"What if it's not enough?"
"Then it's not enough. But Lucy—you've done everything right. You came back, you apologized, you're rebuilding your life here. That's all you can do. The rest is up to him."
Lucy spent the next three hours at Uncle Walter's, trying to distract herself. She helped him with dinner, pretended to watch TV, checked her phone every five minutes.
At 6:45, she changed into the gray sweater—the one Jake loved—and drove to the overlook.
Jake was already there, leaning against his truck, looking out at the view of Timber Falls spread below.
Lucy parked next to him and got out slowly.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi." Jake turned to face her. "Thanks for coming."
"Of course."
They stood in awkward silence for a moment. Then Jake gestured to the tailgate of his truck. "Want to sit?"
They sat side by side, looking out at Timber Falls as the sun set behind the mountains.
"I've been thinking," Jake started. "About us. About what you said yesterday. About whether I can trust you again."
Lucy held her breath.
"And I realized something. Tommy told me a story today—about how his wife left Timber Falls for Boston and came back two years later asking for a second chance. He said he spent three months deciding whether to trust her. And then he realized—trust isn't something you're given. It's something you choose."
"Okay."
"Lucy, I can't guarantee I'll never get hurt again. I can't guarantee we'll make it work. But I can choose to trust you. To believe that you came back for the right reasons. To risk my heart one more time."
Lucy felt tears start. "So you'll give me a second chance?"
"I'll give us a second chance. But Lucy—" Jake turned to face her fully. "—I need you to understand something. If we do this, I need all of you. Not the part of you that's willing to stay until something better comes along. All of you. Committed. Here. Building this life with me."
"That's what I want. Jake, I promise—I'm not leaving again. Paris taught me that running away doesn't fix anything. I want to be here. I want to open my restaurant, be part of this community, build a life that's mine. And I want you to be part of that life."
"Tell me about the restaurant."
So Lucy told him. About the Morrison building, about her vision for Margaret's, about French-American fusion and honoring her grandmother while creating something new.
"I saw the building today," Lucy said. "And I could see it, Jake. I could see exactly what it could be. Not a bakery like my grandmother's. Something new. Something mine."
"That sounds incredible."
"It will be. If I can pull it off. If I can figure out funding and permitting and hiring and everything else that goes into opening a restaurant." Lucy paused. "But even if it fails, even if the restaurant doesn't work—I'm still staying. Because this is home. You're home."
Jake was quiet for a moment. Then he took Lucy's hand. "I missed you. Every single day. I told myself I was moving on, that I was over it, but I wasn't. I'm not. I love you, Lucy Chen. Even when I didn't want to, even when it hurt—I loved you."
"I love you too. I never stopped. Not for a single day in Paris."
"Then why did you stay so long? If you knew after July that you'd made a mistake, why did you wait three months to come back?"
Lucy had been expecting this question. "Because I was scared. Scared of admitting I was wrong. Scared of being the person who couldn't hack it in Paris. Scared of facing you and seeing disappointment in your eyes." She squeezed his hand. "But staying in Paris when I was miserable—that was more scary than coming home and risking your rejection."
"I'm not rejecting you."
"No?"
