Page 76 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
He nods, his jaw set. I leave them to talk.
I swing open the door to the cabin, step inside, and?—
Stop. My hand flutters to my chest. I stare and stare and stare, tears misting my eyes. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Many minutes later, when Weston finally joins me, I still haven’t budged.
“When?” I say. My voice comes out rusty and tear-choked. I swallow down my emotions and try again. “When did you do this?”
He smiles shyly, then strides to the dividing wall. Which...isn’t actually a wall anymore. An archway joins the two rooms, doubling the cabin’s size. There’s only one bed now, not two, and the bookcases sit side by side.
He runs a hand over the mortared stones of the archway. “I changed it before I came to see your dad. Do you like it?”
I blink the fog from my vision. “I love it. It’s perfect.”
“Good.”
When the coil of emotion knotted around my airway uncurls, I wander close to him. “What did my dad and Brendan want? Outside?”
His features go blank, an eerie mirror of Brendan’s expression from a few minutes ago.
“Weston?” Wariness edges my words.
“I’m going to go with them,” he says carefully. “Right now. For just a little while. But I’ll be back before dark.”
I tense. “You’re leaving me?”
He searches my face. “You’ll be safe. I promise. Safer once I go than you were before.”
I stand motionless, caught in his eyes. I know I can’t rely on him every moment of every day. And while I’m still in recovery from my experience with the duke, I have to stand on my own two feet sometimes. Bold as brass.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“But before I go,” he says, “I want you to pick a number.”
“A number?”
“Yes. Between...one and...two hundred and six, let’s say.”
I blink. “That’s very specific.”
A sharp smile slices across his mouth before vanishing again. It’s unmistakably savage. “It is.”
I hesitate. I almost consider asking for specifics, but I can tell he’s not going to share them. “Twenty-three.”
Something cold glitters in his eyes. “Twenty-three. Good choice.”
He kisses me on the mouth, squeezes my hand, and retreats. At the door, he pauses. “By the way. We should go on a honeymoon. Spend a few weeks somewhere before I have to go crawling back to the cotton mill and see if they’ll take me on again.”
“A honeymoon? Where?”
His mouth tips. “I was hoping you’d have an idea. Why don’t you think about it while I’m gone?”
I nod. And I do. And by the time he returns, many hours later, I have dinner ready, a fire going in the hearth, and the perfect destination in mind.
But Weston barely spares a glance for my efforts. There’s acrackling energy to him, one I’ve only seen a few times before, usually when he stepped out of the ring victorious.
“I made dinner,” I say.
