Page 66 of Wren's Winter

“I couldn’t have you leave without telling you…” His words broke off, and his brow furrowed as he glanced over my shoulder into the living room. “Is that my dog?”

I grimaced. How had I forgotten about my dognapping? I was planning on smuggling her back in before Adrian got back and then sneaking away. That was before I was useless with a hangover.

“Um. What?” Straining to keep a casual expression on my face, I furrowed my brow and glanced up at the ceiling in innocence.

He cocked his head to the side, walking past me and picking up his dog. She stared up at him, licking his face in greeting. “Did you steal my dog last night?” His tone was confused but not harsh.

I released out a huff of air as if his question was an irritant. “You left her all alone in that big house…”

“It’s barely over a thousand square feet.”

“And the snow was coming down so heavily and she was hungry and you left her with no way to go potty and…”

“She has a dog door, you know. If she needs to do her business, she knows how to get in and out of the house, and she had plenty of food.”

“She was cold,” I argued.

A small smile quirked up the corner of his mouth. “She was? In her thick fur? On her mountains of blanket and pillows inside my well-insulated house?”

Hugging myself together, I stared him down. “Yes.”

His lips pursed as if he was trying to hold back a laugh, and he nodded at me. “Glad to know she was in good hands.”

“I was going to give her back. It’s not like I would keep her forever. It was one night, and you didn’t come back.”

His expression turned solemn, and he let out a loud sigh. “No, I didn’t. I ended up having a few too many at the bar last night and crashed on Tam and Penny’s couch.”

“Oh.” I felt silly all of a sudden. We stood in quiet for what felt like five minutes but was probably only fifteen seconds. I tried to imagine what it was he would want to say to me. There was no getting around the fact that I was leaving in a few hours. Nothing was tying me to the town, no matter how much I wanted to stay.

Adrian crouched down, setting Maizie on the floor where she pranced off toward the couch, settling herself into a ball and going to sleep in minutes. With no dog between us, the air felt more charged.

Adrian shoved his hands in his pockets, taking a deep breath as if to summon the courage to say his words. I fought against the rising hope in my chest that they would be what I needed to hear.

“Yesterday, those terrible words I said to you. I didn’t mean any of them. I screwed up.”

“I was really hurt, and you didn’t even hear me out.” Until I said the words, I hadn’t realized how much I needed to say them. To tell him my truth. This was what I never did with Buck. I couldn’t trust him to listen, to learn. But with Adrian, it was crucial he understood I was hurt, that the idea of losing him broke a piece of me I didn’t know already belonged to him. “I don’t care that it’s only been a few days. That there are so many things we don’t know about each other because I trusted you with a part of me. And to have that turned around back on me, to be left in the cold by you without a conversation…”

“I know. Maybe I was scared of how I’m feeling, maybe it was all too much too soon. Seeing your rich ex-boyfriend set me off, and I started doubting myself. But none of it was because of you. You didn’t deserve my words.” He pulled his hat off, bunching it in his fist.

“Thank you for saying that.” I wasn’t sure I could trust him enough for forgiveness yet.

He ran a hand over his messy hair, matted on one side and sticking up on the other. “Last night, I was a mess. The moment I left you, I knew I was making a mistake, but I didn’t know how to fix it. Was too scared to come up here. I kept telling myself that maybe how I was feeling wasn’t this powerful. That it couldn’t be. A single long weekend wasn’t enough to feel this strongly. That eventually I would get over you. But once again, I was wrong. Because I know now. There is no getting over you.”

The sound I made was somewhere between a gasp and a shuddering breath. I waited for him to say the words I needed.

“I know that you and Buck have all this history, that he knows you well. That we just met a few days ago, but I can’t help but ask you not to go back with him. Give us a chance.”

“A chance for what?” I stepped closer. If I leaned forward, I could place a hand on his chest. But I needed him to close the gap, my feet frozen.

A softness grew behind his ocean eyes. “The entire way back up here, I was rehearsing what I would say. How I want to tell you that, from the moment I found you standing on my porch, something changed in me. I don’t want the same things anymore. I want more.”

“I want it, too,” I whispered, and his eyes flashed to mine in surprise and joy. He stepped closer, laying a hand on my cheek and pulling my face up to his. Breaths away, he ran a thumb over my jaw.

“I’m not sure how to be the man you deserve, but I will spend every day giving it all I have to come close. Don’t leave. Stay here with me.”

“This is crazy. We barely know each other.” My eyes were welling with happy tears as I tried one last time to put a semblance of reason into what we had.

A slight smile ticked up on the edge of his mouth. “I know I’m falling in love with you. Am already in love with you. It’s sudden, but that doesn’t make it wrong. There are a million reasons this is a bad idea, but I don’t care. For the first time, I can see exactly what I need in life. I love the way you laugh with a little snort. And the way you rub behind your left ear when you’re nervous. I love the way your hair looks like a mushroom when you take off your bonnet in the morning and that spark in your eyes when you meet someone new. Starting now, I want to be everything you need. I don’t need to think over every angle, I know. There will never be another woman who affects me the way you do. I’m sure of you.”

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