The question hung in the air. He still wasn’t facing me, and for a long, horrible moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. That he’d just open the door and disappear into the snow and I’d never see him again.
Then his shoulders dropped. His hand fell away from the knob.
“No,” he said, his voice so low I almost didn’t hear it. “It wasn’t just the storm.”
He turned around. The look on his face made my breath catch—raw and open in a way I hadn’t seen from him before. Like he was forcing himself to let me see something he’d kept hidden for a long time.
“I’ve been watching you,” he said. “For weeks. At the roadhouse.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Every time the crew went in, you were there. Working. Smiling at customers. Laughing at something one of the other girls said.” He swallowed hard. “Whenever you came to our table, I couldn’t look at you. The guys would be talking, ordering, joking around, and I’d just sit there like an idiot, staring at the menu or my drink. Anything to keep from making eye contact because I didn’t know what I’d say if you actually talked to me.”
My mind was racing, trying to piece this together. He’d been watching me? For weeks? I tried to remember seeing him at the roadhouse, but I couldn’t place him. There were so many customers, so many faces.
“When the call came in last night,” he continued, “when I heard your name, your address—I was out the door before anyone else could volunteer. Hux tried to offer backup, and I shut him down. I didn’t want anyone else coming with me. I just needed to get to you.”
He took a step toward me, then stopped, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed.
“I’m not good at this,” he said. “Talking. Saying what I feel. I never have been. But I need you to know—last night wasn’t just the storm. It wasn’t adrenaline or whatever you might be thinking.”
His eyes held mine, and I saw it all there. Everything he couldn’t put into words. The longing, the fear, the desperate hope that I might feel the same.
“You’re it for me, Meghan. I knew it the first time I saw you. I just didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to tell you.”
I was crying. I hadn’t even realized it until I felt the tears sliding down my cheeks. I swiped at them with the back of my hand, laughing a little at myself.
“I thought you regretted it,” I said. “When I woke up and you started toward the door, I thought you couldn’t wait to leave.”
He crossed the room in two strides, stopping right in front of me. His hands came up to cup my face, thumbs brushing away the tears.
“I’m an idiot,” he said. “I woke up scared out of my mind that you’d realize you made a mistake. That once the power came back and everything went back to normal, you’d look at me and wonder what the hell you were thinking.”
“I was thinking that I’ve never felt like this before,” I said. “I was thinking that I want to feel like this for the rest of my life.”
Something shifted in his expression. The fear melted away, replaced by something warmer. Something that looked a lot like joy.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He kissed me then, soft and sweet, nothing like the desperate hunger of last night. This was a promise. A beginning.
When he pulled back, warmth filled his expression. “Come home with me,” he said. “I need to check on Midnight. And I want you to see my cabin. I want you to see where I live.”
I thought about Mrs. Norris’s house. The power was on. The heat was working. The storm was winding down. My job here was done.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me get dressed.”
He smiled—actually smiled, a real one that crinkled the corners of his eyes—and my heart warmed at the sight. I could tell that smile was rare. I had a feeling I wanted to spend the rest of my life earning it.
Twenty minutes later, we were in his truck, pushing through the fresh snow toward the top of the mountain. He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around mine, like he couldn’t stand to not be touching me.
His cabin was small and sturdy, tucked into the trees with a view that probably stretched for miles on a clear day. Smoke curled from the chimney, and I could see the woodstove glowing through the window.
The second we opened the door, a black blur came barreling toward us. Midnight was even more beautiful in person—sleek and bright-eyed, her tail wagging so hard her whole body wiggled with it.
“Hey, girl,” Wolfe said, dropping to one knee to ruffle her ears. “Miss me?”
