“It doesn’t mean it’s not for you, you know,” he replies.
I feel the lines between my eyebrows crease more intensely.
“Love, Kate,” Boone adds. “Just because you haven’t had it yet, doesn’t mean you won’t. Love doesn’t have an expiration date. Not in having it and not in losing it.”
“Do you still love Becca?” I ask bluntly. I know he does, just like I still love my dad. But I need to hear him say it, instead of me just knowing it.
“I’ll always love Becca. That doesn’t mean it’s the only love I’ll have. I thought it was when I first came to this cabin five years ago. I kept hidden where love couldn’t find me, but I’ve been wondering what’s next for me. Praying about it,” Boone says softly.
The truth is I’m not scared to kiss Boone. I’m not scared to lovehim, either. I’m scared that he’ll eventually realize I’m not easy to love. It is easier to just not have it than to believe it can be for me.
“No one has wanted to try to love me like you love Becca. Something always happens where they realize I’m a lot to handle,” I admit. “I mean, look at the predicament I got myself into by thinking I was bigger than a blizzard.”
Boone smiles at me, but it’s different. Tender. Something in the way his lips curve has softened. “Kate, it’s not that you are too much. It’s that they weren’t enough. Don’t let small men make you wish you were a smaller woman. And you are bigger than a blizzard.”
My secret hasn’t pushed Boone away. In fact, his grip around my hand is more secure.
“Your turn,” I manage to breathe out.
“Becca didn’t die in a snowstorm. She survived the crash. I found her.” Boone sighs heavily.
I gasp. “Here?”
He nods his head. “We were back home for Christmas. She’d secretly bought this cabin for me as an escape. She thought she would surprise me and was driving back from setting up Christmas decorations. She didn’t have a lot of experience driving in snowstorms. She wasn’t answering her phone. My parents knew where she was, and I went out to find her. I found her alive, but she’d suffered injuries from the crash. They wouldn’t let me in the operating room even though I’m a surgeon. They wouldn’t let me try to save her.”
“What?Why?!” I gasp.
“Protocols,” he answers simply.
“Oh, Boone,” I whisper, rubbing his hand with my thumb.
“That’s why I stopped. If I couldn’t save the person I loved, then what was the point of all those years of training?” he mumbles. “So, I moved here. I trashed all the Christmas décor Becca had set up. I thought I was starting over, but really, I was just running away. But God still found me up here. He’s been helping me.”
“I heard you pray over me last night,” I admit, my cheeks burning hot. “I haven’t been prayed over since my dad used to do it. He’d tuck me in every night, asking God to protect me and guide me. I’m not sure I’ve really answered my dad’s prayers.”
“You heard that?” he asks quietly.
I nod my head. “Thank you.”
“The truth is, I haven’t always been happy with God,” Boone murmurs. “But I’ve learned God is bigger than our feelings. He must at least have more answers than I do. Maybe not the ones I want, but answers.”
“You want to hear something silly I used to pray for when I was little, and I guess I still hope for?” I whisper.
Boone smiles at me. “Yes.”
“I used to pray every night after my dad left my room to be married to someone that would sit on a front porch swing with me every day. My parents never sat on our front porch and swung together. I always felt sad for my dad because I’d find him swinging out there by himself, so I’d hop up next to him, and he’d wrap his arm around me, pulling me close. I guess I just wanted that for mydad so much that I decided to pray for it for myself,” I detail out. “I know that’s silly.”
Boone’s smile widens. “That’s not silly, Kate. I think it’s beautiful.”
“Do you have a final secret?” I ask Boone, watching as the lights dance in his blue eyes.
“I lied to you yesterday,” Boone says, turning his body toward mine. “I still promise that I won’t kiss you, but if you kiss me, I’m going to kiss you back.”
“Do you want to kiss me?” I question.
“Well, I don’t want to not kiss you, Kate.” He laughs.
There’s something in this moment that has grown warm, our hearts spilling out between one another, not to convince one another that we are perfect, but to convince one another that we are anything but.
