Chapter 60 Wren
Wren
I’m still flushed and raw when I get back inside, the air cooling the parts of me that still feel his touch—his hands, his mouth, his weight. I should shower. I should sleep.
Instead, I pull the folded piece of paper from my pocket.
It’s crumpled a bit, the corner bent, the words McAninch Seeds stamped faintly at the top in green ink, like it was scrap paper he grabbed in a hurry. His handwriting is small, almost messy, the kind of penmanship you have to squint to understand—like every letter was written with impatience.
I sit at the kitchen table, the light low, the house dead quiet, and I unfold it carefully.
And I read.
Wren,
I’m not great with words. Never have been.
Never been good at saying how I feel. But I figured I’d start with what I thought the first time I saw you.
I thought you were trouble. The kind of trouble a man like me doesn’t walk away from.
I thought you were beautiful—so beautiful it almost made me mad.
I thought you looked like you’d burn a man to the ground if he got too close, and I guess I was right because here I am, writing a letter like I’m twenty years old.
I love your fire. I love that you’re independent. That you don’t need me. But I also love that sometimes it feels like you might want me anyway.
After reading your notebook, after trying to understand where you were coming from, I realized I’d be a damn fool to let you go. Because you’re still the same person I thought you were.
No one’s ever fought for you, Wren. But I will. Because that’s what you deserve.
I’ve lost a lot of things in my life. A lot of people I can’t get back. But I can’t lose you. Not when it took me 42 years to find you.
You’re a one-in-a-billion woman—the kind that doesn’t come around twice in one lifetime.
A few months ago, I didn’t know you existed. Now I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I want to do this with you. I want a relationship. I want all of it. I want the next forty years to be the best ones yet—for you, for me, for Atticus.
You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.
Yours,
Hunter
I have to blink through the tears clouding my vision, my hand covering my mouth as my chest caves in under the weight of it.
This rough, reserved, emotionally cautious man just bared his heart in scribbled handwriting on seed company stationery, and I’m sitting here like some lovesick teenager, crying over every word.
I press the letter to my chest, closing my eyes.
Because my god, I wanted to hear this.
Because my god, I wanted him to feel this.
Because somewhere deep down, I think I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to say something like this to me and actually mean it.
This man has done nothing but show up for me, fight for me, and claim me—with his hands, his body, his actions, and his words.
I always thought moving back home was one of the biggest plot twists of my adult life.
But it turns out that Hunter McCrae is the biggest plot twist of all.