And then she ran.
Literally ran, heels be damned. The crosswalk light was red, but she went anyway. A car honked. She ran across the courtyard, eyes locked on the well and the man standing beside it.
When she reached it, she stopped short, breathless and heart pounding.
“Hi.”
Chapter 35
Ethan
Seeing her was a blow to the chest. His whole body reacted before his brain could catch up. His heart had known she was coming before his eyes confirmed it. “Honey,” he said, breathless, like it had been him who’d jogged over.
She faltered only a moment before she flung herself at him. When she did, he caught her instinctively, arms wrapping around her. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled like a man who’d been underwater too long and finally broke the surface.
“I was hoping I would see you,” he said into her hair.
God, it was all he had thought about. These past few days, with the town rallying around him, with neighbors writing letters, filing appeals, and signing petitions, it had felt like hope. But every time he caught that flicker of hope, it came with the hollow awareness that she wasn’t there to see it.
He’d kept searching her out without meaning to, turning toward the driveway when another car pulled up, listening for her laugh when the kitchen filled with voices,finding himself leaning in Melly’s doorway at night like he might catch a glimpse of her.
And now she was here, warm and solid in his arms.
She pulled back just enough to look up at him, and the space between them felt suddenly unbearable.
“I wasn’t going to come,” she admitted, looking up at him.
“What changed?”
“I saw you standing here. And I just—” She laughed quietly. “I ran out of my office.”
Ethan smiled. “You always did have a flair for the dramatic.”
“I am a deeply logical person.”
“Right. That’s why you threw yourself into a mud puddle to avoid a snake and leaped into a well to save a goat.”
“I stand by both of those decisions.”
They laughed, and for a split second, Ethan could almost pretend they were in a different story entirely. One where they were just visiting the city she loved. One where they stood at the well where she’d spent the last decade of her career and the magic was just background noise to the real story, their story. A story where he would confess that he was in love with her, and she’d tell him that she’d never stopped thinking about him.
That she wanted to be his.
They’d kiss and he’d finally believe that magic and love could exist for him.
But it wasn’t their romantic moment.
They were mere minutes from a review session that would leave Ethan and his girls without their home. He’d done everything he could, and it still might not be enough.
As if sensing the drop in his mood, she stepped back. “Where are the girls?”
“They’re in there with Marlene.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “I just needed a minute.”
“So no one else came?” she asked.
“Nope. Just us.”
“Were you going to make a wish?”
