31. Hunter #2
"I don't even know where to start." She chewed.
Swallowed. Her fork turning in her fingers.
"I think — the thing I didn't understand until I was sitting on a bathroom floor in SoHo with mascara all over my face — is that I wasn't choosing the career.
I was choosing the version of myself that didn't need anyone.
" She looked up. "That's what New York was.
For ten years. Proof that I could do it alone.
That I didn't need Copper Creek or my parents or —" She paused. "Or you."
My thumb pressed into her ankle bone.
"And when I fell in love with you, it terrified me.
Because if I needed you — if I let myself need you — then the whole thing I'd built fell apart.
The independent woman. The career. The I-left-this-town-and-made-something-of-myself story.
" She put her fork down. "That story was my armor, Hunt. And you were asking me to take it off."
"I never asked you to take anything off."
"I know." Her voice cracked. "That's the worst part. You never asked. You just stood there being you, and I couldn't breathe around how much I wanted to stay. But staying meant admitting I'd been running for ten years and I wasn't ready to admit that so I ran again."
My hand tightened on her ankle.
"And then Garrett —" She pulled her knees up.
Her arms wrapping around them. Her chin on her knees.
"The flinching. The pulling away. I couldn't let you touch me, and I hated myself for it because you were the safest person I'd ever known, and my body was treating you like a threat.
And instead of saying I'm struggling, I'm scared, help me — I turned it into evidence.
See? This is why I can't stay. This is what happens when you let someone in. This is what Copper Creek does to you."
Her eyes were wet. Her jaw tight.
"I used the worst thing that ever happened to me as an excuse to leave the best thing that ever happened to me. And I knew I was doing it. The whole time. I knew."
The room was quiet. The sea below.
"You want to know what it actually felt like?
" She rubbed her face with both hands. "Being back in New York.
It felt like wearing someone else's skin.
Like I'd outgrown the woman who lived there, and I kept putting her on every morning and she didn't fit anymore.
The sleeves were too tight. The shoulders were wrong.
" She dropped her hands. "And everyone kept telling me how great I looked in her, and I wanted to scream because I wasn't her anymore.
I was the woman who sat on your floor with Post-it notes and planned trips to places I'd never been and laughed until my stomach hurt at Sunday dinner, and that woman didn't belong in a corner office in Manhattan. "
She stole one of my shrimps. I let her.
"Bobbie knew. He didn't say a word for weeks — just sat with me, held me, fed me toast. And then when I quit, he was on the sidewalk before I even called him.
" A wet laugh. "He said, Go get him." She pointed her fork at me.
"He's coming for Christmas. With an ensuite requirement.
And a thread count above three hundred. That is not a joke. "
I couldn’t help but laugh. "He’s welcome anytime."
"Yeah." Her face soft. "I know."
We ate. The light going gold to copper. The sea air through the balcony.
"The thing that actually broke me —" She was picking at the rice.
Not looking at me. "It wasn't the rooftop or the apartment or any of the big dramatic moments.
It was a Tuesday meeting in SoHo. The architect had string lights in the rendering, and I saw your mom's oaks.
And I heard your dad's voice. And I was on the bathroom floor before I even knew I'd left the room.
" She paused. Her fork still. "And I thought — I didn't leave because of the job.
I left because admitting I was wrong about the last ten years was more terrifying than losing you.
And that's — that's the ugliest thing I've ever had to look at about myself. "
My chest was tight. My eyes burning.
"So I looked at it." She met my eyes. "On that bathroom floor. I looked at it. And then I got up, and I quit, and I went home."
She reached across the tray. Her hand finding mine. Her fingers lacing through.
"I want to do events, Hunt. I don't have it figured out yet —" She tapped her temple. "But I'm giving myself six months before I start. Six months to travel with you. The whole list. And when we're ready to go home, we go home together."
My throat closed. My fingers tightened on hers. "Jess."
"Yeah?"
"My home is wherever you are." My voice rough. "You're here. And I can breathe fully for the first time since you left."
Her chin trembled. She squeezed my hand.
"How long are you traveling for?" she said. After a minute. Her thumb moved on my knuckles. "How long do you have?"
"As long as I need."
She blinked. "What?"
"Wyatt told me to take six months. He and Mags have the ranch. My brothers have the horses." I paused. "The whole family said go."
She sat up straighter. Her legs uncrossing. "Six months? They just gave you six months?"
"Mom already knew." I looked at her. "About the books. The shelf. The dreaming. She dusts my apartment every spring, apparently. She's known about those dog-eared pages since I was twenty." My voice rough. "She said she'd been waiting for me to say something since I was twenty-two."
Jessica's mouth opened. Her eyes going bright.
"And then Clay grabbed my neck and said, About damn time. Mags was crying. Dad just nodded. Wyatt said something about taking six months instead of two weeks." A breath. "And Maisie wanted to know why everybody was hugging."
"Hunt." Her voice thick. Her hand tightened on mine. "Your family."
"Yeah."
"Your sneaky, beautiful, incredible mother." She laughed. Wet. "She knew the whole time. Of course she did. Louisa Blackwood knows everything."
"She does."
Jessica wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "So we've got six months."
"We've got as long as we need. The ranch will be there. My family will be there." I looked at her. "The porch light will be on."
"The porch light is always on."
"Yeah. It is."
She moved the tray off the bed. Crawled across the mattress and pressed herself against my side — her head on my chest, her arm across my stomach, her leg tangling with mine. My arm went around her. Her wet hair on my shoulder. Her breathing slowing against my ribs.
"I love you," she said into my chest.
"I love you."
"I'm going to keep saying it. Every day."
"I know."
Her breathing slowed. Her body got heavier against mine. The arm across my stomach loosened. Her hand went slack on my ribs. The sea coming in through the balcony. The light turning violet.
She was asleep in minutes. Twenty-two hours of travel and three weeks in New York, and the relief of finally stopping. One breath, she was talking. The next, she was gone.
I held her. My arm around her back. My hand in her wet hair. The sea below. The evening light fading. My chest full. My lungs full. Breathing all the way down for the first time in weeks.
The balcony door open. The Coral Sea quiet. She was here. She was staying. Asleep on my chest with the word said and nowhere to be and all the time in the world.
I closed my eyes. She was home.