Her eyes darken.
“I do. I want you, Thatcher.”
She nods, eyes wide, and I feel my chest loosen just enough so I can breathe again.
But there’s more. I can see it in the way her throat bobs when she swallows, in how her fingers tremble against mine even though she’s trying to stay strong.
“Look, I know this is way too much information,” she says, voice shaky. “And it’s moving way too fast?—”
“No. Not for me.”
I shake my head and lean in just slightly, grounding her with my voice. “I want to hear all of it, Baby Girl. Every word.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “It’s just, I—I’m not some… some scheming little nobody, Thatcher. I swear I’m not using you.”
The words come out fast, rushed, like she’s trying to get them past the wall of shame she’s been dragging behind her for years.
“Willow,” I chide, but she shakes her head and I pause, allowing her to finish.
“I have my own money. I mean… I have a savings account. It’s from my father’s life insurance policy. He passed when I was a teenager, and I was the sole beneficiary. It went into a trust until I turned thirty. That was just this year?—”
That gets me.
I blink. Something in my chest goes tight.
“Shit, I’m sorry about your father.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say because it’s true.
I still have both my parents, and they might not live close by, but they love me, and I love them.
“What was he like?” I ask her.
“Oh, he was great. Kind, sweet, caring. The opposite of my mom—shit, that wasn’t very nice.”
“Was it honest?” I ask. She nods.
“Then it doesn’t have to be nice.”
She sucks in a shaky breath.
“When’s your birthday?” I ask.
It comes out hoarse, a little raw, because I need to know.
“March 5th,” she whispers, eyes darting away like she’s ashamed of even that.
Goddammit.
That was the day after she showed up here.
While I was admiring her work ethic, her quiet fire—while I was dreaming about her in my bed and imagining what it’d be like to kiss her senseless—she was turning thirty.
Alone.
In a shitty cabin.
