20. Christian
Christian
After the way that wild beauty in my bed woke me up this morning, I’ve been climbing the walls, itching to get back to her. And knowing she’s leaving tomorrow? Yeah, that thought’s been chewing a hole straight through my chest all day.
She’s not ready for anything permanent. At least, I don’t think she is. Christ, I can’t even be sure, and that’s what’s killing me.
But still… there’s this restless ache inside me. This need to figure out how the hell we find a way forward that doesn’t end with me losing the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
All I’ve done is love her behind closed doors—stolen moments snatched between endless farm work and her late-night bar shifts.
Secret touches that say everything we can’t.
Those heated glances across a crowded room that make everyone else disappear.
Passionate nights that leave me wanting so much more than just temporary.
I want her in my arms, in my bed, in every part of my life.
I want to mark her, claim her, and let every damn person in this town know she’s mine, whether we’re ready to say it out loud or not.
But what’s been gnawing at me, and digging in deeper the longer the hours have passed without having her close to me, is why the hell would she want to stay with me?
I can’t give her the world or anything close to what she deserves.
Once she’s gone, is that it? Do I just have to let her walk away and pretend like what’s been building between us hasn’t set fire to everything I thought I knew about love?
I don’t have the answers.
God, I wish I did.
But what I do know is that I’m not playing games.
Not with her.
Not with this.
She needs to know what she is to me. She needs to know that this isn’t just a fling, a distraction, or something I’ll forget once the sheets cool. She’s it for me, always has been.
There’s a fallout coming, and I know that. Travis won’t take this lying down, and I’m not naive about that. But for the first time in a long while, I’m trying not to let the fear of what might happen dictate what will.
I drive up the snow-covered road, my truck tires crunching over ice and gravel, like they’re announcing my arrival to the whole mountain.
The driveway appears just as the last light fades behind the hills, and I’ve never been more grateful to see my place sitting quiet and still.
I’m running on empty, and the last thing I need is to plaster on a smile and pretend I’m not carrying around this crushing weight in my chest.
I kill the engine and jump out of the truck, raking a hand through my hair before sliding my hat back on and taking a deep breath.
I need a minute. I need to gather myself and figure out where to even start and how to tell her I’m all in without sounding like a desperate man who only just figured out he’s in too deep.
Because I know she’s feeling this uncertainty too. She has to be.
I trudge through the snow and glance up at the sky, where the clouds have cleared for now, and a handful of stars are starting to peek through above the ridge.
It’s peaceful enough tonight, but I know better than to trust it.
Rosewood winters never give a damn about timing, which is something my family knows about all too well.
The second I step through the door, that familiar calm should hit me like it always does.
But tonight, the house feels wrong. Normally, I’d walk into the chaos of Piper battling the stove, her awful cooking filling the kitchen with smoke, and her laughter echoing over whatever country song she’s got blasting from her phone.
I’d step in and take over like always, and she’d let me—no arguments, just that grin of hers that says she knows she can’t cook and doesn’t care one bit…
not as long as I’m there beside her. But now there’s just silence.
“Piper?” I call out, already bracing myself for something I don’t think I want to feel.
When I hear a quiet rustle from the living room, I turn, heart thundering like it’s trying to break free from my chest, and there she is.
My raven-haired beauty is standing before me, looking both stunning and broken all at once.
Piper’s long, dark hair spills over her shoulders, and her posture is completely stiff, but it’s her eyes that undo me.
Her green eyes, which are usually bright enough to set the world on fire, are now dull and distant.
She doesn’t look happy to see me. In fact, she looks like she’s already halfway out the door.
Next to her are her bags, packed and lined up neatly beside the couch, and when my gaze shifts from them to her, it feels like the floor’s been ripped out from under me.
This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go.
We had one more night together before I was meant to drive her back to her sister’s.
One more night to stretch this thing out for just a little longer.
But this isn’t a surprise or miscommunication.
This is deliberate.
This is her leaving me.
“What’s going on, darlin’?”
