He’s aboy.
I feel nothing. There’s no spark between us. No intense heat. No pull toward him. No heat curling low in my belly.
Just…nothing.
“That’s sweet,” I say gently. “But I think I’d like to figure things out on my own.”
It’s not entirely true. But figuring things out with Holt is obviouslynotan option.
Fortunately, he nods, getting the message. “If you change your mind…”
I smile and give him a little nod. We both know I won’t.
After he walks away, I pick up my pen and stare at the blank page before me. Instead, I watch the ocean. Steady and relentless, the horizon stretches out before me, endlessly.
This is what I wanted. Space and time. Somewhere full of possibilities.
And yet… I feel more lost than ever, my thoughts constantly drifting back to my time on the mountain. The only time I’ve ever felt completely myself was in that cabin.
Withhim.
With a man who pushed me away. Who didn’t choose me.
I blow out a breath, close my notebook, and drop my pen before I let myself write hisname.
Again.
Holt
The cabin is too quiet, and with every passing day, it only gets quieter.
For years, I’ve welcomed the stillness. It was something I cultivated and built my life around. If I was alone, then no one could need anything from me. There were no expectations, no questions. No witnesses to my struggle. It was just me, the trees, and my work.
Now the silence feels different. It’s heavy. Way too full of her absence.
Her silly, impractical shoes aren’t by the bed anymore. The blanket she cuddled up with on the couch is folded neatly over the armrest now, untouched.
My flannel shirt that was so oversized—and sexy—on her is draped over the chair in my bedroom. I still haven’t been able to bring myself to wash it and hang it back in the closet with the others. I’ll never wear it again.
The bed is the worst.
How is it possible that such a small woman could take up so much space? That the bed I used to occupy all on my own feels way too empty now that she’s gone?
She didn’t just take up room with herbody; it was just…her.She changed everything about the cabin. The air within it. And in the workshop, too. The woodshed by the massive stack of logs I’d split.
Everything she touched is different now.
When she’d first driven off with Luke, I told myself I’d be fine, and everything would go back to the way it was.
It didn’t.
And it wasn’t.
Every morning, after hardly sleeping at all, I woke before dawn, my hand stretching across the mattress, searching for her.
The nightmares have come back, too. Not every night, but enough that I notice. I wake in a sweat, with my pulse racing, that old familiar coil of tension tight in my chest. Once, I accepted that as part of who I am.
But now I know how itcanbe. How it was. With her.
