“Did you make her hire me? Did I even get this—”
“No! No. You got the job on your own. I just told them, each time, to hire a baker, or chef, who made the best black coffee they’d ever had in their life. That’s all I said.”
“First of all, that was a huge risk, asuuming that I’d have some beans from home with me—”
“So itisin the beans then! What? What’s in thebeans?”
“Aiden!”
“Sorry, sorry. You did this on your own, Harper. I merely made sure the door was there should you want to walk through it.
“But…why?” I say, still having trouble processing.
“Because I wanted to help you get whatever you wanted. If you’d changed course and decided you were going to, I don’t know, become a florist, which you very well could, by the way, I suppose I’d learn that market and start buying those shops up as well.”
“To help me,” I repeat back to him. He moves an inch closer and stares down at me with sad, pleading eyes. I whisper, “Why?”
“Because Stuart loves you,” he whispers back. “He’s stupid, silly, over the moon in love with you, I’m afraid.” I frown but he puts his large firm hands up to hold my head. “Harper.Iam in love with you. I want to take you to lunch. After that, I want to take you to dinner. After that, I’d like to see your new apartment. After that, I’d like to show you my new house here.”
“Your house?”
“Yes, of course I moved here, I can’t convince you to fall back in love with me and marry me and live happily ever after if we live in separate cities.” He rubs his thumb along my cheekbone to catch a tear that is apparently leaking from my eyes. “Then tomorrow I’d like to come in early for coffee and catch up. Then I want to take you to dinner again. And to a movie maybe. You know, boring, normal dates where you aren’t planning a whole parade or trying to save a town.” I let out a little laugh, a bubble of shock and relief and…longing. I want that. Badly.
He goes on, “And then after a few dates I’ll have to convince you to marry me and we’ll need to talk about what exactly you meant in the past when you said ‘lots of babies.’ Is that two children? Three?”
“Ch-children?” I choke on the word.
He smiles, “Yes, a loved one of mine, a brilliant one, recently told me to seek a good deal of therapy, which I did. My therapist and I have talked through how even though I’ve had shit parents, I’m actually a natural caregiver, can you believe that?”
“Yes,” I say but it comes out like a question.
Because what, exactly, is happening right now?
“You just…guessed what I would want and which towns and just, what, waited to see if you were right? Do you have like, Renaldo in the bushes watching each location?”
Aiden laughs, big and happy and free and my breath catches at the sound. I start coughing which prompts him to wrap his arms around me, kiss my head and rub firm strokes up and down my back. It feels so amazing I might never stop coughing.
“I just asked Benedict to let me know when Janie said you were…okay. When you were settled and starting over, either somewhere new or back in town.”
I look up at him, “You’re not staying in Juniper Falls anymore?”
“I am usually there once a week to check on everyone but…you’re not there so I don’t want to be there.” I must ask with my face ‘where do you want to be?’ because he pulls away to answer me, taking both of my hands in his. “I want to be wherever you are, Harper Brown. I want to wake up at the arsecrack of the day and go to bed next to you at nine. I cut my responsibilities to travel just once a quarter, maybe twice, and I want you with me on the plane. I want to take you everywhere. But I want to just be here, too. I want to walk Stuart along the beach with you. I want to track you on my phone when you ride that bloody bicycle around. I want to watch you cook and listen to you hum The Beach Boys while you arrange flowers. I want you. Full stop. And that’s really my only condition.” He sniffs, watching me, then says, “So, now you know my terms. What say you?”
I suppress a sob and ask, “Then why did you go?”
“Shhh, don’t cry, Harper, Sweetheart, listen to me,” He tucks a hair behind my ear and holds my face again. “I was sure about you. I was sure about you ever since the water pitcher. Hell, maybe from the first time you called me a jerk hole.”
“I meant jerk off,” I say.
He chuckles, “I was a jerk off. I was an asshole too. So I needyouto be sure about me. You’ll remember for weeks you turned me down. Said that we could only ever be friends. So I didn’t want you to be confused or feeling guilty orstuckin another commitment. I wanted you to just be free and then after you got away from it all, I hoped, I hope, you can know for sure?”
I laugh. I laugh for a long while.
“Harper?”
“You…” I snort. I don’t even care that I’m a smudgy, snotty mess. “You wanted me to be free, so you bought the building. So you could be my boss’s boss? That’s letting me be free?”
“Well…” his mouth opens, shuts, opens and shuts again. He watches me continue to laugh deliriously until he eventually says, “Shit.”
