Meredith grins. “I agree. Jake and I are going to head out.” She turns to me. “Maybe we can do dinner one day next week?You know, just to get to know each other as friends, if that’s okay with you?”
I smile and nod. “I’d like that.”
When I first met Meredith, I told her I didn’t want to take her father’s place. I never could be that man after her mother took that choice from me by hiding her pregnancy. But Meredith was lucky enough to have a man who stood in, gave her the things I didn’t have the chance to. My role in her life could never be any kind of parental one, but I told her we could hopefully be friends.
She wasn’t sure at the time. I told her that the offer stood, and anytime she wanted, she just had to ask.
Seems we might finally have a chance at it.
“Good,” Meredith says before whispering something in Tessa’s ear, kissing her cheeks, and then walking off.
Tessa watches as she goes, and the two of us stand here, finally alone for the first time since I got back to the house.
I go to open my mouth to see what Meredith said, but Tessa speaks first. “Did you mean what you said in the car?”
“I meant every word I said.”
“You love me?”
“With everything that I am.”
And I wasn’t kidding when I said her happiness means more to me than my own. I don’t ever want her to be sad or hurt, and I definitely don’t want to see her lose Meredith.
“Do you know that I’ve never been in love? Not once,” she says, taking a step toward me. “I’ve dreamed of it, what it would feel like, how I would be consumed by it. In my head, it was this lightning bolt that would come from the sky and knock me out. I would wake up one day as this normal girl, and then suddenly, I’d be a woman in love. It wasn’t exactly like that, though I do think you’re a bit like a storm.” Tessa grins. “I’m not sure when I fell in love with you. I’d guess it was sometime between that horseback ride out to the meadow with your incrediblysexy cowboy hat and our first date, but I know that there’s not another man in this world I want to be with.”
I move toward her this time. “Tessa…”
“Meredith saw me when you were gone these last few days. She witnessed, firsthand, just how devastated I was. We spoke just now, and she doesn’t think I should give up on us.”
My heart is pounding against my chest. “I was going to talk to her.”
“You were?”
I nod. “I was going to tell her how much I love you. I hoped she’d understand this wasn’t just some throwaway thing.”
She laughs softly. “Which is technically what our plan was. No feelings, just a casual relationship. We really have a thing about breaking the rules.”
“I think the rules don’t apply to us.” I reach out, take her hand, and put it on my chest, right over my beating heart. “There’s no way I could keep you out of here.” I tap my fingers against hers in time with my heartbeat. “You found a way into my heart, Tessa, and now it’s yours.”
“This isn’t going to be easy,” she says, her big blue eyes staring into mine.
“No, it won’t.”
“I don’t want to give up my job.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” I answer honestly.
Tessa shakes her head. “This is nuts. You know that right? It’s too soon, too impulsive.”
I raise my hand, cupping her cheek. “Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Then how about we worry about the rest of the shit later and you let me kiss you?”
She grins. “I think I could live with that.”
“Good.”
