Chapter 27
LACEY
I’m sitting on the front porch, chin in my hands, staring out onto the road. I should get up, move to the back porch, look out at the water instead, but after my mom left this morning, I haven’t been able to get up from this spot.
She stayed for the entire weekend and took another day off to be with me. To rub my back and push my hair back from my face and make me feel better.
“I think you should try and talk to him,” she’d said, after I got through the whole story. “A man like that doesn’t remodel an entire cabin for a woman because he prefers to be alone.”
Now, alone with my thoughts for the first time since she got here, I can’t stop turning what she said over in my head. Obviously, I need to talk to him, but I don’t know how to do it.
He was right about me capitulating to everyone. I’ve always done that, trying to make everyone happy except myself. Tomorrow, when businesses in town open, I’ll call and ask them to take down the flyer.
I’m staying here even if Max is telling the truth, and he wants to be alone. This cabin was Jasper’s before mine, and besides, being here is the best I’ve felt in a long time. I actually started working on my dream game. This is about more than Max and me.
Even though I’m not ready to give up on that, either.
And then, as though my thoughts have conjured it, a plume of dust rises up at the end of the road. Then, a dark blue Jeep appears in that dust cloud, rolling straight for my cabin.
My heart leaps into my throat, and I sit up, staring, sure that I must be imagining it. After all this time — more than a week, and nearly two — why would Max come up here?
Unless he’s coming to ask for his stuff back. My mind rushes to fill in plenty of negative reasons for why he might be making the trek up here to my cabin. Things other than wanting to talk to me.
It can’t be possible.
What would have changed his mind?
His Jeep comes to a stop in the driveway, and when he hops out of the driver’s seat, I can’t help it. I stand up. My heart is beating in my throat, my face flushed, that ever-present nausea sloshing around in my stomach.
Now that I know for sure what’s causing it, it’s been a little more manageable. My mom said she was the same way, sick all the time.
Max walks up to the porch, his face opening up when he sees me, like a sigh of relief. Then, he sets something I hadn’t seen before — a drink — on the porch, before backing up and looking at me.
Almost like a cat bringing its owner a mouse.
“A peace offering,” he says, gesturing to the cup, and I pick it up, cradling it in my hands but not drinking. I look from the cup, which reads Witch’s Brew Double Whip, to him, where he’s standing on the dirt path and staring up at me resolutely.
“I’m sorry, Lacey.” He swallows, lets out a breath, and slides his palms together, before stuffing them in his pockets. As he speaks, he stares right at me. “What I said— I was out of line—”
“You were right,” I interject, setting down the cup and taking one step down from the porch. “I do capitulate. I try to make everyone happy. I’m not doing that anymore, though.”
“Oh.” He coughs, and I realize he thinks I mean him, so I take another step down, closer to him, shaking my head.
“No.” I stop, breathe, start again. “I let Gaial know that I won’t be taking the position. In fact, I turned in my two weeks’ notice.”
Max’s eyebrows jump. “You did?”
“I did,” I say, heart pounding as hard as it was when I first sent the email. Gina was not happy about it, but she reluctantly wished me the best, saying she knew it was going to be hard to hold onto a talent like mine. “And Vanessa and I are going to work on my game. Our game. Instead.”
“Okay,” he says. “I—”
“Sorry,” I interrupt, taking the final step and having to tilt my head to look up at him, now that I’m on the same dirt path as him. “I also wanted to let you know that, no matter what happens, I’ve decided to stay here. For longer. I’m not renting out the cabin. At least, not yet.”
“Lacey,” he says, taking a step and crossing the distance between us, picking up my hands and taking them in his own.
“I’m in love with you. I want you to stay, and I hope you’ll let me continue to be a part of your life.
Pushing people away… it’s a bad habit of mine.
I guess part of the reason I moved up here in the first place is that I thought people would leave me alone, and I wouldn’t have to be afraid of them leaving me. ”
Everything after I’m in love with you got a little quieter, but I hold tightly to his hands and listen, heart thundering in my throat.
He’s in love with me.
He continues, “So, if you’ll give me the chance, I want to prove to you that I’ll never leave again. That I won’t push you away.”
“Max.” I drop his hands and take a step back, remembering, in my happy haze, that there’s something else I need to tell him.
Something that might change his mind about this whole thing.
“Lacey?” he asks, eyes flitting over me like he might be able to figure out what I’m about to say before I say it.
“I’m pregnant.”
The words burst out of me as one, so it takes Max a second to process, then he blinks and his eyes go wide, his mouth falling open in a happy gasp.
“Wha— really?”
Time feels suspended. I have no idea what to make of this reaction, until he’s smiling and stepping toward me. This careful back-and-forth dance we’ve been doing since he arrived in the Jeep ends when he wraps his arms around me and pulls me in close.
The second I’m enveloped in him, I realize how cold I’ve been out here.
His warmth is welcome, and he smells good, like fresh air and spice.
I melt into him, letting him hold me, and maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones, but I can’t stop the tears that spring to my eyes, the sob that chokes up in my chest.
“There’s a lot to talk about,” he says, still holding me close, “but if you’ll have me, then I want to be here. I want to be a part of your life. I want to be everything, Lacey.”
I wrap my arms around him, burrowing in, still trying to recover from the roller coaster that the past couple of days has been. Pulling back, I wipe at my face and look up at him. “What changed your mind?”
“I thought I was doing what was best for you,” he says softly, looking over my face, then meeting my gaze.
“I… thought that I would be asking you to give up too much. That I would be keeping you from living your dream by asking you to stay here. Then I saw your flyer about the rental. That line about friendly renters, it made me realize the only person I want living up the road from me is you. And, ideally, I don’t even want to have to go that far.
I was an idiot, Lacey. Impulsive. I know that, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you. ”
Without thinking, I lift up onto my toes, pressing my lips to his.
There is a lot to talk about; Max is right about that. I’m uprooting my entire life, starting something new, and creating something with him that will tie us together forever.
But it feels right.
It feels right when he scoops me up into his arms, just like he did when I fell off the ladder, and carries me into the cabin. It feels right when he lays me down on the bed, stripping off all my layers, running his hands and lips over my body.
And it feels right when he places a kiss on my belly, when I tangle my fingers in his hair and think about how miraculous this entire experience has been.
Max is thoughtful, sweet, and an artistic genius. Maybe neither of us came from the perfect home or the ideal upbringing, but together, we can give our baby the life they deserve.
“I love you,” he murmurs, smiling up at me, his hands skating along my thighs.
“I love you, too.” I laugh, another little sob catching in my throat. “And to think, all that time I really couldn’t figure out why you were helping me with the renovation.”
He laughs, and I feel the vibration in my bones, the flutter of his breath against my skin.
“Well, I’m glad I did it,” he says, flashing me a winning smile. “And I know exactly what we can do with that pink bedroom.”