“I can’t ask you to give up your job and your life here to save my family.”
Hisfamily. The truth of the words sliced through her. It was never hers, no matter how many late nights in the orchard she’d shared, no matter how many dinners at thatworn wooden table, no matter how the girls had looked at her like maybe she belonged. She’d wanted it to be theirs so badly she hadn’t noticed she was already dreaming beyond her place.
“It’s fine,” she said, forcing the tremor from her voice as best she could. “Really. It’s my pleasure, Mr. Hale.”
“Please,” he said, closer now, his voice rough. “Please stop calling me that.”
She turned at last, her eyes brimming. The question cracked out of her. “What do you want from me?”
He stepped toward her, and she saw it then. The rawness in his eyes. The walls he always carried with him stripped bare. “I want you to stay.”
Honey’s breath rushed out of her like she’d been sucker-punched.
“I know I’ve messed up,” he said. “I’ve spent so long trying to keep everything standing that I forgot how to let someone in. I didn’t know how to accept help. Or love again. But you—god, Honey—you walked in and didn’t just fix things. You saw us. You saw me.”
Her heart twisted, wanting so badly to believe him, to fall into the space he was holding open, but the memory of that hug, of the family reknitting itself in front of her, was still too fresh.
She forced her lips into a shaky smile. “I’m glad it all worked out.”
“Did it?”
“It seems so. You got everything you needed.”
“Then why are you walking away?”
She wrapped her arms around her stomach as if she could cushion herself from the pain there. “You got your wife back.”
“My ex-wife,” Ethan said gently. He reached for herhand, his thumb brushing against her trembling fingers. “She knows where we stand. I’ll always care about her. We built a life once, and we’ll always have the girls. But she left. She chose another path. Even if she wants to be part of their lives again, that doesn’t mean she’s still mine. Or that I’m hers.”
“You should try to make it work,” Honey said, even though it killed her. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Honey,” he said her name like a plea. “Don’t tell me what the right thing is.”
He was so close now she could see the lines of strain around his eyes. “Tell me how to run my farm. Scold me about the girls' need for routine and punctuality. Rearrange my cabinets until I’m dizzy in our own kitchen. But don’t tell me how to feel or who to love.”
Love.She gasped and her hand flew to her mouth.
“I want you,” he said, “I want you to move my measuring cups every other week because it ‘makes more sense that way.’ I want you scolding me when I forget the girls’ lunches, then pressing a bag into my hand because you already packed one. I want to buy you all the baby goats you could ever want. I want your spreadsheets, and your highlighters, and the way you hum when you’re concentrating.”
He swallowed hard. “I want the life that only makes sense if you’re in it.”
Honey’s lips parted. It was everything she’d dreamed of, but she couldn’t make herself say anything. Her feet felt anchored to the cobblestones, caught between her fear and the pull of what he was offering.
He strode across the courtyard without looking back, and before Honey could gather a single thought, he stepped straight into the fountain, water splashing up around his boots as he climbed inside.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” Melly called from somewhere behind them.
The world narrowed until there was nothing but him standing knee-deep in the water, his chest rising and falling hard. His eyes locked on hers as though she were the only person alive.
“I don’t have a coin,” he called out. “But if this thing listens to people who care enough to be fools, then I’m making my wish anyway.”
He pressed a hand to his heart. “I wish you’d come home. Not just to Brim’s Hollow. To me. Wherever you want that to be. Whatever it looks like. I want you.”
The water shimmered around him. The sunlight rippled across the surface.
Honey couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even blink. Her whole body vibrated with the ache of wanting and the terror of trusting.
Ethan’s gaze softened, and his voice dropped. “You can rearrange everything. My kitchen. My life. All of it.”
