Page 89 of Merry Mended Hearts

“I know what you’re thinking, but I couldn’t have used this the other night to take you back. It wouldn’t have been safe to take out in that blizzard, now with how low visibility was. Some models come equipped with GPS, but even then, in a storm, you still chance hitting a tree or falling into a crevice because you can’t see.”

“Right,” I said.

And I was grateful that was the case. I wouldn’t have traded my snowed-in night with Boone for anything.

A smirk found its way to my face. I stepped forward, feeling the cold begin to seep through the toes of my thin boots, and rested a hand on the snowmobile’s handle.

“You know, Junie said she’s going to kill you for this.”

He dipped his head to hide his smile. “I know. She and her mother have given very specific instructions about my snowmobile. They know it's an emergency-machine-only.”

My heart cranked out an extra beat. “And this was an emergency?”

His gaze turned solemn and serious. He tucked his lips into his teeth. “I had to see you before you left.”

I grasped for words, waiting for something brilliant to land on my tongue, to give voice to the flutter in my chest, but nothing of any definition in any kind of verbal language made itself known.

So I said his name. Only his name.

“Boone.”

Gravity was in his gaze. That look was a force all its own, one that connected with the part of my soul that was destined to be with his. I was aware of everything in that moment:

The erratic rhythm of my heartbeat.

The sweat collecting in my palms.

The moonlight shining down on the frosty snow.

And the pull emanating from Boone to be as close to him as possible.

Boone cleared his throat, breaking the connection in our gazes long enough for me to scratch out a breath.

“To give you this, I mean,” he corrected.

Removing his gloves, he turned his back to me and retrieved something from his saddlebag. There had to be a different name besides ‘saddlebag’ for the leather pouch situated beneath his snowmobile seat, since he wasn’t riding on a saddle, but I wasn’t exactly up to speed on snowmobile terminology.

In any case, he closed its flap, securing the snaps, and faced me once more with a familiar notebook in his hands and a smirk on his lips.

“Oh, my gosh,” I said, placing my hands on my chest. My breath left in small puffs of air. “You did have it!”

“It was sitting on my dining table,” he said. “I know how important it is to you. You probably wouldn’t want to leave without it.”

“So you…” I looked at the tracks all over the snow. “…braved Junie’s wrath to bring it to me?”

He could have waited. He could have had Junie mail it to me once Christmas was over or something. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad he hadn’t. But hecouldhave.

“Should I not have?” He strode around the machine’s nose, coming closer to me.

“Junie was pretty bugged. It sounded like you broke a sacred, cardinal rule around here with this thing.” I stroked the snowmobile’s handle.

“You’re worth the risk,” he said simply.

My mind went blank. The cold no longer existed as I waited for the swirl to come and blur this moment, for morning to dawn and wake me back up, for the screen to go dark as this scene shifted.

But no changes came. The stars still twinkled over our heads. The snowmobile, the trees, the abandoned snowman, the inn behind me—and Boone. Standing there, meaning what he just said.

“Thank you,” I said, hugging the notebook to my chest.

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