that she was fucking here. Not marrying Ron halfway around the world.
That I was getting the chance to tell this woman what was in my heart.
“I shouldn’t have left like that. I’m sorry. So fucking sorry, Rowan.” I’m shaking my head, feeling that ache through my soul again, because, yeah. She’s here. But I don’t know if she’ll ever be mine.
“You were right about the will. I should have believed you, but I didn’t.
And then it just all happened at once. I looked up from seeing that I’d lost the cabin, and you were with Ron.
And when he kissed you… I realized I’d lost you too.
And I couldn’t fucking breathe. I couldn’t think beyond knowing I wouldn’t survive saying goodbye to you. ”
Her brows pull together, and she whispers my name. “Jason, no. I’m so sorry. Ron— he was confused, and I don’t know what he was thinking kissing me like that.”
“He was thinking he loved you and he’d try anything for the chance to keep you.”
She shakes her head. “No. He was trying to make something real that just… wasn’t.”
“And then you got back to the cabin. And I was already gone.”
She nods, and I die all over again.
“Bruce told me you left together.” I can barely say it.
She sighs, looking pained. “I couldn’t stay without you.
Ron helped me pack. He promised to tell my mother the cabin was uninhabitable to buy me some time.
I thought I could petition to have it registered as a historic landmark so the building might be preserved.
Something. Then he drove me to a hotel, and we said goodbye. ”
“He just left you at a hotel? Alone?” First me, then him. All in one day. Christ.
Her brows lift. “You’d have rather he stayed?”
I pause. “In his own room. On another floor. Or maybe at the place just down the road.”
But yeah, I’d rather she had someone.
“He offered, but I told him I’d be okay. He understood why things ended with us. But even though I believe he genuinely wanted me to be happy, it was hard for him to hear that I’d fallen in love with you. I didn’t want to make it harder on him than—”
“Wait, what?”
She searches my eyes, lifting one pretty shoulder. “I love you.”
I cough out something between a laugh and a very manly sob, pulling her into my arms. “Rowan, Christ, I love you too. So fucking much. I tried everything to rein it in, but it’s always been there.”
Her shoulders quake, and I run my hand over the soft spill of her hair. “Shh, don’t cry.”
“Happy tears,” she promises through a watery smile. “The best kind of tears.”
And then we’re kissing, pulling each other closer and closer, until we somehow start laughing together. Because we’re both on our knees in the middle of my building’s lobby.
I don’t fucking care. “So, about the whole marriage thing.”
She rolls her eyes with an amused sigh. “You’re caught up in the moment. I won’t hold you to it.”
I pull the bag strapped to my back free and set it down with a thunk. “I got something for you.”
She lights up, straightening. “I got something for you too.”
She did? “But, me first. Okay?”
At her nod, I unzip my bag and pull out the long, weighty bundle encased in layers of bubble wrap.
Her eyes go wide as I hold it between us. Carefully, she unwraps it and then gasps.
“I made it for you,” I tell her, watching the fresh tears track down her cheeks as she traces the lines of the rough-edged mailbox.
“From the fallen limb that almost took you away but somehow brought us together. And whether you chose to be with me or not, I wanted you to always have a piece of our island. And—” I open the front, where the history of my family and hers…
and their time together in that place is chronicled in dozens of well-worn and dearly loved notebooks.
“Jason? But these are yours.”
“I know them by heart. They live in my memory. But you never got that same chance. So I wanted you to have them. And I wanted you to have this.” I pull out the small leather box from the very back and hold it open.
“This was my mother’s ring. And fair warning, Rowan.
Now that I know you love me? I’ll be patient.
I’ll wait for as long as it takes until you’re ready.
But I’m not going to stop until you’re wearing my ring. ”
She wipes at the tears streaming free, gifting me with the gorgeous eye contact I’ll never, ever take for granted.
“Ask me again, Jason,” she whispers. I fucking love it when she says my name.
“Marry me?”
“Yes.”
And then we’re kissing again, my ring is on her finger, and the only fucking thing I care about is getting her upstairs… Until a round of cheering erupts behind us, complete with whoops and whistling.
I didn’t know Chuck had it in him.
Rowan laughs, eyes bright and wide as she looks from me to them and back again.
“Why does Baby Bun have a shovel?”
I kiss her again, gathering her close and then pulling her up into my arms as I push to my feet, ready to carry her home.
“Wait!” She stops me with her hand on my heart.
I bite my lip, groaning at the sight of my ring on her finger. “What do you need, baby?”
“I have something for you too.” She points to the tote parked on the glass-topped table in front of the couch.
“Yeah?” She’s already promised me her forever. What else could she give me?
“Yeah.” And then she pulls out a stack of bound papers.
“You know how I wanted to see if the cabin could become a historic landmark? When I was looking for all the documentation and files Ed had saved over the years, I found something.” She swallows hard.
“It was stuffed in the back of this drawer with all my mom’s weird receipts and…
I think she hid it there. Jason, it’s your dad’s final will. The cabin is yours.”