Page 132 of Meet Me in the Valley
Again with the blushing.
I tilt my head back, eyes scanning the night sky. I count the stars, wondering how many hang between me and him. On the other end, I hear a soft rustle, then the faint click of what I believe is his bedside lamp.
“I’m sorry for waking you,” I murmur. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Ah, that’s okay. You can always call. Want to tell me what’s going on?”
The months of holding back, the late nights I spent fighting my thoughts of him, and the countless hours he invades every corner of my mind break through the threshold. Even after I pushed him away that day in the hotel room, spewed the ugliest words in his face, and left on a plane with no goodbye after everything we went through together—he still showed up for me.
He went to my sister and fought for me, knowing she was the missing piece to this brokenness inside me before I could even realize it. Today was thebestday …because of him.
“Nora is here,” I pause. “You brought her to me. To my family.”
Logan doesn’t respond right away, and the quiet hum of his breath on the other end makes it feel like he’s right here beside me.
A cool breeze brushes against the damp trails on my cheeks, and I close my eyes, imagining we’re on Torren’s dock again. The place where everything between us began.
Logan breaks the silence, his voice quiet over the line as if he’s whispering right into my ear. I swear I feel his breath.
“I didn’t think she’d listen to me. She’s just as stubborn as you. Maybe worse,” he teases lightly, the trace of a smile in his words.
A breathy laugh escapes me, curling into the quiet between us.
It feels like us again. Like we’ve come through something. Waded through the storm. Found our way back to each other on the other side. The heaviness lifts, just enough for the clarity to settle in.
I’m in love with him. And I want him to come home.
To me.
“Why’d you do it? After the way I treated you—how I pushed you away?—”
“You know why I did it.”
Because you love me.
“And you could never push me away,” Logan continues. “If anything, you pushed me in a way I needed. I wasn’t even close to being the man you deserved back in Vegas.”
His words land with weight, but not heaviness. Just truth. And it’s hard to sit with. It’s why I let him go before I came back to Oakwood Valley. Deep down, I knew he had his own battles to fight—ones he needed to face without me at his side.
And me? I wasn’t ready either. I wasn’t the woman who could accept the kind of love Logan had to give. Even if that love was driven by years of comfort, lust, and familiarity.
But now, my heart finally feels ready. Wide open. The veil between us lifted. And I want him.
Fully. Freely.
I want to give him all of me—heart, soul, everything in between. His love is the only one I want.
I close my eyes again, steadying myself, imagining him here. Like I always do.
“Are you a man deserving now?” I ask, voice barely above a breath.
“Let me see your face.”
My eyes fly open, sitting up straighter as the blood rushes to my chest. “What?”
A second later, a video call request lights up my phone. My face appears on the screen—puffy eyes, messy hair, all of it.
“Let me see you,” he says again, gentle but insistent. “Answer it.”
