Chapter 23 #2
He took another step toward her, slowly, giving her every chance to step back if she needed to, but she didn’t.
“I love you in a way I don’t have the right words for, and I’ve known it for longer than I’ve been willing to admit to myself.
I watched you walk into my life and take care of my son, my mother, my investigation, my broken relationship with my brother, my horse, my kitchen, and every single hard thing that came at us.
You did it all without asking for anything in return.
I’ve been standing next to you for months, too afraid to tell you that you are the most extraordinary person I have ever known. ”
Her throat tightened.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re worried about being a rebound.
Of being someone I turn to because I’m hurt and need comfort.
I get why you’d think that. I completely understand.
I was thinking the same thing, too, for a while.
” He shook his head. “But, Jewel, I’ve been in this house for nearly five years feeling hurt, alone, and needing someone, and I never once felt about anyone what I feel for you.
Not even close. What I had with Vivian was complicated and broken from the very beginning, and I think a part of me knew that for a long time.
What I have with you is the first thing in my adult life that has ever felt completely real. ”
She pressed her lips together.
His voice grew low, careful, and completely serious.
“I’m not asking you to stay for Beck, although God knows that boy loves you in a way that would take me years to explain to him why you left.
You’re everything his mother never was to him, and you did that effortlessly, without planning, just by being who you are.
And yes, of course, that matters deeply to me. ”
He almost reached out but then pulled back again, clenching his fists.
“But that’s not why I’m asking you to stay. I’m asking you to stay for me because I love you. Because I think you love me, too. Because what we have between us is something I’m not willing to lose, and I can’t watch you drive down that road tonight without at least telling you everything.”
She stared at him. At his face, completely open, with everything he usually kept carefully hidden now simply present, simply there, all offered without any condition or strategy.
It took her a minute to find her voice. “You’ve been so quiet these past few weeks. Since I told you about Vivian. I thought you didn’t care. That you were missing her.”
His jaw clenched, and he ran his hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry. I was quiet because I was working through something I should’ve dealt with a long time ago.
Not grief for Vivian, but for Beck. For what she took from him by choosing to leave and not looking back.
I needed to understand that. I needed to get really angry about it, and then figure out how to let it go and move forward.
” His breath came out jagged, and this time, he reached out, his hands tempting her closer.
“But that had nothing to do with you. That was never about you, and I handled it badly by not telling you what I was going through, and I’m so sorry. ”
She felt the weight she’d been carrying in her chest for weeks shift and loosen in a nearly frightening way, as the thing she’d been bracing against suddenly gave way and left her breathless.
“I was so sure you didn’t—” She stopped, still not letting herself say the words.
He closed the last bit of space between them, raising his hand to gently rest it against her face, causing her breath to catch.
“I know. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you long before today.
” His thumb moved once across her cheekbone.
“But I’m telling you now. I love you, Jewel Sinclair.
I have loved you for months, and I will love you for as long as you’ll let me, and I am asking you, please, do not get in that car and drive away. ”
She looked up at him. At his blue eyes, the same vivid blue as the October sky above the ridge, close enough now that she could see everything in them—everything he’d been carefully guarding and was now letting her see.
She thought about Sophie saying, “Yes, you do,” when she’d said she didn’t know.
She thought about Beckett’s arms around her neck.
She thought about every morning in that kitchen and every evening on the deck, all the nighttime rides, and every moment she’d spent in this place that had somehow made its way into her heart without her permission.
It had become something she wasn’t sure she could put into words, but she knew she couldn’t just drive away from it.
“I love you, too.”
It came out simply and without ceremony, and it was the truest thing she’d said in months.
She felt the emotion that moved across his face flow through her.
“Don’t leave.”
She timidly ran her hand across his face. “I’m not leaving.”
Then he pulled her in, and she let herself go completely and without reservation, for the first time in longer than she could remember.
His arms wrapped around her, and she pressed her lips to his, feeling the solid warmth of his muscles beneath his shirt.
She understood, with a simplicity that made everything that had come before seem unnecessarily complicated, that this was exactly where she was meant to be.
Sundancer made a small, quiet sound from the paddock behind them.
Cookie Monster didn’t look up from the grass.
The October light moved over the mountains, the lake below, and the blazing, beautiful trees, and the afternoon persisted exactly as it had—calm, golden, and completely at peace.
The End.