Nellie leaned closer, dropping her voice. “He’ll come.”
The constant dull ache under my ribs prickled. “If he was going to, he’d be here.”
“Maybe he had to decide if you were worth losing everything else,” Nellie said. “Some men take longer to choose. Doesn’t mean the choice isn’t certain once they do.”
Before I could answer, the air around the square changed.
It was small at first. Conversation thinned. The music paused. Heads turned, one after another, everyone’s attention pulled to the far end of Main like a compass finding true north.
I knew it was him before I looked.
Harlan walked into the square with the kind of presence that turned heads… steady, immovable, impossible to ignore. Firelight caught the lines of his face and slid over the breadth of his shoulders, marking him as a man who had made up his mind and expected the world to fall in line. He didn’t skirt the edges. He didn’t pause under an awning to pretend he’d wandered over by accident. He walked straight into the center of everything I’d made and stopped right in front of me.
My heart went hot and cold in the same beat.
“Jessa,” he said. Not loud, not soft. Just steady.
The square rippled again. Thatcher’s stance shifted, subtle as a tectonic plate. Holt’s arms crossed tight. Dane’s mouth curved into a sly grin. Trace and Ridge were suddenly very interested. Rowan’s pen hovered above her clipboard like she’d realized she was about to witness something she might have to reference in a council meeting someday.
I tightened my grip on the mug Nellie had given me. “What are you doing here?”
He looked around like he owed the whole town the courtesy of seeing it. His gaze skimmed past the bonfire and the string lights, the kids and the strollers and the folding chairs and the way people leaned in, greedy for a story. He found my brothers in the crowd and didn’t flinch. Finally, he looked back to me.
“I was afraid,” he said, and the simple honesty of his words made my throat close. “Afraid of losing them.” He jerked his chin toward Thatcher and Holt. “They’re the only real family I’ve ever had, and I didn’t want to fuck it up. So, I locked it all down. I thought if I stayed in control, if I never slipped, if I played the part everybody wanted me to, then maybe I could keep everything in line.”
I bit down on my lip and waited for him to continue.
He dragged a hand over his jaw, disgust flashing in his eyes. “Truth is, I wasn’t protecting anything. I was just too damn scared to risk losing it. Too much of a coward to admit what I wanted.”
Someone near the cider stand whispered, “The Warden,” with a little laugh, but Harlan’s attention didn’t waver.
“But all I did,” he said, “was lose you.”
The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks up like a gasp.
“I called it a mistake.” He swallowed like the word actually caused him pain. “And that was the worst lie I’ve ever told. The truth is, you’re the only thing that’s felt right since I was old enough to know what right was. You’re stubborn, you never let me get the last word, and you’ve got this way of filling every damn space like it was built for you. You walked into my store and made it feel alive again.” The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You said it smelled like dust and forgotten dreams, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t throw someone out for being right.”
A soft laugh I couldn’t stop caught in my chest and shook loose.
“You broke into my routines and rearranged them in ways I didn’t know I needed,” he said, his voice roughening. “You made me want more than just making it through. I’ve spent my whole life thinking control was care. That keeping the doors locked and the shelves straight and my heart shut was the only way to make sure I didn’t get hurt.”
He took one slow breath that drew me with it.
“You taught me that trust is care,” he said. “That letting you in is the point. That I don’t keep you safe by hiding you. I keep you safe by standing next to you, even when the whole damn town has something to say.”
His gaze cut across the square, daring anyone to disagree. A hush spread like frost. Even the music seemed to fade back, leaving only the snap and sigh of burning wood.
“I love you, Jessa Thorne,” he said, like he was staking a claim. “I’ve loved you since you were sixteen and wrote your name on my arm with a Sharpie to see if I’d scrub it off. I didn’t then. I won’t now. If your brothers hate me, if the Ex-List laughs at me, if the whole town thinks The Warden finally fell and wants to watch, let them. I’ll stand here anyway. I’ll stand with you.”
My hands shook around the mug. I didn’t realize I’d dropped it until hot cider splashed across my boots. Even then, I didn’t feel a thing.
“Say it again,” I whispered, because part of me needed to hear the words twice to believe they were true.
“I love you,” he said, without blinking. “And I’m done hiding.”
There was nothing gentle about the way I crashed into him. My arms went around his neck, and my feet left the ground. But his hands were already on my waist, hauling me in like he’d been waiting to catch me for years.
Our kiss wasn’t careful. It was rough and hot, like trying to breathe after drowning… pain first, then nothing but need. He caught my bottom lip, I dug my fingers into his hair, someone whooped, someone groaned, someone yelled, “Pay up!” and somewhere on the edge of it, Nellie shouted, “Finally!” like she’d just won the final blackout game at bingo.
