He paused, untangled our fingers, and rested his hand over my stomach. “And this, Tally. I especially want this. With you.”
I opened my mouth, but he closed the last inch between us first. Running a gentle hand over my cheek, cupping the back of my neck, and tilting my face toward his. His gaze locked on mine, eyes watching my lips in the way one does when they’ve kissed you before, and, God help them, they want to do it again.
“That letter of yours?” His voice dropped low. “It wasn’t a goodbye. It was a map. And it led me straight here.”
He slid his fingers between mine again, sure and steady.
“You’re not broken pieces, Tal. You’re a work in progress. So am I. We can sand the edges together, one day at a time.”
The cold air stung my eyes. I blinked hard. “What if I wave you in, and tomorrow I panic and run again?”
“Love isn’t always pretty, Tally.” His voice was quiet, but every word landed like it had been etched into my ribs. “It’s never going to be this picture-perfect thing you imagined. It’s not candlelit dinners and grand gestures every day. Most of the time, it’s having someone by your side when you need them most. It’s being there on the good days and the awful ones. When a parent’s in the hospital. When you’re sitting in silence next to a hospice bed. When you’re standing in a delivery room, too afraid to ask the questions out loud. Or when you’re holding your breath and your baby’s being placed in your arms for the very first time.”
He took a step closer, eyes blazing. “Love is driving five hours in my dead uncle’s busted truck because I had to tell you—without a single shadow of a doubt—that I’m that man, Tally. I’m the one who will hold your hand through every storm. The good. The bad. The heartbreaking. I am that guy.”
He paused, breath catching.
“Let it be me.”
We stood still, breathless, like the world might split straight down the middle if we moved too fast.
His voice cracked. “I used to think I was the one who took broken things and made them beautiful. That was my story. But then you showed up. You took the mess of me, the broken edges, the scattered pieces, and somehow you made it make sense. You didn’t just fix me, Tally. You reminded me I wasworthfixing.”
He took one last step, close enough for his warmth to spill into the space between us as our bodies pressed together. “You made me believe that someone like you could love someone like me.”
We stood there, hearts thudding.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave Charlie the only answer I had in that moment.
I kissed him.
Soft at first. Quiet. Then firmer, fuller. Packed with every promise we had made, and broken, and would make and break again.
I didn’t know much about life. Hell, I didn’t know much about anything at all. But I did know that maybe the secret isn’t being perfect. Perhaps it’s not the right job, or the right house, or the right partner on paper.
Maybe the secret to a long, beautiful, heartbreaking, worth-it kind of life is finding the person who sees you at your absolute worst and doesn’t flinch. The one who doesn’t try to fix it and sits beside you in the mess and holds your hand through it.
Maybe the real magic is in finding someone who will chart a course straight to you, even when you’ve built every roadblock you can think of.
And when they finally arrive, breathless and stubborn and sure…
I didn’t need the river to bring Charlie Pruitt ashore; he’d found his way all on his own.
And this time, I let him stay.
Epilogue
CHARLIE
Libbywasdouble-fistingchunksof her smash cake and showing no signs of slowing down.
She sat in the grass under the playground shade structure, a paper crown crooked on her head, cheeks flushed pink from the heat and attention, hot pink frosting smeared in the crevices of her neck and the chubby little folds of her arms.
It’s not every day that the princess of the family turns one year old, and Liberty Savannah Pruitt was making quite the show of it.
Tally hovered nearby, chatting with a group of moms she’d met through the inn’s new community brunch series, one handholding a half-eaten mini quiche, the other clutching Nancy’s leash, the leash getting yanked and jerked every time she lunged for the discarded pieces of cake being flung in the grass.
Dig crouched down in front of Libby, snapping a thousand photos of her dressed in tulle, frosting, and pearls. “Smile for your favorite uncle, my little star,” he cooed. Libby paid him no mind as she kept digging her fingers into the soft sponge of the cake and squealing from the excitement, or the sugar.
