Tears spilled down her cheeks, and watching her cry felt like being gutted with a dull knife.
I walked to the window and pulled open the curtains, staring out at the mountains without really seeing them.
My thoughts were a scattered mess, tumbling over each other as I tried to find some solution, some way to fix this.
“Do you like Iron Peak?” I asked, my voice rough.
“I love it,” she whispered.
“Would you stay if you had somewhere affordable to live?”
“In a heartbeat.”
I turned around and looked at her, letting everything I felt show on my face. “I know it’s not much,” I said slowly, “but would you want to stay withme?”
Her eyes widened, hope flickering across her features before caution crept back in. “For how long?”
I shrugged, trying to appear casual, even though my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. “As long as you want.”
I crossed the room and knelt down in front of her, taking her hands in mine. Her fingers were trembling. Or maybe that was me.
“I know we haven’t talked about any future plans.” The words came out rough and unpolished. “And my life might not look like much right now. But if I live in your heart the way you live in mine, I can’t help but hope that you might want to make it apermanentmove.”
Her breath caught, and more tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I could convert the cabin into a propagation room for your plants,” I continued, the ideas tumbling out faster now. “We could live in the workshop room together. There’s running water, and I think I could finish the kitchen in a few weeks to make it more suitable. It wouldn’t be fancy, but it would be ours.”
Amelia’s face crumpled, but she was smiling through her tears. “Are you sure? You don’t think we’d be rushing things?”
“Why be cautious? Isn’t that why you left your old life behind? To find a new one you liked better?” I stood up, pulling her into my arms. “Live it with me, Amelia. I want to be your new life.”
She didn’t answer right away. Her fingers tightened in mine, and her gaze flicked toward the window.
Then she looked back at me, her eyes widening as something wild streaked through her.
“Yeah, Grayson. Yeah. Let’sdoit.”
I reached up and cupped her face in my hands, wiping her tears away with my thumbs.
Then she melted into me, and I knew I’d found my woman.
She whispered, “I thought I was just temporary for you.”
“Oh, Amelia, you’re not temporary. You couldneverbe temporary. I want a wholelifetimewith you.”
My heart did a slow somersault before settling back into position again.
Everything that had been wrong in my world felt right now. With Amelia at my side, I knew we could doanything.
Epilogue
Amelia
Two weeks later.
I sat up in bed with a stack of mail in my lap.
Ourbed. The thought still made me giddy.
