Page 43 of Horn of Plenty
She wanted to understand his actions and his pain, but he’d kept this to himself—a secret that wasn’t only for him. “Why didn’t you share with me what Jamie said?” she bit out, then caught her breath as her tears threatened to silence the other question she needed him to answer. “And why didn’t you tell me that you loved me?”
He shook his head and blinked back tears. “I wanted to. I bought you a gift for your twenty-first birthday. I was going to tell you after I talked to Jamie, but then he died, and everything went to hell,” he answered through a sad, teary smile.
She brushed a tear from his cheek. “What gift are you talking about?”
Cal touched the charm at her neck. “A rose gold necklace with a letterMcharm.”
She could see the box, white with a delicate bow, placed on the kitchen table.
“But this necklace is from my brother,” she replied as it hit her. There wasn’t any card. Jamie hadn’t left a note. She’d just assumed it was from him.
Cal cupped her face in his hands. “You found it on the kitchen table at your spot.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“I put it there for you,” he replied.
His confession hit her like a wrecking ball, shattering everything she knew to be true.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
His sweet, sad smile returned. “Because I could see that it brought you comfort to think that it had come from Jamie.”
She stared into his eyes. “The day I went to that meeting in New York, I’d held theMand asked Jamie to help me find the right path to happiness, and it led me…”
“Here—back home to me,” Cal finished.
She nodded. Was she always meant to return to Elverna and be with Cal? Was that her destiny?
“Look at what we’ve done for the town, Mabel. We’re drawn together. Even when you make me crazy, I can’t stay away from you. I’ve loved you all my life.”
More tears rolled down her cheeks. “You have?”
But as she replayed their every combative interaction, she now saw their relationship through a different lens. He hadn’t loathed her, but he knew he couldn’t have her—that’s what he’d believed.
“Cal,” she said, gazing into those stormy eyes that had graced her dreams for over a decade.
“Say you don’t need the city. Tell me you’re happy here in Elverna with me. I made your brother a promise. I poured my heart and soul into this town, and it’s for you. It’s always been for you, Mabel,” he finished, resting his forehead against hers.
Trembling, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he gathered her into his lap.
“Will you let me love you and protect you?” he whispered into the night air.
She’d imagined this—the moment where Cal confessed his love. While it was everything her heart needed to hear, she couldn’t forget that she had also made a promise to her brother. She’d promised him that she’d follow her dreams. But dreams could change. They’d have to if she wanted a life with the man she could never forget—the man she’d loved for as long as she could remember.
“Kiss me,” she breathed instead of answering.
Before she could blink, their mouths connected in a ravenous frenzy of lips and teeth and tongue. Salty tears ran down her cheeks, and he kissed them away.
“I need you, Mabel,” he breathed against the shell of her ear.
She needed him, too. A tangle of emotions twisted inside her. Is this where her path ended? Was this what Jamie had wanted for her?
She couldn’t sort it out. At this moment, with the tree that haunted her for years merely a stone’s throw away and the man she loved with every fiber of her being, promising her forever, she couldn’t make heads or tails of what she wanted or of what she needed.
She reached between them and undid the top button of his jeans.
“What are you doing, Mabel?” he asked. But he knew what she was doing. His rock-hard cock told her that he craved the same thing she required.
