Page 35 of Made for You
Behind me, I heard Colt scraping his plate, the screech of his chair as he pushed back from the table. Jake was pouring himself more coffee, but both of them had gone still, waiting for my answer.
“Shedid.” The words came out rough, almost reverent. I turned from the window to face them. “Or maybe I finally listened. She’s not trying to turn Bridger Falls into another overbuilt resort town. She’s trying to honor it. The people, the land. It means something to her.
I moved back to the counter, gripping its edge. “It turns out, she spent time here before now; she didn’t just pick us out on a map and think, ‘This looks like a good place to make some cash.’ We talked it out last night—reallytalked—and I realized I’ve been lumping her in with people she’s nothing like.”
Jake nodded slowly. “Sounds like you see her pretty clearly now.”
“I do,” I said simply. “And it scares the hell out of me.” I rubbed the back of my neck, then shoved my hand through my hair—the same hair she’d tangled her fingers in just hours ago.
Colt glanced over his shoulder from where he was loading plates into the dishwasher. “You? Scared? Now that, I’d pay to see.”
I gave him a flat look and pushed off the counter, suddenly too restless to stand still. I paced to the window, then back. “Laugh all you want, but I mean it. I’ve never felt like this before. Not with anyone.”
I braced my hands on the back of Nash’s chair, needing something solid to hold onto. “I don’t just want her body, or the way she looks at me when she’s coming apart. I want the rest of it too—the mornings, the quiet. The sound she makes when she laughs. The way she calls me on my bullshit.All of it.”
My brothers had all gone quiet now—Nash had closed his book, Colt had turned fully around, dish towel in hand, and Jake’s shoulders had relaxed, his posture loose, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
“I took one look at Eden and knew my life was never going to be the same,” he said.
Colt rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and then you spent a decade pretending you didn’t still love her.”
Jake shrugged. “Didn’t change the truth.”
Nash let out a quiet laugh, his eyes finding Colt’s across the table. “Guess we’re all hypocrites in our own ways.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m done pretending.”
Jake studied me for a long moment, then nodded. “Then you better make sure she knows it.”
I stared down into my half-empty mug, feeling the echo of Jake’s words settle in my chest.Make sure she knows it.
I’d shown her with my body what she meant to me, let my lips kiss the words into her skin. But I hadn’t said any of what I was feeling. I’d just hoped she’d instinctively know.
I looked out the window again. The valley stretched before me, a patchwork of frost-tipped pastures and snow-topped peaks. The same view I’d known all my life—but somehow, this morning, it looked different.
Maybe because for the first time, I wasn’t just seeing home. I was seeing the place where I wanted to build something new—with her.
I straightened, setting my mug in the sink. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I will.”
Colt raised his mug in salute. “Go get your girl.”
Jake smiled, proud and knowing. “Looks like another Mercer’s off the market.”
“I’ve never beenonthe market,” Nash murmured lowly, almost like he was hoping none of us would hear him, but we all had.
Colt’s fork stilled halfway to his mouth. He set it down carefully, his expression losing its usual cockiness. “Nash.” He said his twin’s name with the type of quiet intensity that made the hairs stand up on my arms. “You can’t keep waiting for her to figure it out on her own. Sometimes you’ve gotta take the leap, even when you’re scared shitless of landing wrong.” His jaw tightened. “Trust me on that one.”
It was the most serious I’d heard Colt sound in months, and from the way Nash’s eyes widened slightly, he’d heard it too.
For a moment, nobody said a word, the four of us carrying our own shit—Colt with whatever secret he was keeping, Nash with the love he’d never confessed, Jake with memories of the decade he’d wasted, and me with a heart so full of feeling I didn’t know what to do with it all.
“Much as it pains me to admit it, Colt is right,” I said, breaking the silence. “About taking the leap.”
From across the room, Jake caught my eye and gave me a small nod—the kind that said he’d keep an eye on things here and help our brothers however they’d let him.
I clapped Nash on the shoulder as I passed, a silent “you’ve got this,” and grabbed my keys. Behind me, I heard Colt’s chair scrape closer to Nash’s, their voices dropping low.
The sound of their murmuring followed me out the door as I headed for my truck and the woman who’d upended my whole damn world. I’d only left her house an hour ago, but I needed to be back there.
