Sloane
The cabin sits at the end of a gravel road, taking forty minutes and one Jesus-take-the-wheel moment with a switchback to find. By the time I park the rental car in front of it, I’m almost certain I’ve forgotten every word of the speech I rehearsed on repeat during my three-hour flight.
Whisper Falls, Tennessee, is greener than I pictured, the Smoky Mountains less rugged and dramatic than my beloved Rockies, but just as beautiful with their rounded tops draped in layers of blue mist. Jensen’s house is exactly what I expected—the style and location a man chooses when he wants a place where the world will leave him alone.
It’s hard to access, but worth the effort.
With dark timber siding, a weathered metal roof, and a wraparound porch, I immediately love it.
I know he’s here thanks to Cody, who covertly typed his number into my phone that first night in Tahoe, like a kid trying to take a swipe at the cookie jar without Dad realizing. In case you were wondering, Jensen noticed.
When I called Cody yesterday, he told me Jensen had left Nashville for the weekend to go hide out in the woods.
He asked if I was coming, and when I told him yes, he texted directions to Jensen’s place so fast I suspect he was waiting for me to reach out.
A sweet boy with a warm honey voice who will turn some unsuspecting woman’s life upside down one day.
There’s a creek gurgling somewhere in the distance, but it’s hard to register over the blood roaring in my ears.
Because what if he doesn’t want me here?
Iris, who drove me to the airport at the ass crack of dawn this morning, insisted we play “I Will Find You” on repeat like my own personal hype song.
And it worked until three seconds ago. But I came this far, so I march up the steps and knock before I lose my nerve.
A moment later, the door opens, and Jensen is standing there looking like he hasn’t slept since Reno.
He’s sporting a thicker layer of scruff than he had coming off the trail, his hair is more finger-in-a-light-socket than tousled, and the shadows under his gray eyes hint at an exhaustion so deep I want to tuck him in bed and sing him a lullaby.
Just so we’re clear: I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
He blinks at me like I’m a hallucination.
“Sloane?”
“Hi.” Hours of mental rehearsal, and this is what I lead with? Well done, me.
He takes a step back, and I move forward, then stop when my gaze catches on a half-zipped duffel bag sitting by the door, his wallet and keys resting on top. It only takes a moment for my stomach to reach my toes.
“Oh.” The words sound like a frog’s croak. “Oh, gosh. You were leaving.”
His mouth tilts up at one corner, and my heart soars, an automatic response I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. And I don’t.
“I was coming to find you,” he says. “Again.”
“Oh,” I repeat. Based on owning a bookstore, you’d think I’d have more words at my disposal.
“But you’re here.” It sounds as if he still can’t believe it. Same, bro. He sweeps one hand toward the cabin’s interior. “Come in. Please.”
Pretty sure the way he says please is my favorite thing.
The inside is bigger than it looks from the front, and I follow him into a family room with vaulted ceilings, a stone fireplace, and windows looking out over that creek I heard earlier.
Every inch of the space feels inviting, and it’s alarmingly easy to picture myself curled into one corner of the overstuffed leather sofa.
Focus, Sloane.
“I rehearsed this,” I blurt when he turns to face me. “On the plane. I had bullet points and everything.”
“Of course you did.” His widening grin both puts me at ease and ramps up the way my heart is doing that Riverdance thing again. “Let’s hear number one.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to arm wrestle my brain back online. It doesn’t work, but when I open them again, Jensen’s gaze has gone so tender I forget how to breathe. “I don’t remember any of the good stuff.”
“Wing it,” he whispers.
For me, winging it ranks somewhere between a root canal without the good drugs and bedding down with a rattle snake, but I forge ahead.
“I didn’t send you away because I didn’t want you there.
Wanting you got too real. I spent the last year with people caring about me in ways I never asked for and didn’t know how to repay.
Somewhere along the way, I started to believe that I couldn’t be loved without also being a burden.
I don’t want that, Jensen. Not with you.
