Page 141 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“I think you’re going to want to see what’s in there,” Ali said now.

Her voice held so much significance that June felt a vague sense of trepidation. Warily, she opened her office door and walked inside, aware of Ali and her two assistants’ odd expressions of anticipation.

A few feet inside the door, she froze, gazing in shock at the narrow wooden table that hadn’t been there when she left her office earlier.

It was a console table. One of Beck’s, she knew without even looking at the tabletop, the dark wood a contrast to the incandescent blue of the resin that threaded through it like water flowing through a slot canyon.

The tears threatening earlier came back in full force as she tried to register how this was even possible. Had Ali hauled this whole thing from Bridger Peak? Did Beck know Ali was giving her one of his tables?

She moved closer, aching to trail her hands over the surface.

An instant later, she realized there was someone else in her office. A silent man stood in the shadows between the wide windows that overlooked the Seattle skyline. He watched her with a fierce expression that seemed to steal all the air from her lungs, replaced by a mad rush of longing.

“Beck!”

How had she not seen him there at once? Or at least sensed his presence?

“Happy birthday, Juniper.”

She felt lightheaded and for one horrible moment, she was afraid she might pass out.

Oh, she had missed him. She had yearned to reach out to him every single day since leaving Bridger Peak. It was only through supreme effort that she had been able to refrain from asking Ali about him in their frequent text exchanges and phone conversations.

“How?” she managed. “How did you get this here?”

He stepped closer to her and she wondered how she could have forgotten what he looked like. The strong angle of his jaw, the sweep of his dark hair, those intense green eyes.

“We drove. The hardest part of the whole journey was finding a damn parking space in downtown Seattle.”

“Why?”

“Because there aren’t enough of them, especially when you’re hauling a trailer.”

“No. Why are you here?”

He took another step toward her and hesitated for a long moment before he spoke. “When I was a prosecutor, I had a hard-earned reputation for my opening and closing arguments. For my fluid prose, my unshakable convictions, my impassioned delivery.”

“I believe it.”

“The whole drive here, I tried to come up with what I would say to you when I saw you again. I played through a hundred different conversations in my head.”

She might have expected him to offer her some hint of what those internal conversations might have involved. Instead, after another long pause, he gestured to the table. “Come and take a look.”

She stepped forward and truly looked at the piece of furniture he had created with his own hands.

It was stunning. The most beautiful of his work she had seen yet. The blue resin glowed with life, the wood dramatic and scarred.

“This was a piece of a majestic western larch that was struck by lightning last summer. You can see the scorch marks there.”

She touched the surface with trembling fingers and traced the spidery black marks, so dramatic and evocative of the rugged mountain landscapes she had come to love.

“Some would consider it damaged beyond repair. It’s not. Look how beautiful it still is.”

Another tear spilled out and then another and she could do nothing to hold them back.

He stepped closer, tracing his thumbs over her cheekbones to brush them away.

“I’m in love with you, June. I know all the reasons you don’t think we can work. I understand them and would never try to discount your feelings or tell you they’re not valid. They are. But I had to try one more time to show you how I feel. To me, you are strong, resilient, beautiful. You have faced tremendoushardship in your life yet are still one of the most caring, giving, courageous people I’ve ever met.”

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