The room was dusty, but better than he’d feared. Two tall front windows let in the last of the afternoon light, cutting amber shafts through the still air. The fireplace sat square on the far wall, the mantel thick with dust but still straight, the hearthstones dark and worn smooth by decades of use. The ceiling beams were dark with age but sound at a glance, no sagging, no staining, no sign that the roof above this room had let them down.
Meryl turned slowly, taking it in.
And Spencer watched her take it in.
Not because he meant to. Because he couldn’t seem to stop.
How was he meant to look away now that she was here?
If you look away, she’s not going to vanish,his bear said, sounding amused.
I don’t think I’ll ever find the strength to look away,Spencer replied.
Then she caught him staring, and he ducked his head, crossing to the front window and crouching near the wall beneath it. Water damage, yes. But localized, a dark stain was spreading across the boards where the seal around the frame had failed. The leak had gotten into the wood, not the stone. Fixable. He had seen far worse.
Then he saw it beneath the window. The remains of a built-in seat, half hidden under dust and broken trim. The top was warped beyond saving, split along the grain where moisture had worked its way in over the harsh mountain winter, but the framing on either side was still there. Solid wood, pegged at the joints.
A window seat.
His bear went still in a different way this time. Not alert. Not watchful. Something closer to recognition.
That was made for her,he said.Can’t you imagine her sitting here in the evening with the window open and the breeze drifting down from the mountain, filled with the scent of summer?
I never knew you were an old romantic,Spencer said.
I am now that our mate is here,his bear replied.
Spencer swallowed and kept his voice steady. “This used to be a window seat.”
Meryl came closer. “A what?”
He touched the damaged wood lightly. “Built into the wall under the window. The top’s gone, but the footprint’s still here. See? The framing’s pegged, not nailed. Someone took their time with this.”
She crouched beside him then, and the sudden nearness of her hit him harder than it should have. Lavender, dust, mountain air, woman. His mate, close enough that if he shifted his arm an inch, he’d brush her sleeve. Close enough that he could hear the quiet rhythm of her breathing.
His bear rumbled low in his chest, wanting to meet her, wanting to feel her fingers in his fur.
Easy,Spencer warned.
Meryl traced the ruined edge with her fingertips, following the curve of the wood as if she could feel the shape it had once held. “Hilda used to mention a window seat in her letters.”
Spencer looked at her.
“She said it was her favorite place to read,” Meryl added more quietly. Something in her expression eased, just for a second.
He glanced out through the dirty glass to the tangle of garden beyond, the overgrown beds fading into shadow in the late light. “I can see why.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything. The quiet between them felt different from the silence in the rest of the house. Less empty.
Then Meryl straightened and flipped open her notebook again. “Window seat,” she murmured. “Damaged. Not rebuildable.”
Not rebuildable,his bear echoed with disdain.Of course it’s rebuildable.
Spencer stood, too. “Possibly rebuildable.”
She looked up at that, and something small passed between them, quick, unspoken, gone before either of them could name it, and then she dropped her gaze back to the page.
Good,his bear said.She should know that we can rebuild anything.
