“Carson,” I whispered, “I don’t know how clear I am right now.”
He reached me then. Close enough that I could smell pine, clean laundry, and whatever soap he used that smelled heavenly.
The flowers lowered to his side as he lifted his gaze to mine.
“I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to get away from things,” he said. “From noise, from people, from expectations. I built my life around solitude because it felt safer than staying.”
I exhaled shakily. “That sounds familiar.”
“I know.” His voice gentled even more. “That’s why I want to say this right.”
I should have backed up. Should have breathed. Should have braced myself.
But I didn’t move.
He looked at me like he could see every version of me, the fearless guide, the runner, the woman who’d never let anyone stay long enough to matter, and didn’t flinch.
“When I was with my brother,” he said quietly, “I kept thinking about you. Not in the romantic, head-in-the-clouds way, though that happened too.”
My cheeks burned, and he continued, voice deepening with honesty.
“I thought about how, for the first time, I didn’t want to stay away. I didn’t want to use distance as a shield. I didn’t want to hide out in some mountain cabin far from everything.”
His throat tightened. He swallowed.
“For the first time… I wanted to come back.”
Something caught in my chest. It didn’t hurt. It expanded. Warmed. Glowed.
“I wanted to come back here,” he said. “To you.”
My breath stuttered.
He set the flowers gently on the counter, freeing both hands. One slid along the edge of the island; the other hovered near mine, not touching yet, but close enough that I felt heat between us.
“And for the first time in my life,” he said, voice rough, “I can picture a future that isn’t a hermit hut in the middle of nowhere. A future that looks like afternoons in the gear shed. And hot coffee before sunrise. And trail maps spread out on a kitchen table. And you.”
My throat closed.
Sienna Harper, professional runner-from-everything, was speechless.
But not from fear.
From recognition.
Because everything he’d said, every raw, unpolished truth, mirrored the things I had not let myself say aloud.
And that scared me more beautifully than anything ever had.
“Carson,” I managed, “I—”
He saw it immediately.
The panic.
The swirl of emotion.
The part of me that wanted to bolt even as I stood rooted in place.
