Page 52 of Chasing After You
“I got this,” my brother calls out from somewhere behind her.
Next thing I know, Vale is maneuvering his way around Roni and her horse and over to Matti. “Hand him over.”
“Um.” Matti seems torn. It’s obscenely adorable how attached he suddenly is to this horse. “You need to introduce yourself properly before I can hand him over to you.”
“Wow.” Vale shakes his head, but moves toward the horse’s head, nice and slow, quietly talking to him for a moment. “There, we’re good.” He gestures for Matti to release the horse to him. “Gimme the rope so you can go get your woman.”
Matti grins. “Is that your official blessing then?”
Vale just snorts at him and walks off, the horse going right along with him.
“You’re still blocking the aisle, man,” Roni grumbles. “And as much as I wouldn’t mind catching the rest of this show, I have a feeling you two will get things sorted out much faster without an audience.”
Matti nearly jumps forward, like he only just remembered Roni was back there. Then he stops himself as quickly as he almost leaped out of the way, apparently also recalling the part about not startling the horse when you’re standing behind it.
He takes a breath. Then he mumbles Rosie’s name before slowly, and very intentionally, reaching out his hand to touch her, letting his fingertips glide softly over her coat as he walks around her and toward me and finally clears the aisle for my sister to pass.
“Kenley taught me that trick,” he murmurs. “I’ll have to tell her it worked.”
“Anyone else have a hand in getting you to this point?” I ask, tears still wetting my cheeks, though the flow seems to have stilled for the moment.
“Knox,” he admits. “He was scared of hurting Kenley and asking about us. And I thought I was giving him all this brilliant advice.” He lets out a quiet laugh. “In the end, he was the one who dispelled the nuggets of wisdom. Weird how things can get turned around, huh?”
“Kind of thought that when Knox was the one arguing for commitment and titles earlier,” I smirk. “Maybe we have some things to learn from him this go around.”
“Maybe.” Matti’s hands reach for mine, slowly untangling them from the rope I’m still twisting and turning around my fingers. “Why are you scared, Ness?”
“Because hurting you sucked. Hurting you hurt worse than I hurt losing you,” I ramble off the words circulating at the forefront of my mind. The words I’ve been coming back to ever since he first showed up here. No, longer than that.
Ever since I first realized I never wanted out. The day I signed the divorce papers. That’s how long I’ve been whispering those words to myself. Over and over. Reminding myself that what was done was done. That I’d survive life without him, but I’d never recover from the heartbreak of beinghisheartbreak a second time. And I couldn’t trust myself not to do it again. Not anymore. Because I never imagined I was capable of doing it in the first place. Until I did it.
“I know.” He nods, his eyes just as glossy as mine. “I get it. It was the same for me. Maybe that’s why it’s really taken me this long to come after you. Because I didn’t want to risk letting you down a second time.” He pauses to breathe, and I want to interrupt his train of thought, want to tell him how insane he is for saying that, how wrong it is to even say he let me down because he never did. Not once.
But I don’t get the words out before he goes on, “But I know now that the only way I would truly fail you, would be in walking away. Even if that seemed like the easier, safer choice for both ofus. We deserve more.Wedeserve to take that risk.Youdeserve my courage. Just as much as my love.”
There it is.
The moment Roni predicted would come.
Every desire I have to hold him at bay shatters around me and I fling myself into his arms, arms that catch me as they always have and, as I’m starting to believe again, they always will.
PART TWO
THE LEAP
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MATTI
She’s home. In my arms. But it’s my heart that’s holding her.
“Swear we’re not making a mistake,” she whispers.
“I’m going to bite you if you keep saying shit like that,” I murmur, right before I press my mouth to hers.
There’s no mistake in the way she sinks into me, her lips crushing mine until our tongues find themselves caught in a familiar dance.
The rest of the world slips away, allowing us to get lost in each other, the very place we finally found ourselves again.
