"Very good different."
They were quiet for a long moment, and Riley knew they were both feeling it—the weight of what this meant, the impossibility of pretending this was casual or temporary.
"Riley?" Grant's voice was careful.
"Yeah?"
"I got you something. For Christmas."
Riley lifted her head to look at him. "You didn't have to?—"
"I wanted to." Grant reached over to his nightstand and pulled out a small, wrapped box.
Riley sat up, pulling the sheet around herself, and took the box with shaking hands. Inside was a delicate silver bracelet with a single charm—a small pine tree.
"It's—" Her voice broke. "Grant, it's beautiful."
"I wanted you to have something from home. From here." He took the bracelet and fastened it around her wrist. "So wherever you are, you'll remember."
Riley looked at the bracelet, then at Grant. The careful walls she'd built around her heart crumbled.
She was in love with him.
Had probably never stopped being in love with him.
And in almost week, she was supposed to leave and go back to a city that didn't feel like home anymore.
"Grant—" she started but didn't know how to finish.
"You don't have to say anything," Grant said, pulling her back down into his arms. "I just wanted you to have it."
Riley curled into him, the bracelet cool against her skin, and tried not to think about January second. Tried not to think about her apartment in the city or her job or the life she'd built there.
Right now, she just wanted this. Grant's arms around her. The quiet farmhouse. The snow falling soft outside the window.
Home.
This felt like home.
And it scared her more than anything.
They spent the rest of the afternoon wrapped up in each other—talking and touching and existing in their own little bubble. Grant told her more about his plans for the farm, about the expansion he wanted to do, about his hopes for the future. Riley told him about her frustrations with work, about how the city felt too big and too lonely, about how she'd forgotten what it felt like to belong somewhere.
"You belong here," Grant said quietly.
Riley looked at him—at his green eyes and strong hands and the way he looked at her like she was the answer to a question he'd been asking for ten years.
"I don't know if I can," she whispered.
"Can or will?"
"I don't know."
Grant kissed her forehead. "You don't have to decide today."
But Riley could feel the deadline approaching. January second. One week away.
One week to figure out if she was brave enough to choose this. To choose him.
