She exhaled slowly, like I’d given her permission. “We did it.”
“We did,” I echoed, brushing my fingers against hers for a heartbeat before letting go. Not hiding. Just… choosing.
After lunch, Harper corralled us into the empty ballroom, saying she needed help finding the earrings she’d taken off the night before. It was a lie. “I need a quick status check,” she demanded. “Are we in love yet, or still pretending?”
Sidney gave her an icy look that could have frozen the lake solid. I bought us a few extra seconds with humor. “Your father-in-law thinks the prime rib was overcooked.”
Harper rolled her eyes. “Deflection. That’s a yes. You look happy, Sid.”
“Terrified,” Sidney admitted.
“That’s a kind of happy.” Harper hugged us both, then bolted off to wrangle her younger cousins, leaving the hush behind her.
The ballroom smelled faintly of wax and pine and champagne ghosts. Through the windows, the mountain wore a dusk-blue shadow.
“I should pack up my bins,” Sidney said.
“I’ll help.”
We worked in silence, stacking table numbers, folding velvet runners, taping boxes. Domestic. Ordinary. A relief. When our hands met over the last piece of tape, I held her gaze. “We have a window.”
“For what?”
“Dinner,” I said. “My cabin. No lobby. No clipboards. Just us.”
Her heart showed in the quick lift of her chest. She hesitated a fraction too long, then agreed. “Seven?”
“Seven,” I repeated, the word feeling like a foothold on solid ground.
The path to my cabin glittered with ice, the sky deepening violet overhead. I opened the door before she could knock. Warmth and the scent of stew and wood smoke spilled out.
“You cooked,” she said, surprised.
“That’s a big word for keeping something warm that I ordered from the grille,” I said.
We ate with our knees nearly touching. Talked about Mama Mae’s Christmas call and the update on how all of my foster brothers were doing. When the bowls were empty, I finally said what I’d been carrying with me all day.
“I love you, Sidney Kincaid.” I hadn’t said those three words to anyone since my parents passed and I’d found myself in a never-ending string of foster homes. When I ended up at Mama Mae’s, I felt it but had never had the balls to say it out loud. Love could make a man weak. Caring about someone else meant putting yourself out there and giving the powers that be the ability to take everything away. But with Sidney, it was worth it. Watching her pour herself into the weekend and take a chance on building the life she wanted had given me the courage to do the same.
She asked about Alaska and what would come next. I gave her the truth, that I’d come back. That I’d stay long enough for us to figure out what after looked like. And longer if she wanted me to.
“I do,” she said, and the ground steadied under us both. “I love you too, Hayes.”
I was about to pull her into my arms and show her exactly how much she meant to me when a knock landed on the door.
Stetson stood there, hat in hand, the tips of his ears pink from the cold. “I’m not good at apologizing.”
“Same,” I answered. “So we’ll keep it short.”
He nodded. “I don’t like it. But I’ll try not to be an ass about it. Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t,” I said, and meant it.
“Tomorrow,” he added, backing away. “Breakfast. Like normal people. No sneaking around.”
“We’ll be there,” Sidney promised.
He touched the brim of his hat and left, his boots crunching down the path.
