You want it so badly, the longing is written all over you.
Damn him for seeing that. Damn him for saying it out loud.
Damn him for making her feel things she’d spent years trying not to feel.
He filled my water bowl.Marzipan’s observation came seemingly out of nowhere.
“I noticed.”
Without being asked. Without making a show of it. Noticed it was empty and fixed it.The cat’s tail swished.That’s not nothing.
Dahlia sank onto the stool by her workbench. Her legs didn’t want to hold her anymore. Too much emotion, too much revelation, too much everything packed into a single morning.
“He’s infuriating.”
Yes.
“He’s a hypocrite who lectures about following dreams while running from his own life.”
Also yes.
“He’s going to leave soon and go back to Seattle and forget any of this happened.”
Marzipan was silent for a moment. Then:Are you trying to convince me? Or yourself?
Dahlia didn’t answer. Because the truth was, she didn’t know anymore.
What she knew was this: Callum Ursa had walked into her life four days ago and managed to see past every mask she wore. Had looked at her soft exterior and found the sharp underneath. Had challenged her, infuriated her, made her feel things she’d convinced herself she didn’t have room for.
And now he was out there, fighting her battles, trying to save her business from a threat that wasn’t even really about her.
Sitting here, still feeling the heat where Cal’s fingers had touched hers, she was starting to realize she might want a different sensation too.
Something complicated. Something terrifying. Something that had broad shoulders and dark eyes and a bear that had gone quiet the moment it scented her.
Trouble.Marzipan’s mental voice carried an edge of sympathy.I told you he was trouble.
“Yeah.” Dahlia tucked the Paris letter back into its envelope. Pressed it against her heart. “You did.”
But trouble, she was beginning to think, might be exactly what she needed.
The bell above the front door chimed. Another customer. Another demand on her time and energy and carefully constructed smile.
Dahlia stood. Smoothed her apron. Tucked the envelope safely in her pocket this time, close to her heart where it belonged.
And went back to work, carrying Cal’s words with her. The memory of his touch. The question he’d asked that she was finally, after thirty-eight years, learning how to answer.
What do you need?
She was starting, finally, to figure that out.
EIGHTEEN
CAL
Cal couldn’t sleep.
He lay in the narrow bed of his grandfather’s guest room, staring at the ceiling, listening to the old cabin creak around him. Two in the morning. Then three. The hours crawled past while Dahlia Moon’s words played on repeat in his skull.
