Page 114 of Always Meant for You
My chest tightens. My eyes burn. The rejection isn’t new. But this time, I was ready to give him everything else. All of me.
I press a trembling hand to my mouth, forcing a breath past the tightness in my chest. Then another. I wipe at the tears before they can fall, refusing to let them win.
I pace the narrow stretch between my bed and window, my arms wrapped around my ribs, trying to hold the pieces in place. The window is open, the curtain shifting with each breath ofwind. Night air spills in. It wraps around me, stirring memories. I squeeze my eyes shut when a sound breaks the hush.
I gasp and look around.
Tap.
Then again.
Tap, tap.
Three small pebbles lie in the center of the floor. They must’ve been thrown through the open window. I stare at the stones, my heart pounding, knowing exactly who’s standing outside my window.
Chapter Twenty-One
MABEL
Callan Horner has some nerve to park himself outside my bedroom window. Hands in his pockets, head tilted up, he gazes at me. Just waiting. I want to be angry.I should be angry.But I’m not. Looking down at him, I can’t help but see the boy who climbed trellises and chased starlight with me. And I see the man who kissed me like it meant everything, then pulled away.
My chest tightens. I should close the window. Turn away. Go to bed and forget how his hand felt between my thighs. But I can’t. He’s here, and, heaven help me, I want to know why.
Without a word, I swing a leg through the window. My foot finds the first slat of the lattice. It’s cool from the night air and wrapped in vines. I grip the frame and climb down, careful not to rustle the leaves.
I feel his hands at my waist, guiding me to the ground.
“I’ve got you,” he says gently.
And my heart breaks a little more.
I turn and face him. “Do you? Have you got me, Cal?”
He doesn’t answer. He simply extends his hand. It isn’t a demand. It isn’t even a plea. It’s an invitation. And when I take it, it’s not the touch alone that undoes me. It’s the way his fingers close around mine with care, like he’s holding a truth we haven’tspoken yet. Like he knows how easily I could let go and hopes I won’t.
He leads me through the dark, and the night holds its breath around us.
He guides me past the barn, past the greenhouse I walked through with my father this morning, and around a cluster of tall grasses swaying in the breeze. A smaller greenhouse appears. Its frame is dappled in moonlight.
He opens the door.
Warmth greets me first. And then the scent.
My favorite scent.
Lavender.
We step inside, the door clicking shut behind us. One small bulb near the entrance casts a hazy glow across the rows.
This quiet beauty is his apology.
“It’s you,” he says, his voice rough. “This scent. I’ve never been able to forget it. After that day in the rain, under the tree, you stopped smelling like mud and hay and started smelling like this, like lavender.”
I search his face. “You remember that?”
He steps closer. “I remember everything,” he whispers.
I want to know why he ran. But instead, I breathe in the lavender and let it settle inside the cracks in my heart.
