Chapter 39 #2
“Obviously, I wasn’t expecting company,” I say, skirting through the room, grabbing this morning’s clothes off the floor, my bath towel from the back of a chair, my bra from the lamp. I toss everything in the closet and shut the door.
His gaze snags on our picture, and I feel my face heat. “It’s just…unexpected.”
I hang his jacket and my mask by the door—next to the sweater I haven’t touched—then turn on the fireplace.
“Holden,” I say, my back to him as I stare into the flames.
“There’s something I need to tell you before I lose my nerve.
Something I should’ve said a long time ago.
” I take Gracie and Hunter’s stockings off the mantel (another gift from Constance) and set them on the table.
“That night you came back from LA and this room was decorated? I was trying to be romantic. I was going to tell you I loved you.”
“Maggie…”
“I may have led you to believe otherwise, and that wasn’t fair. I thought I was giving you what you needed. Maybe I was. I don’t know anymore.” I take a breath. “But I shouldn’t have disappeared like that. I—I’m sorry.”
He picks up Gracie’s stocking, his thumb tracing the embroidery. “That guy in there—was he your date?”
I snort a laugh. “Toothless Wally?”
Holden’s head snaps up. “Wait, that was Toothless Wally? He’s not even toothless. He’s not even unattractive.”
Nor is he you.
I gather the pens beside my laptop and drop them in the mug. “How’s Gabi?”
“Good. Busy,” he says, pacing behind me. “Haven’t seen her much since Toronto.” He stops at the door and lifts my sweater, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. My chest squeezes. “Maggie, when you called and Gabi answered…did you think—”
“No, not really. I mean, maybe for a second?” I grip the back of a chair. “I’m sure I sounded jealous. I guess I—no, I know—I was jealous.”
He turns around. “I promise it wasn’t like that.”
“I believe you,” I say, pressing my nails into the wood.
“But it doesn’t matter. I don’t get to…” I exhale.
“I’m glad you had her. Gabi’s great and she—she cares about you.
It’s just…she got to have you in a way I wished I did.
” My face goes hot. I stare down at the Vera Bradley notebook on the table, the purple paisleys blurring together.
“I’ve never in my life wanted to trade places with someone so much. ”
“God, Maggie. I hate that you felt that way.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
His arms go around me. I close my eyes and rest my cheek against his chest, tucking my head beneath his chin. For the first time in seven months, it’s like I can finally breathe.
“Things were rough after the funeral. Watching stupid movies with Gabi was how I coped—until she gave me your book.”
My whole body tenses, and I take a step back. “Holden…”
He reaches for my hand. “Will you sit with me?”
This was what I feared—that I had no right to write about him. That it wasn’t my story alone to tell. Or that he simply hated it.
“I know I should’ve asked you first,” I say as we settle onto the sofa. “But I really thought I could make Hunter different. I swear I tried, but he kept coming back to you.”
I kept coming back to you.
“So it is about us?”
I nod.
He lets out a long, slow breath and pries my hand from my dress. “I loved it, Maggie. I loved it so much I gave it to Artie, and he—actually, we’ll get to that. I’m just…I’m relieved it wasn’t my imagination. I saw the title and thought maybe, but I didn’t want to assume.”
“It wasn’t exactly subtle.”
His callused thumb glides over my knuckles.
“Movie nights with Gabi may have gotten me through the summer, but your book carried me through the rest of it. Made the past few months bearable.” His voice falters, and I feel it in my ribs.
“I got to come back here any time I needed to. Relive it. Relive us.”
“Why are you telling me this now? What changed?”
He smiles. “A few things, actually. For one, I don’t live in LA anymore.”
“What? Why? Where do you live?”
“Nowhere, technically. Our stuff’s in a U-Haul in Cade Corban’s driveway.” His hand on mine tightens. “Earlier you said you were going to tell me you loved me. Do you still?”
My eyes begin to fill. “Y-yes.”
He grins, and it’s big. Blinding. Like the one in that selfie with Raegan Reed—the one I once wished was aimed at me.
“That’s good,” he says. “Because that might help narrow down my options.”
“What options?”
Voices pick up outside. An argument breaks out. A car starts, then drives away.
“Cade lives a couple hours from here. Just outside a town called Utopia.”
“Yeah, I’m familiar.”
Holden pulls out his phone and shows me a picture of Hannah and Cade at the top of a hill, nothing but sky behind them.
“After Cara died, Hannah pretty much gave up on the things she used to love. I thought it was a phase, something she’d grow out of.
But if anything, she seemed to be getting worse.
Then we came here for Thanksgiving, and it was like she was herself again.
