"Why me?" she asks suddenly.
I pause, the fork halfway to the plate. "What?"
"Why me?" she repeats. "You could have any woman in Pine Valley. You're... you." She gestures vaguely at my chest, at the shop around us. "You’re strong. You’re lethal. I’m just a baker with a broken past and too much baggage. Why did you watch me for three months? Why did you bring me here?"
I set the fork down. The question hangs in the air, heavy and sharp. I could tell her she’s beautiful. I could tell her about curves that drive me insane. But that’s surface level. That’s not why I stood in the rain outside her shop at 4:00 a.m. ensuring she got inside safely.
"Come with me," I say.
I take her hand and lead her away from the kitchen, toward the spiral metal staircase leading down to the main floor. The forge.
The workshop is cavernous, smelling of iron filings, ozone, and oil. My welding rig sits in the corner. Anvils, hammers, sheets of raw steel. This is where I make sense. This is where I take things that are hard and unyielding and bend them to my will with fire and force.
I lead her to the workbench in the back. It’s cluttered with tools, but in the center, sitting on a velvet rag, is a piece of metal I’ve been working on for weeks.
"Look," I say.
She steps forward, fingers hovering over the object. A rose. Forged from darkened steel, every petal beaten out by hand, folded and curled with obsessive precision. The stem is twisted iron, thorns sharp enough to draw blood. Heavy, permanent, indestructible.
"I made this," I say, voice low. "While I was watching you."
She picks it up, the weight surprising her. She traces the delicate edge of a steel petal. "It's beautiful, Blake."
"I work with metal because it makes sense," I tell her, leaning my hip against the workbench. "It has a melting point. It has a breaking point. If you apply enough heat and pressure, you can change it. Fix it. People aren't like that. People lie. They break and they don't go back together."
I look at my hands, scarred from burns and cuts, lethal weapons that have ended lives. "I came back from the service, and nothing fit. The noise in my head didn't stop. The only time it got quiet was when I was down here, burning things."
I step closer, trapping her against the workbench again. I need to be close. I need to breathe her in to clear the smoke in my mind.
"Then I saw you," I say. "Three months ago. You were arguing with a delivery driver who dropped a crate of flour. You were fierce. You were terrified, shaking like a leaf, but you stood your ground."
I reach out, cupping her cheek. My thumb brushes her lower lip.
"I saw the cracks in you," I confess. "I saw how broken you were. And I saw that you were still standing. You were still trying to make something sweet in a bitter world."
Her eyes fill with tears, magnifying the blue. She leans into my palm.
"Ownership wasn't the goal. Sanity was. When I looked at you, the world finally snapped into focus. The static from the desert, the ringing of the hammer—it all faded. You were the only thing in this town that made me feel like I didn't have to be a monster."
I pause. "Or maybe you made me feel like being a monster had a purpose. If I could protect you, then the violence in me was worth something."
A tear slips free, tracking over my thumb.
"I can't breathe without you, Tiff," I whisper, the admission tearing out of my throat like jagged glass. "Down here in the dark, with just the fire... I suffocate. But you? You're the air. You're the only clean thing I've ever touched."
"Blake," she chokes out, dropping the steel rose onto the bench with a heavy clang. She throws her arms around my neck, burying her face in my shoulder. "You're not a monster. You saved me. You're the only one who ever saw me."
I wrap my arms around her, crushing her to me, lifting her off her feet. I bury my face in her hair, inhaling deeply. The buttery caramel, the sweetness, the life.
"I'm keeping you," I vow against her skin. "I don't care about the law. I don't care about your ex. I will burn this entire mountain down before I let anyone take you out of this forge."
She clings to me, legs wrapping around my waist. "Don't let me go. Please, Blake, don't let me go."
"Never."
The perimeter alarm shrieks, a piercing violation of the quiet.
This isn't the proximity warning of a passing car. This is the breach alarm. Zone 4. The lower trail. I set Tiffany down, shifting gears instantly. The softness vanishes from my eyes. Weight forward, hands ready.
