Chapter 25
You write even more beautifully than you make love, and that is truly a feat.
Was it brave of me to come west? Or was this always the path to you, a glowing thread that led me from the safety of Boston to the wilds of Oregon, to you?
It is fate, I suppose, of a kind. But it could never have happened without the first step I made toward you.
Nor could it have happened if you hadn’t then run toward me.
—A letter from Mae Tanner to her husband, Jedidiah Tanner, on their second anniversary, left on his pillow
P erry was curled in a ball, exhausted from weeping and feeling pathetic. She had said everything. She had taken the chance. And now he was going to have to figure it out. She couldn’t do it for him. She couldn’t.
There was a hard, heavy knock on the door downstairs, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
She felt relief wash over her. Because there was only one person it could be.
Her trust in him, in them, had been rewarded.
She scrambled out of her sleeping bag and clattered down the stairs. Then she jerked the door open and saw him standing there. His eyes were glittering, the emotion in their depths raw. “I have messed up so many times.”
“Carson …”
“I can’t even begin, Perry. I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning.”
“I was such a wild kid. I thought my mom loved me, no matter what. Those were the two true things about me before I met you. And then my mom left. I realized that there was something wrong with me. With how I was. I felt hollowed out, so lonely, so … useless. And I never wanted to feel that way again.”
He took a deep breath. “Then I met you. And this feeling burst inside me, this certainty. That you were mine. I wanted it to mean a thousand other things, a thousand other things than what it did. What it has always meant. I spent a lifetime running from the certainty of us. From the … our fate. And you’re right.
Every time you got close, I turned away.
When I could see through your dress that time down by the lake …
I was so glad that you ran, because if you hadn’t, I might’ve lost my head.
I doused myself in the cold water for a different reason that day.
Damn. And then … when you started writing to me …
you were a window into a life that I wanted, one I didn’t think I could have.
Not safely. Not with you. So I met somebody else, and I decided to marry her.
She needed me, and I needed … something that didn’t terrify me. ”
He took a breath. “Because I thought marrying someone else would make you … manageable.” The word broke, his voice broke.
“I didn’t want you to be bigger than everything—bigger than the sky, bigger than my heart.
I didn’t want it. Because that level of emotion terrifies me.
I can feel it. I wanted it to drown in that lake along with me, but failing that, I hoped that I had left it behind. And then there was you.”
He shook his head. “There was you. And I strong-armed fate every which way I could. I dragged other people into it. I hurt them. I hurt you. Do you know … ?” He looked up, and she knew there were tears in his eyes.
“The last fight that Alyssa and I had, she said the biggest problem was she knew that I could give more, because I gave to you. She said it was clear that I cared about you more than I did her.” He took a breath, as if he was surfacing from the lake even then.
“I was so angry. So … so fucking angry, because I vowed that I was never going to be a cheater. I wasn’t going to be like my dad.
Not ever. I promised that. I swore it. But I was unfaithful in my heart.
I never imagined kissing you or having sex with you.
But there was a part of my heart that always belonged to you.
I tried so hard to protect myself because I was so afraid if I loved you, I’d disappoint you eventually and I’d lose you.
It was the one thing I didn’t think I could live with. ”
He shook his head. “It would’ve been us, Perry.
In the end. My marriage was going to end, sooner or later.
Because you are the one for me. You are the love of my life, and I ran from that so far, so fast, and so hard that I put us through all this hell.
And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it took me this long, that I took so many detours. ”
She hadn’t been sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t hearing that part of him had felt the certainty from the beginning. And she’d had no idea of the devastation he’d felt as a small boy.
“Carson,” she whispered. “It was never your job to save everyone. You were doing your best.
“When we were little,” she said, “I knew that I loved you with all my heart, and I didn’t know that friends and lovers were two different things.
When I became aware of that, I got scared.
And I understood you might not feel the same way.
That was when I started hiding my feelings.
It was when I started trying to date other men. I always thought of it like ice cream.”
“What now?”
“You have a favorite flavor of ice cream?”
“Sure.”
“And you’re my favorite flavor. But I couldn’t have you.
So I settled for the flavors I could get easily.
But they were never you. I didn’t marry any of them, but it …
it’s the same kind of thing. It was wanting to protect myself, wanting to protect what we had.
But … I always wanted this. I always wanted your love. ”
“You always had it. I’m just such an idiot.
Such a coward. I’ve made some peace with the mistakes I made with Alyssa.
But it’s tough. One thing I’m certain of, though, is the depth of my feeling for you.
It scares the hell out of me.” He took a deep breath.
“I read your letter. The one I didn’t get.
I think part of me knew it was coming. And that’s why …
Perry, all I was doing was trying to put obstacles in the way of being with you.
Because being with you terrified me. If I had you and I lost you, I don’t know what I would’ve done.
I still don’t know. But I also read … I read the letters between Mae and her husband.
I know he built this house for another woman initially, but in the end it was for Mae.
It was for their life. He loved her, above everything else. ”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
“I just always thought she … I thought that whatever their feelings were, their marriage was practical. An arrangement.”
“No. He said that their love had the power to knock his feet out from beneath him. But without her love he didn’t know what it was to have his feet planted.
That made more sense to me than anything ever has.
Without you I don’t know who I am. I’m not sure that I really know yet.
Because I only let myself have part of you.
Part of us. Now I wanted it all. And I can’t promise you that I’m going to be different overnight.
But I’m always going to open up when I should.
Hell, I might close down. But I’m going to choose you.
I’m going to choose to work on it, every day of my life from here on out. ”
“Carson,” she breathed. “I love you. And I’m so glad that … that we made it here. Because it was a hell of a journey.”
“I was emotionally unavailable because my heart belongs to you. But that terrified the hell out of me, and so I did everything I could to find a way to keep you without risking anything. I’m done with that. I want you. Always and forever you, Perry.”
Perry flung herself into his arms, and he held her close. “You are the love of my life. You make me feel that feeling. So big and terrible that I ran from it back then. But I’m not running anymore.”
He kissed her lips. “My pirate princess.”
“Where will we live?”
“I’ll move to Medford for you.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“But I would. I’d give up the ranch. We could go to Applebee’s every Friday.”
“Let’s stay here.” She looked around the house, and she realized …
He had fixed it up, just for them. They were going to have their happy ending here, just like Jedidiah and Mae.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s make our home here. And you can grow as many flowers as you want up by Outlaw Lake. We’ll make it our second home.”
“I like that.”
“And I love you.”
Perry Bramble loved Carson Wilder with all of her heart. And that heart was no longer shattered.
It was whole, and so was she.