I can barely breathe.
“I know we just met,” he says. “I know how this sounds. But I knew the second I saw you standing in that cabin doorway that you were going to matter to me.”
My throat tightens.
No one has ever said anything like that to me.
No one has ever looked at me like the ground under his feet shifted the moment I showed up.
“I don’t regret last night,” he says. “Not one second of it.”
“I don’t either,” I whisper.
His jaw flexes once, like that answer cost him something just by how much it means.
“Good,” he says roughly. “Because I’ve been lying here trying to figure out how to say this without sounding like I’ve lost my damn mind.”
Despite the ache in my chest, I smile a little. “Have you?”
“Probably.”
That makes me laugh softly.
His thumb strokes my cheek again.
“I want you to consider staying.”
The words hit me so hard I go still.
“Staying?” I repeat.
“In Lovestone Ridge.”
I stare at him.
He is watching me with that same steady intensity, not forcing, not pleading, just telling me the truth in the only way he seems to know how.
“I know it’s fast,” he says. “I know it sounds crazy. But I don’t want this to be one storm and one night and then you disappear back to the city.”
My heart is beating too hard, too fast, all over the place.
The wild thing is... I know exactly what he means.
Because the thought of leaving already feels wrong.
Because this cabin, this mountain, this town, this man, all of it has settled into me with terrifying ease.
Because for the first time in months, maybe years, I don’t feel like I’m scrambling to keep my life from collapsing.
I feel still.
Safe.
Wanted.
Weston searches my face. “Say something.”
I swallow.
