But I’m not so sure he meant that.
For all the promises he made and reassurances he gave me standing in that tiny apartment above Elaine’s garage, he seems to have secrets of his own. Ones he doesn’t want to discuss when this thing between us has shifted.
That warm palm squeezes my thigh. “We’re here.”
No sooner does he say the words than the road opens up into a vast field sitting under a stunning night sky with more twinkling stars than I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Oh, my God.”
I stare up at the breathtaking God-created canopy instead of looking where I probably should—at the cabin that lies in the clearing just ahead, the single porch light above it the only thing that illuminates the area aside from the large moon.
Wow.
Liam doesn’t stop beside the home. “That’s Killian and Willow’s place. It isn’t the original cabin, but one built a little later in the original location.”
“That’s amazing…”
The history this place holds is mind-boggling. I’ve never been anywhere that has been in the same family for two hundred and fifty years, where people put down roots and spent the time nurturing them and making them grow strong.
I can feel the weight of the past here.
We leave the small, one-story cabin behind us, and I hold my breath as we drive deeper onto the homestead—both because the darkness encroaches on us again but also because I have no idea what I’m about to see around each bend on the gravel drive.
“Up that way is Connor’s place.” Liam motions to a gravel path that cuts up to the right a few hundred yards behind Killian’s place. “Mine is this way.” He points to the left toward a massive barn. “This is the main barn. Most of the animals are housed there, and Killian also uses it for his woodworking.”
“He does woodworking, too?”
“Carvings mostly.”
Flashes of the various animals that stand sentinel in front of most of the businesses in town race through my memory, including the bear holding the picnic basket at the diner that I walk past on my way in every day. “You mean the ones that were all along Main Street?”
He nods. “Yep.”
“I had no idea.”
His broad shoulders rise and fall. “I guess when you’re chopping down trees and cutting lumber for a living, the most natural thing in the world is to continue to work with it in some other way in your free time.”
It does make sense, but I’ve never been good enough at anything to do what Killian and Liam can.
A Jill of all trades but a master of none—that’s how I’ve always seen myself. Part of moving around all the time and working whatever jobs I could find, even if they were only temporary, meant I didn’t have the opportunity to get truly skilled at any one thing.
I never thought I’d be sad about that, but after seeing what Liam did with the shelves and knowing Killian created the carvings I’ve admired up and down the street in town, I can’t help but feel like I’ve been missing out on something big.
There are so many big things I never had, though.
So, I’ll just add it to the list.
We turn behind the barn and head up a small slope a few hundred yards until another cabin comes into view.
This one stands tucked back well from the road with a stone and cobble path leading up to it, and it is magical.
“This is my place.”
Liam says it almost hesitantly, as if he’s afraid of how I might react to finally seeing it, and it takes me a moment to respond. Not because I’m trying to think of something to say but because it’s left me completely speechless.
“It’s beautiful.” Nestled in the middle of a grove of towering trees I can’t identify, the two-story cabin looks as if it grew there naturally, part of the landscape with the massive logs that make up its structure. “It looks like something out of a fairy tale.”
For a brief second, my heart skips a beat and the heat of his hand on my leg promises one of those swoony stories I always loved as a kid.
