The wedding square glowed faintly in the lamplight, waiting.
CHAPTER 51
Lauren
Lauren wasin the attic when the doorbell rang.
By the time she made it downstairs, she was a little breathless, her socks sliding on the polished wood.
She opened the door and Tom was there.
“Hey, Lo.”
Her heartbeat stuttered. “Hey.”
The world outside smelled of cold pine and woodsmoke, the kind of night that bit at your skin and made every word feel sharper.
“Can I take you somewhere?” he asked. “Tonight?”
“Out?” she echoed. “Now?”
He nodded. “I promise it’s not a trick or a grand gesture or—well, it is kind of a gesture, but not grand. More like…a medium one.”
Her mouth curved despite herself. “A medium gesture?”
She should say no. She had paint drying upstairs, commissions waiting, a whole future to build that didn’t revolve around him.But he looked hopeful, and earnest, and too much like the man she had loved for years.
“What should I wear?” she asked, her voice steadier than she felt.
His eyes traveled the length of her—paint-flecked leggings, old cardigan, the faint shimmer of silver on her wrist where she’d brushed against wet paint. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks.
“You look perfect,” he said quietly. “Just—rug up warm.”
Her breath hitched. “Perfect,” she repeated, like she was testing the word.
Tom’s expression was serious. “Perfect.”
He’d told her he would be courting her. Wooing her. And experiencing it was… intoxicating.
When he offered his hand, she hesitated for half a heartbeat—then took it.
The cold nippedat her face as they stepped outside. Snow crunched under their boots.
She glanced sideways at him as they reached the car. He looked at her, catching her eye and smiling.
For a heartbeat, excitement bloomed—sharp and fizzy and impossible to suppress. He was taking her somewhere. Somewhere secret. Somewhere romantic?
But hope was a treacherous thing.
She’d hoped before—so much that she’d peeked in Tom’s bag and convinced herself a necklace was waiting for her. And then, still raw, she’d seen an envelope and let the hope flare again.
She could still feel those twin moments like knives under her ribs.
And yet—even after she’d stopped hoping, he’d surprised her.
He’d stood in the January chill, on the trail where he’d once proposed, and handed her a new envelope.
A letter. Words.
