“Wait,” he says quickly.
I pause, unsure why I’m doing anything he wants me to do. He wrecked me. He doesn’t get to make demands.
But he and Meg also made Angel Mountain feel like home.
That’s when I think to scan the crowd for Meg, and when I see her gazing up at me with sad, hopeful eyes, I know I have to let her dad speak his piece.
“You obviously do put my daughter first, Taylor,” he says, snapping my attention back to him. “You’ve made her life better. And mine too.”
I glance at Meg and she’s smiling and nodding at me.
“What I said to you was unforgivable, and I know I don’t deserve a second chance,” Roan continues. “I was scared, I’ll admit it. But I’m not afraid anymore. I’ll go back to the city with you. I will follow you anywhere in the world. I’ll follow you to the moon, if you want.”
He means it. There’s real love glowing in his magnetic blue eyes. But he’s losing me with the content of his big speech.
“Why would we go to the city?” I ask, completely confused.
“You’re leaving,” he says simply.
“I am?” I ask. Is he terminating my lease?
“I was restocking yesterday,” he says. “I heard your call. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but you were on speakerphone…”
So what if he heard me talking with David? That shouldn’t have changed his mind about me.
Unless…
“Did you stick around for the whole thing?” I ask him.
“I heard enough,” he says. “I heard him offer you your job back.”
“Did you hear me take it?” I ask.
“Not exactly,” he admits.
“Well, I told him I wouldn’t go back,” I say.
And I realize that it feels good to share this part with him. And with my new friends and neighbors in Angel Mountain. People are smiling and nodding as if they approve of my decision.
“You did?” he asks, looking completely shocked.
“I told him I’m happy here,” I say, nodding. “I told him this is my home now. Then he said he’d give me whatever I wanted, a raise, a percentage onStarhoof, a nice office.”
Everyone is really listening now, and little as I crave the spotlight, it’s sort of nice that even though I came here with my tail between my legs, everyone knows now that New York publishing wants me back.
And even though it’s still awful, at least now I have some kind of explanation for Roan’s bizarre actions last night.
“What did you say?” he asks.
“I told them I would only take my old position back if I could do it remotely from here,” I tell him. “And I said I have to be allowed to make my own hours and my only responsibility is to read as much of the slush pile as I want.”
“What’s a slush pile?” a man in a blue coat calls to me, like he’s not even ashamed to be part of the conversation. The older lady beside him nods her head up and down like she also wants to know.
“Uh, those are the manuscripts sent in by authors and agents who want their work published,” I call back to them.
The man nods like it makes sense to him. The lady gives a thumbs-up.
“What did he say?” Roan asks, looking like my answer is the most important thing in the world to him.