The woman who owns my heart and walks through life like she doesn’t give a single fuck about anything looks fragile in a way I’ve never seen.
“You packed up a day early for a reason?” I ask, stepping toward her slowly. “’Cause I’ve gotta be honest with you, I’m a little confused.”
“I thought you’d be back sooner,” she whispers. “I thought we’d have time to talk. ”
My stomach sinks deeper as panic rises in my throat. “What do you mean?”
“Violet’s coming to pick me up.”
“Well, call her and tell her to stay home.” I grab my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and shove it toward her like it’ll fix whatever’s happening here. “Call her, Piper.”
“I can’t,” she says, barely more than a breath. “She’s already on her way.”
That gives me what, fifteen minutes to figure out why the woman I love is walking away from me?
“Fine,” I bite out, trying to hold it together while everything inside me cracks wide open.
“Can you at least tell me what the hell happened between this morning and now? Because after the way you woke me up, after the way we were… it sure as hell feels like you’re sending a guy mixed fucking signals when he comes home to find you with a foot out the goddamn door. ”
“I was leaving tomorrow. It’s just one day early.”
“I don’t care about the when,” I growl, tossing my hat to the floor and stepping toward her.
“I care about the why. What’s got you running from me like I’m something to be afraid of?
” She takes a breath, tears gathering in her beautiful eyes.
“I don’t deserve silence, Piper, and you’re not the girl who gives it. So please talk to me.”
“Travis came by today.”
“Did he hurt you?” The words explode out of me, and I’m already scanning every inch of her for bruises, cuts, anything that would give me a reason to hunt my boy down.
“No, he didn’t touch me. But he knows about us. He knows that something has happened between us.”
“I know it’s not ideal that I wasn’t here when he showed up, but he was bound to find out eventually. I would’ve told him myself.”
“Would you have?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you. It’s that simple, Piper. I want you.”
“It’s not that simple, Christian, and you know it.”
I close the distance between us, my throat tight with frustration and heartbreak and every damn feeling I’ve been trying to bury since the day I realized I couldn’t stay away from her.
“Would we even be having this conversation if Travis hadn’t gotten into your head?
Because ever since I left you this morning, all I could think about was coming home to you.
I’ve been imagining us figuring this out together.
” I take a shaky breath, steadying my words before they spill out too fast. “I’ll admit I was scared.
Hell, I still am. But I was ready to have that conversation with you.
The real one where we stop pretending this is just temporary.
Where we quit hiding, like what we have is something we should be ashamed of.
But it seems like you already made the decision about what we are, and the worst part is that you did it without me. ”
“Christian,” she says softly, and when our eyes meet, there’s no fire there, just sadness and heartbreak.
“The way I feel about you… God, I can’t even think about it right now because it hurts.
” Her hand presses to her chest like she’s trying to keep herself from falling apart.
“It physically hurts to know what I’m walking away from.
But I also know, when all is said and done, that Travis is your son.
And no matter what this is between us… no matter how real it feels…
that relationship will always have to come first.”
“Are you asking me to choose?”
Her eyes go wide. “No. God, no. And I never would. You have to believe that.”
Of course I believe her.
I know she’s not standing here trying to back me into a corner or force some impossible choice. But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about the situation we’re in.
“But Travis will make you choose,” she whispers as tears spill down her cheeks.
“And I can’t be the reason you lose him.
I won’t be that woman. You’re his father, Christian.
And no matter what he’s said and done, he’s still your kid.
” She swipes at her tears with the back of her hand.
“And I know you. You’re too good a man, too good a father, to turn your back on him forever.
But that’s what staying with me would mean.
That’s what he told me himself—if we keep going, if this becomes something real, there’s no coming back from it. Not for him.”
“I made my choice the second I touched you, Piper. I knew exactly what crossing that line would cost me. I knew it could destroy my relationship with Travis, and I did it anyway. So what the hell does that tell you?”
“It tells me you’re a man who was thinking with the wrong damn brain.”