“I wrote the letter, addressed the envelope, then limped to bed. The next morning, my parents were packing up the house. Dad told me we were moving back to Meridian. Martha had always hated it here, so she was delighted, dancing around like Dad was Santa Claus come to life.
“All I could think was that I needed to get to you, find some way to tell you the letter was all a lie. But Dad never let me out of his sight, and he made sure his phone was nowhere to be found. Not that it mattered. I didn’t even know your phone number. When he went to break the lease with Edith, he locked me in a closet while he was gone. Before I knew it, we were in the car, pulling away from Gracemont.
“I cried the entire drive across country. Dad told me if I tried to contact you in any way, he wouldn’t enroll me in school, that he’d claim a religious exemption and keep me home all day with Mom. I couldn’t risk that, because school was my only escape from that house. Getting good grades so I could apply for scholarships and get the hell out had been my plan since middle school.”
Maverick placed his finger on her lips when her words became too rushed, too frantic. “You don’t have to explain. You did the right thing.”
Ella shook her head because she’d been certain for years—every single one of the past fifteen—that she’d done everything wrong.
“I’m sorry,” Maverick said.
“Maverick. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong!”
“You could have called me after you graduated or…”
Ella knew that. “I know. It’s just, by then a year had passed, and I figured you either hated me or had moved on. Plus, I’d achieved my goal of getting into college and…” Ella stopped, uncertain if she should say the rest.
“And?” he prompted.
“Me going to college hadn’t figured into those future plans of yours.” As she said that, she looked around the cabin—house—once more, aware of just how serious he’d been. God, she was sitting in the middle of something he’d described fifteen years earlier.
“What are you talking about? What plans?”
She grinned as she gestured around them. “We were going to get married after high school, live here, renovate the cabin until it looked exactly like this. You were going to work at the winery with your grandfather.”
“I never would have stopped you from going to college, El.”
She realized that. Now.
But back then, she had one example of marriage—her parents’—and it sucked. “You have to understand. I grew up terrified of becoming my mom. Of marrying a man where my dreams were pushed away in favor of my husband’s. Maverick, I was so in love with you, and it would have been so easy for me to lose myself in you. For me to just go along because I wanted to be with you. The same way my mom does with my dad.”
“Ella, I wouldn’t have let you do that. But more than that, despite what you think,youwouldn’t have let me. You’re toostrong, too smart, too confident to ever let me get away with that shit.”
There was no question Maverick meant every word he said. He had always seen the best version of her, the one she still struggled to find.
“I should have called you,” she said, wiping away the stray tear that fell. “God knows I thought about it enough. But I always found an excuse not to. First, it was college, then Gigi’s illness. Life kept happening, and I kept moving with it. Not living,” she clarified. “Just moving.”
Maverick grimaced. “I’ve been doing a lot of that moving, not living, myself. So, let’s chalk it up to this—we met at the wrong time. We both had a lot of life we needed to live on our own. But now… Now, it’s the right time, Firefly. Now, we can build a future together, one that makes us both happy.”
Ella shook her head. Not because she disagreed. But because she was in awe of this man. He’d always been so damn sure of them as a couple, right from the start. “Maverick, I’ve been back in town just over a month and we haven’t even seen each other more than a handful of times. We haven’t even gone out on a date.”
“We don’t need to date, Ella. I mean, I’ll take you out for dinner whenever you want, but it won’t change who we are to each other. Our souls, our hearts, our bodies,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “They recognize each other.”
“You know, while the timing might be okay for you, my life is a mess,” she confessed. “I lost Gigi, dumped Silas, and now, I’m dealing with all kinds of family drama because my grandmother left me her house. I’ve spent the last six months getting the silent treatment from my mom and Martha.”
“I thought your mom called the other day.”
She nodded. “She did. It was the first time I’d spoken to her since she found out about Gigi’s will.”
“They left you all alone while you were grieving?” he asked angrily.
Maverick was right. Theydidknow each other, and his tone awakened something in her that should have been there all along.
Herownanger.
“Yeah. They did. Apparently, Gigi’s house is more important to them than I am.” Wow. It felt insanely good to say those words aloud. They were strangely cathartic.
“You know that’s bullshit, right?” Maverick asked.