I swear I hadn’t heard her laugh in months, and suddenly she was riding horses and roasting marshmallows and talking up a storm.
Cade taught her how to fish, and you should’ve seen her. ”
Holden’s smile dims. “Back home, it was all she talked about. Then a couple weeks went by, and she got quiet again. I already had her in therapy, but it wasn’t doing sh—wasn’t helping. It got bad, Maggie. She really scared me. But then Cade called. Invited us for Christmas.”
The fake logs crackle in the fireplace, drawing Holden’s gaze.
“I always assumed she’d want to stay close to her mother, but I realized Cade is the closest thing to her mother. So I asked how she’d feel about moving, and that was that. I sold the house, packed our stuff, and bought a pickup.”
“Is she better now?”
“Seems like it.”
I glance down, smoothing the wrinkles from my dress. “Are you looking for a place in Utopia? I know a realtor. I could call her.”
“Hannah knows I need to be close to work. Austin’s got a solid film scene, but there’s also that new studio going in nearby. San…something.”
“San Marcos,” I say, struggling to keep my voice steady. “I heard about that.”
“So I was thinking…” He sits up straighter. “If you’d allow me to woo you…”
I let out a startled laugh. “Woo me?”
“Yes, woo you. I could find something out here. Close to you. Think of all the money I’d save commuting on date nights.”
My mind races ahead like it always does. But this time I hit the brakes and turn around.
“Gas adds up. Mileage, wear and tear.” I bite my lip. “But think how much more you’d save if you lived here. With me.”
“Maggie…” He says it like, don’t take this the wrong way, and I wish the couch would swallow me.
“Of course. It’s too soon.” I lower my gaze. “I got ahead of myself.”
He lifts his hand to my jaw. “No—no, Magnolia, it’s not that. I want to make sure you’re serious. It’s not just me anymore.”
“I’m serious, Holden. Letting you go is one of the biggest regrets of my life.
I’m not naive. I know it wouldn’t have worked back then.
But I should’ve called. I should’ve stayed in touch.
” I lean into his hand. “Constance moved to Austin, so it’s just me and Colonel.
I haven’t even opened the reservation calendar yet.
Between weddings and book sales, I might not need to.
” Music rises from the barn, but I tune it out.
“If I have any say in this at all, I won’t lose you again. ”
His thumb brushes my lip. “Neither will I.”
The first firework whistles overhead. Holden grabs the quilt from the back of the sofa and tugs me toward the door, his face lighting up.
Cold air rushes in, goosebumps prickling my arms. “You act like you’ve never seen fireworks.”
He wraps the quilt around us. “Last time I saw them like this, I was a kid in Tennessee.”
I can picture it. Holden as a boy, head tipped back, eyes full of wonder. Innocence. Before the heartbreak of life got in the way.
I was starry-eyed once too. Maybe I could be again.
“So we’re really doing this?” he says. “I came here to see if maybe you’d have dinner with me, and now we’re…”
“Shacking up?” I laugh. “It sounds bad. Maybe it is, but I don’t want to waste another second. You don’t need to woo me, Holden. You’ve got me.”
“It doesn’t sound bad.” He presses his lips to my temple. “It sounds exactly right.”
One after another, fireworks bloom across the sky, and it feels so much bigger than the start of a new year.
“It is big,” I remember Ben saying when I realized I was in love with Holden.
But this isn’t just a new year. It’s the start of our life together.
I turn around to face him. “Pretty sure it’s after midnight. Think maybe you could kiss me now?”
When I woke up this morning, I thought about where I’d be when the clock struck twelve.
That awkward moment when you’re single on New Year’s Eve and everyone’s paired up but you.
I couldn’t have dreamed I’d be here—in the arms of the man I’ve missed like a phantom limb, his lips claiming mine in a months-in-the-making kiss.
Hungry and sure and everything I never thought I’d feel again.
“Happy New Year, Magnolia,” he whispers, and I tilt my head back, catching the fireworks shining in his eyes.
“I love you so much. I never stopped, not for a second. And when you called…” He swallows, adjusting the quilt that’s slipped from my shoulders.
“I wanted to grab the first flight here. But I couldn’t. ”
“I know, Holden. I understand. And I love you too. More than I have words for.”
His grin returns. “Coming from a writer, that’s a lot.”
A final torrent of light and sound ignites the sky, and then “Auld Lang Syne” drifts out over the gravel drive.
I wrinkle my nose. “I may have made you kiss me too soon.”
“Never too soon, Maggie,” he says, the quilt falling to the ground as his arms fold around me, his mouth just a whisper away. “And never enough.”