Page 86 of One More Kiss

“Just the nonsense things. You were the one with the smarts.”

“We just use our brains in different ways,” I said with a sad smile. “She used to love that one.”

Ethan let out a low chuckle. “She did indeed. Or, mind your manners and—”

“Your manners will mind you,” I finished. As we approached the house, I lost my smile. “I know I’ve been gone,” I started quietly, “but this isn’t just my house, Ethan. It’s my home. It’s always been my home.”

He stayed silent as he pulled up to the side of the house, and as I reached for the door handle, he caught my other hand to stop me.

“I know that. I was angry yesterday.”

Pulling my hand free, I opened the door. “You were, but then I was…me.”

“You were,” he agreed as we both got out of the truck. I waited for him, and together we walked to the front door. “I have work to get to,” Ethan said as he hesitated after unlocking the door, “but can we try to have that talk later?”

Looking up at him, I tried to forget how many times he had looked at me like that before. “I won’t sell.”

Ethan reached forward as if to touch me and then pulled his hand back. “We’ll talk, Peyton, I was foolish to think that you would want that conversation yesterday. I thought…well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

“You thought five years away would change me more than you thought it already had,” I guessed.

“Hasn’t it?”

Had it? When I was standing here in this spot like a thousand times before, with the guy I was sure I would marry, had anything really changed? Because right now, I was rapidly losing any illusion that I had put the past behind me, at all.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s not even been twenty-four hours since I came back, and I don’t feel like I’ve been away at all.”

Ethan took a step forward, and I didn’t move away. “Peyton?”

“Yes?”

He went to speak and then seemed to change his mind. I waited him out, and I saw his upper lip curl into a familiar smile. “I need to start work,” he said softly. This time when he reached for me, his hand cupped the side of my face. “We need to talk. When I come back tonight. Can we? Talk?”

“Yes.”

“I mean talk, Peyton, about all of it.”

“I know.” And I did. Stepping back, I wrapped my arms around myself. “I’ll be here.”

“’Kay.” He watched me for a moment longer, his eyes searching mine for the lie.

“Go to work,” I said with a forced smile. “I have stuff I can do inside.”

“You’ll be here?”

“Yes, Ethan, I’ll be here.”

He hesitated, and then with a quick jerk of his head, he turned and hurried towards the fields. I watched him go before I entered the house, and at the entrance, I stopped and looked around. This was my home. It maybe hadn’t been where I laid my head for the last five years, and I may have felt like a stranger inside these walls in the months prior to me leaving that last time, but leaning against the door now, I knew in my bones that I was home.

I hadn’t realised how much I missed it. This feeling. This sense of…right.

Automatically my attention shifted to the window, towards the barn, towards him, leaving me wondering how much that feeling of rightness was from being in the old house again or how much of it was being here…with Ethan.

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