Page 19 of Mountain Man's City Girl
"Everything okay?" Victor asks, noticing my expression.
"Just work," I say, my voice tight despite my efforts. "Confirming my departure time tomorrow."
The mood shifts subtly. His movements become more methodical, his expression guarded again. The silence betweenus grows weighted, each moment ticking down to a departure I'm no longer sure I want.
"I have to be on the 10 a.m. bus," I say finally, setting down the plate I've been drying.
Victor nods, not looking at me. "I know."
"What if I didn't go?"
His hands still in the soapy water. Slowly, he turns to face me, his expression cautious, as if afraid to hope. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." I take a deep breath, gathering courage. "What if I stayed? Not just for another day or two. But longer."
"You have a life in San Francisco. Your work, your apartment—"
"I can work from anywhere. That's the beauty of freelancing." I step closer to him, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body. "And my apartment... it's just a place. It's not home."
He studies my face, searching for something. "And this could be? Home?"
"I don't know," I answer honestly. "But I want to find out. With you."
Victor dries his hands slowly on a dish towel, his movements deliberate, like he's buying time to process. When he speaks, his voice is low, careful. "If you stay, it won't be easy. I'm not easy."
I laugh softly. "I noticed."
"I'm serious, Jade. I'm set in my ways. I've been alone for a long time."
"I know who you are, Victor." I reach up, placing my palm against his bearded cheek. "I'm not asking you to change. I'm asking if there's room in your life for me, just as I am."
He turns his face slightly, pressing a kiss to my palm. "If you stay," he says slowly, "it won't be temporary."
It's not a question. It's a condition, a line drawn.
"I don't want temporary," I tell him, holding his gaze. "Not with you."
For a long moment, he just looks at me, the air between us charged with possibility and fear and something deeper, something neither of us has named yet. Then he cups my face in his hands, thumbs brushing my cheekbones with a gentleness that makes my chest ache.
"Then stay," he says simply.
The kiss that follows is different from our earlier ones—not desperate or hungry, but slow, deliberate. A choice made with open eyes. His hands frame my face like I'm something precious, something he's afraid might disappear if he blinks. Mine rest on his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath my palm.
Epilogue – Victor
Three Years Later
The morning sun filters through the windows of our home, casting honey-gold light across the wide plank floors. Through the glass, I can see the mountains rising in the distance—the same peaks that have watched over me for years.
I step inside from the garden, a basket of vegetables tucked under one arm. The door creaks slightly—I keep promising to fix it, but Jade likes the sound. Says it announces me.
Home. I still turn the word over in my mind sometimes, marveling at how it's shifted meaning. No longer just shelter, but this: the cabin we expanded together at the edge of the valley, close enough to town for her work but near enough to wilderness for mine. Windows larger than I would have built alone. Bookshelves lined with her photography volumes alongside my wilderness guides. The scent of coffee and the constant, gentle chaos that follows her everywhere.
And Mia.
"Dada!" My daughter spots me from across the room, her face lighting up with pure, uncomplicated joy. At eighteen months, she's a whirlwind of energy and noise, dark curls bouncing as she toddles toward me with the determined, slightly drunken gait of the newly bipedal.
I set down the basket just in time to catch her as she launches herself at my legs. "Hey, little bear," I murmur, lifting her into my arms. She immediately grabs my beard with sticky fingers—strawberry jam, from the looks of it—and babbles something only she understands.
