Chapter 32
WILLOW
The afternoon vanishes in a blur of soup refills, boot compliments, and stolen glances.
And now, as the day winds down, dread curls low in my gut.
I have to tell him.
I don’t want to hide anything else from Thatcher McCrae.
I’ve already kept too much to myself—about Dan, about Florida, about the fear that still clings to the edges of my skin like ash.
So I force the words out, quiet and cautious.
“Um, your sister called.”
Thatcher’s shutting down the computer, fingers pausing over the keyboard.
“Yeah? She okay?”
“She’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” he says, distracted. Unconcerned.
But then I say the rest.
“She also, uh, offered me a place to stay while the cabin’s being repaired.”
He stops.
Everything stops.
Like I just sucked the air straight out of the room.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
Just freezes mid-motion.
And that’s when I realize I’ve made a mistake.
Old doubts creep in. I bite my lip.
Maybe it’s not what I said—but in how I said it.
“She did what?” His voice drops low, flat. Dangerous.
I swallow hard.
“Kelly said she’d have her husband come get me. So I wouldn’t have to sleep in the office or anything.”
He explodes out of his chair like a storm barely held back by skin and bone.
“You’re not sleeping in the fucking office,” he snarls, towering over me now, jaw clenched so tight I’m shocked I can’t hear his teeth crack. “And you’re not going to Kelly’s either.”
My breath stutters in my lungs. But I’m not afraid.
I’m excited.
And it’s the first time a man’s anger caused my panties to get wet.
His dark eyes glitter. He looks rough and gorgeous in his flannel and denim.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, and really, I want him to tell me.
He steps in even closer.
I feel the heat of him. The power. The barely leashed fury.
And something inside me tightens in response—and still, it’s not fear exactly.
Not of him.
But of how much I want to trust this man.
Of how much I want to belong to him.
“Did I do something wrong? Did I move too fast?” he demands, voice low and raw now. “Was I wrong to think you wanted everything that happened between us?”
I blink, stunned.
“No! God, no, Thatcher. I wanted all of it. Every second. I just… I didn’t want to assume I could stay again tonight. Or that you even wanted me to.”
“Assume away, Baby Girl.” He takes my face in both hands like I might vanish if he doesn’t hold me in place. “Because I want you. Tonight. Tomorrow. Every goddamn night if you’ll let me.”
My heart stumbles.
And I hate how badly I want to believe him.
“But Kelly’s coming back to work soon,” I whisper.
His hands flex against my cheeks. His eyes flash, stormy and wild.
“The fuck does that have to do with anything?” he growls.
“Well, the cabin’s not mine. The job—this place—it’s all temporary.”
“This—us—isn’t about a job. Or a goddamn security cabin. It’s about what feels right. And you feel right, Willow. You hear me? I want you with me. You don’t have to keep proving your worth or earning a place to stay. You already have it.”
My throat burns with unshed tears.
My pulse thrums like a warning and a promise all at once.
Hope is a dangerous thing. But so is holding it in.
“Thatcher,” I whisper his name, my voice hoarse.
“Tell me you understand, Willow.”
His voice is low but edged with steel.
Not angry—not at me.
But full of something fierce and possessive and real.
It wraps around me like a tether, pulling tight.
“I understand,” I whisper.
And I mean it. I think I do.
Maybe not all of it.
Maybe not the full weight of what it means to have someone like Thatcher McCrae say he wants me—not just for a night, but for however long I’ll let him—but I understand enough.
He nods once.
A tight, clipped motion that’s pure relief and tension in equal measure.
Then he steps back, just far enough that I can breathe without the weight of his intensity pressing into me.
“Good,” he rasps. “Now get your fine ass in the truck so we can go home.”
Home.
That word shouldn’t wreck me the way it does.
But it does.
It slides in like a hot knife between my ribs, carving out a hollow I didn’t even know existed.
A hollow that aches for belonging, for safety, for someone to look at me the way he does—like I’m his.
I reach for my coat with hands that tremble just a little, not from the cold, but from something else entirely.
Something dangerously close to hope.
The snow crunches under my new boots—my beautiful, hand-tooled, made-just-for-me boots—and each step feels heavier and lighter at the same time. Like I’m walking toward something I want but don’t believe I deserve.
The truck is already running, warmth curling out from the vents as I slide into the passenger seat.
The leather is warm.
His presence beside me even warmer.
It wraps around me like armor.
Like protection.
Like a promise.
I close the door behind me and let out a slow breath.
But even as the cab fills with heat and the snow-streaked windshield blurs the world outside, one stubborn voice echoes in the back of my mind.
It’s only temporary, Willow. Don’t forget that.
It’s the same voice that kept me in Florida too long.
The one that whispered I wasn’t enough, that I had to settle, that people like me didn’t get the fairy tale.
And maybe that voice has protected me.
But now?
Now it just hurts.
Because the truth is—I want to forget.
I want to forget every reason I shouldn’t trust this.
Every past mistake.
Every stupid rule I made about not getting involved.
Every whispered warning about lines you shouldn’t cross and men you shouldn’t fall for.
I want to forget temporary and believe in possible.
Because this man?
This rough, hard, complicated man with kind eyes and callused hands who looks at me like I matter?
He’s starting to feel like more than a fling. More than a mistake.
Thatcher McCrae is starting to feel like mine.
And more? I want to believe I could be his.
What’s so bad about that, anyway?