Page 12 of Always Meant for You
“Cal?” she whispers.
Christ, she smells good. Her scent wraps around me, all honey and lavender, sweet and wild and unbearably familiar. Her chocolate-brown hair spills over her shoulders in soft waves, catching the light, rich and glossy. She blushes, the color blooming high across her cheekbones, and I feel it hit me—how she looks, how she smells, how every inch of her knocks the air straight out of my lungs. I see it all. I feel it all. And I know, downto the marrow of my bones, I am already losing this battle to keep her at arm’s length.
I don’t reply. I hide behind a stoic mask.
“You can stop doing that whole brooding farmer glare,” she says, scowling. “It might work on the girls in town, but it doesn’t work on me.”
She’s infuriating, and there are noothergirls for me—in town or anywhere.
The passion in her simmers beneath every word, every glance, woven so deep into her it feels dangerous. It sharpens her voice, tightens her stance, sets her apart from anything safe.
I crave it—especially today.
I should’ve said something years ago. I should’ve explained what I was feeling under that tree on that rainy day when we were kids. I should have told her why I stopped talking to her, stopped looking at her. Why I’ve put up walls.
I’m three years older than Mabel. I told myself once she turned eighteen, I’d come clean. But that day came and went, and I didn’t say a damn thing. And now we’re here. The air between us thick with the kind of silence that says too much.
“I haven’t ignored you,” I say, but it sounds hollow.
She laughs, bitter and loud enough to make my spine go stiff. “You could’ve fooled me.”
I want to say something, anything, but she steps back and yanks her phone from her purse so sharply that it knocks her passport free, the little navy book sliding across the quilt. My jaw tightens, a flash of heat crawling up my neck, but I lock it down and keep my eyes on her. She’s already tapping at the screen, thumbs moving fast.
“What are you doing now? Booking a flight to Paris?” The words come out petty and raw. I wince at my own voice.
She holds the phone out toward me. “I pulled up the definition ofignore. Want me to read it?”
I don’t answer. I know this game.
“Ignore,” she announces. “To refuse to take notice of or acknowledge. Disregard intentionally.”
Every word is a sucker punch. Not because she’s wrong. Because she’s right.
“Put away your phone, Mabel. I need to talk to you.”
“Who on God’s green earth do you think you are, Cal? You don’t tell me what to do.”
This whole thing is spiraling. It’s not just an argument—it’s years of silence boiling over.
I glance around the room, trying to steady myself and zero in on her passport. She guards it with this quiet urgency, checking on it like it might vanish if she looks away.
I want to chuck it out the damn window.
I reach for it and hold it up. “Why do you keep this with you? You treat it like it’s the only thing that matters.”
She swallows, the motion tight, a pull of muscle down her throat that draws my attention. Heat rises through my chest, coiling hard, and all I can see is that soft place where her pulse kicks, where my hand wants to rest with a gentleness that fights against everything burning through me.
Defiance glints in her eyes. “I carry it with me for the same reason you don’t. Because one day, I’ll fill that passport with stamps from every corner of the world. And you’ll still be sitting here in this sleepy farm town.”
Her words hit me square in the chest. But she’s not wrong. I don’t want to leave. I love this town—this quiet place with golden fields and country roads that curl away into the sky. I breathe easier here. Still, hearing her strip it down to nothing with a single sentence has my heart hammering. And she doesn’t even flinch.
Except . . .
She presses her fingers to the necklace around her throat, touching theM.
“You’re wearing it,” I whisper, and the force of everything between us tilts. The intensity hasn’t lessened, but it dials back when I see the letter resting against her skin.
“Of course. Jamie gave this to me for my birthday. He must have saved up for it because these are handcrafted and not cheap. This necklace means everything to me. Do you think I’d take it off because he died? Is that who you think I am?”
