Page 77

I’m going.

Gabe strode to his truck, placed the food and coffee on the passenger seat, and started the engine. The drive back to the lodge was short. Gabe barely noticed it. He was too busy working out exactly how he was going to tell Mara the truth about their relationship.

His bear was practically vibrating with anticipation. I can’t wait for her to meet me.

Gabe turned off the road and followed the signs to Bear Creek Lodge.

As he came around the bend toward cabin seven, his heart stalled.

Mara was standing outside the cabin, and she wasn’t alone.

A man stood with her near the bottom of the porch steps, close enough that it was obvious they knew each other well. He had one hand in the pocket of his coat while Mara spoke, her face serious, her attention fixed entirely on him.

Gabe slowed.

His bear went silent.

Gabe parked the truck, grabbed Mara’s breakfast from the passenger seat, and got out before he could overthink the situation.

The moment Mara saw Gabe, her expression changed. Surprise first. Then a look he couldn’t read.

This is not good, his bear moaned.

“Gabe,” Mara said.

He still carried the breakfast box in one hand and the thermos in the other. But now they felt slightly ridiculous.

Gabe walked toward them. Mara’s attention dropped briefly to the box before returning to him. The man beside her turned.

Gabe didn’t need an introduction. Not really. He had heard the name enough. Had listened while Mara talked about eight years of her life, about plans made and changed, about the future she had thought she was building. And here was the man she had built it with, standing outside her cabin on the one morning Gabe had meant to tell her everything.

Mara drew in a breath. “Gabe, this is Scott.”

Gabe had spent the whole drive working out what to say to Mara.

He hadn’t planned for this.

CHAPTER 19

Mara

For one terrible moment, Mara could not think of anything to say.

Scott stood at the bottom of the porch steps exactly as she remembered him. He wore the dark jacket she had seen a hundred times before, his hair slightly mussed from the drive, and one hand tucked into his pocket in the familiar way it always was when he was uncomfortable and trying not to show it.

Seeing him brought eight years rushing back with frightening ease. Sunday mornings and holidays planned months in advance. His shoes beside hers by the door. Knowing without asking what his silence meant when he was tired and what it meant when something was wrong. All those ordinary pieces of a shared life were still there inside her, apparently untouched by the fact that the life itself had ended.

Then Gabe came toward them carrying breakfast, and Mara felt as though two completely separate parts of her world had collided outside cabin seven.

“Gabe.” His name was out before she knew what else to say.

He slowed as he approached, the breakfast box in one hand and the thermos in the other. He had left before she woke, but there had been a note beside the bed telling her he had gone to bake.

Now he had come back exactly as he said he would.

Scott turned toward him, and Mara wished absurdly that she could have another five minutes before she had to make these two men real to each other. She drew in a breath. “This is Scott.”

Gabe’s expression barely changed. She might have missed it if she had not spent so much time watching him over the last few days. Of course he knew the name. Mara had told him enough.