"Good. You've been different since she showed up. Better. Don't screw it up."
"Not planning to."
"Sarah would approve." The words landed like a slap and a blessing. "Hell, she probably sent her."
He vanished before I could process that, leaving me alone with the possibility that maybe the universe didn't always take without giving something back.
The flight home felt endless. Theo drove me from the airport, smirking at my obvious impatience.
"Just admit you love her.It's why you're vibrating at frequencies that could shatter windows."
"Drive faster or I'm rolling out at the next light."
"Roger that, lovesick disaster."
I burst through my front door like SWAT, my knee screaming protests I ignored. Found them in the fort—their kingdom of pillows and possibility. Finn was draped across Serena's lap while she read about octopus camouflage in different voices for each tentacle. They looked up in perfect synchronization, and their twin smiles hit me like lightning finding ground.
"DADDY!" Finn became a missile, trusting me to catch him the way only kids can trust—completely, without backup plans. I caught him, always would, breathing in his perfect cocktail of marker ink and joy, feeling his fierce little arms trying to squeeze me back together.
"Missed you so much, buddy."
But my eyes locked on Serena, still fort-bound, wrapped in my oldAvalanchehoodie like she'd been cold without me. The fairy lights turned her into something mythical—this woman who'd walked into our disaster and decided to plant flowers in the wreckage.
"Both of you," I said, the words too small for what I meant. "I missed both of you like breathing."
She smiled then, slow and devastating, and I knew I was done for. Completely, permanently, spectacularly done for.
Chapter 20: Brad
The trail turned vicious as we climbed, each step a negotiation between my knee and gravity. Serena walked ahead, her breathing labored in the thin mountain air, auburn hair escaping from her ponytail to stick to her neck. Even gasping in the thin air, even dusty and demolished by the climb, she made my chest tight for reasons that had nothing to do with elevation.
"How much—" she paused, gulping air like water, "—further before I die?"
"Next bend." I caught up, my traitorous hand already reaching to tuck that escaped strand behind her ear, fingertips grazing the salt on her skin. "My grandfather brought me here when I was eight. Told me this was where he proposed to Gran, where Dad proposed to Mom. Where Wilder men come to ruin themselves with promises."
The word 'proposed' hung between us, and I watched pink bloom across her cheeks.
"I just meant—it's a special place. Sarah and I came here when we got engaged." I waited for the familiar stab of guilt, but it didn't come. "I haven't been back since."
Understanding softened her eyes. "Brad, we don't have to—"
"I want to. I want to share this with you."
We rounded the bend, and Hidden Lake spread before us—a perfect mirror of crystal blue reflecting the surrounding peaks. Serena's soft gasp made every step of the painful hike worth it.
"Oh, Brad. It's incredible."
I spread the blanket on the same flat rock where three generations of Wilder men had made promises to the women they loved. Not that I was proposing.
Serena settled on the blanket like she was solving a geometry problem—calculating the exact distance that said "I'm here with you" but also "don't get any ideas about that family tradition you just mentioned." The six inches between us might as well have been the Atlantic.
I unpacked my backpack, trying to look casual about the fact that I'd basically packed for a romantic siege. Her favorite wine (the Sancerre she'd mentioned exactly once). Strawberries from the farmer's market that I'd driven forty minutes out of my way to get because she'd said the grocery store ones tasted like disappointment. Gruyere that cost more than my first hockey stick. And then, because I had the emotional intelligence of a golden retriever, a stack of books.
"You bought me teaching books?" She cradled them like newborns, eyes going supernova with something between shock and recognition.
"You've been losing sleep over Timothy's sensory processing issues." I scratched my neck, suddenly feeling like I'd stripped naked at center ice. "Thought these might—is this weird? This is weird. I bought you textbooks on a hike."
"It's perfect." Her voice did that thing where it went whisper-soft and destroyed me. "You pay attention to my random teacher rants at midnight."
