Page 110 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
Rowan—
I’m not certain what I’m doing here. When I sat down, it was to write a letter to my mother, because it’s something I always do on the New Year. I sit down and write out all thethings I wish she knew about my life. It was something my grandparents recommended. A way to help me process, and figure out how to go on without her. Because even though she can’t respond, I let myself think about how she would have responded, and even if it’s not the same, it’s something.
But I’ve been sitting here, unable to get started, because all I want to write about is you, and what we’ve been doing here in Elk Ridge, and it’s impossible to do that without hearing her voice. Reminding me what I should have said the other night, but I didn’t.
What happened that night eight years ago, the way I reacted, had nothing to do with your magic. I wasn’t afraid of it then, and I’m not afraid of it now. Because you are the magic, and I see how hard you push yourself every day to do the right thing. Even when it’s hard, even when it’s heartbreaking.
You don’t always get it right, of course you don’t. No one does. But you try anyway, and that’s all anyone can do.
Whatever happens today: Trust your magic, trust yourself, not because I trust you, though I do, but because you deserve it.
Yours,
Gavin
Rowan pressed the paper to her chest and shifted her gaze up to his face—his annoyingly handsome, utterly adoring face.
He had always seen her.
“Does that answer your question?” he asked.
“It’s pretty clear,” she said, laughing and dabbing her eyes. “Must be the pen you chose.”
“Hmm, I seem to remember someone else chose that one for me.”
“Well, it was the only fountain pen I had access to.”
“Take the win, Midwinter.” They both laughed, and he hooked his fingers around hers. “I’m sorry it took me so long to stand up to my father—really. You were right about so many things. How I am with him. How I’ve let that affect my other relationships. Alina, that was my fiancée, she didn’t see it, or if she did, she didn’t say it. Only you did.” His dark eyes searched her face. “Are you really leaving?”
She lowered her head and nodded.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do, because I’ve got responsibilities I can’t magic away. But I’m coming back as soon as all that’s settled. I can work remotely for SunlightCorps. It’ll help to have someone here on the ground anyway, assuming the collaboration goes through…Zaide’s got a spare room, the coven needs an eighth, and Winter Fest needs all the help it can get. I want to be a part of it all, and I want—” She breathed in deeply. Even if everything he’d done and said up to this point should have made the next words easy, they were still hard. “Us. If that’s something you want too.”
He didn’t answer with words.
There are as many kinds of kisses as there are moments in life. Kisses of hello and of good-bye. Kisses for beginnings and for ends. Kisses that mean nothing, and kisses that mean everything. Some are questions. Some are threats. Some are promises. They challenge us, charge us, and comfort us. The kiss Rowan and Gavin shared was one of new beginnings, of hope renewed and uncertain futures embraced.
When it ended, they lingered close, chest to chest: so close that from a distance, they could almost be mistaken for one person.
“So, this rule of three…” he said in a low voice. “Does that mean if you were to cast a love spell on me, you’d end up somehow even more smitten?”
She laughed, biting her lip, and squeezed his waist. “Dooming myself to your complete and total adoration.”
He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Mmm. That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Trust me: It’s ugly.”
“Well, any love spell you cast on me would fail anyway.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Because I’m already hopelessly yours, Midwinter.”
She inhaled deeply at the flush of energy that ran through her body, vibrating with the thrum of the earth.
“I love you too, McCreery.”