” I draw in a shaky breath. “So I convinced myself that I didn’t need you. ”
He looks at me like I’ve just told him the saddest story he’s ever heard. “Is that honestly what you think I saw when I looked at you?”
I nod, embarrassed by my immense lack of self-esteem, but I’m being brave and showing him all of me. Even the shameful bits.
“That’s not it at all.” He takes a step closer. “You thought loving you would feel like a burden. I thought if I couldn’t take care of you, there’d be no reason for you to love me back.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat.
His mouth curves at one end. “We’ve been standing on opposite sides of the same fear this whole time.”
A quiet sense of knowing expands in my chest.
“You wrote a song for me,” I say, apropos of nothing. I really suck at this grand gesture stuff.
He nods, almost warily. “I did.”
“It’s a great song.”
Another grin. “I’m glad you like it.”
I bite down on my lower lip, suddenly feeling the opposite of brave. Not scared, exactly. Vulnerable is more like it. But that’s a lesson I learned as part of my bucket list challenge. Feeling my feelings, the hard ones included, is the best way through them.
I take his hand and watch the tension ease out of his shoulders.
Knowing my touch can do that bolsters my confidence.
I clear my throat. “Here’s my new bullet point one.
I love you. Not the country music legend who fixes things before anybody thinks to ask.
I love you, Jensen Grant. I love your strong opinions about a good cup of coffee.
And how you look at me like I’m not made of glass.
I love the thought of being needed by you, and I love how much I need you back.
” A laugh breaks loose from my throat. “I love that you were coming to find me. And even more that I beat you to it.”
He leans in and drops a kiss on the tip of my nose. “That’s the most romantic speech anyone has ever given me.”
“Could you make it into a song?”
He takes my face in both hands, careful and certain at the same time.
“Every word I write from now until eternity is going to be for you. I love you, Sloane Winslow. I think I loved you in that dive bar before I knew your real name. I love you more now that I know the real you. I love your sunshine, and I’ll love you through the rough nights.
Hell, I love the part of you that bolts when you’re scared.
” His thumb moves along my cheekbone as I smile.
“I’m not afraid of you bolting, Sunshine. I’ll always find you.”
I’m crying now, no sunshine coated over top of it, and the terrifying part is how little I want to hide it from him.
“You told me you love me.” I wipe my sleeve and grin wildly. “You’re stuck with me now.”
“Like glue,” he whispers and presses his lips to mine. I kiss him back with my whole heart, and the world finally clicks into place around us.
“Logistics,” I manage when we come up for air.
He quirks a brow. “I must be losing my touch if you’re thinking about logistics right now.”
“You live in Tennessee,” I say like I’m explaining basic math. “My life is a bookstore in Colorado.”
“I’m getting too old for the road,” he says, as if it all adds up.
I roll my eyes. “You’re not that old.”
“Old enough to know I don’t want to spend whatever I’ve got left living out of that.” He tips his head toward the duffel by the door. “I want a quieter life.” He threads his fingers through my hair. “With more books in it.”
Now he’s truly speaking my love language. “How many books?”
“A whole store’s worth, if the owner will let me hang around.”
I couldn’t stop smiling if you paid me. “I’m all about the books.”
“I’m all about you.” He pulls me in all the way, and our kiss is slow and certain. A promise and a vow.
When we finally break apart, I tuck my forehead beneath his chin. His heart beats steadily against my cheek, and I think about the hit that made him a legend twenty years ago, before he disappeared into a different future.
“You once sang that luck was a thing that happened to you,” I tell him. “Like you were just standing in the right spot when the sky opened up.”
“It felt that way for a long time,” he says into my hair.
“This isn’t that.” I tip my head back and cup my hands around his face because I don’t want him to miss a single word. “We didn’t get lucky, Nashville. This is a thing we made on purpose. And the best part is that we get to keep making it, for as long as we both keep choosing to.”
“I choose you forever, Sloane.” His arms tighten around me. Then, against the top of my head, soft enough that I feel the words more than hear them, he whispers, “Lucky me.”
Lucky us.