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“Dolly, I’m having trouble talking around this, so I’m just going to spit it out.” He sits tall and holds my gaze. “Do you remember what you told me last night?”
My heart slams into my ribs. What did I say? I shake my head. “No.”
He chuckles uncomfortably as his eyes study the tops of his boots, and I can tell he's questioning if I was honest in my drunken admission, whatever it is. That what I said to him shook him so deep that now, in the light of day, he’s gaslighting himself not to believe it. “You told me… that you’re in love with me.”
Finally, his eyes come to mine. “And I saw your room,” he admits, his voice so quiet and low that if a breeze had ruffled the trees around us, I would’ve missed it.
I nod as all of my nerve endings stir to awareness along the surface of my skin. I’ve been waiting to come clean this way for years. “I didn’t want you to find out this way, truly. But… I’m glad you know. Because Iamin love with you, Hudson. I have been in love with you since I was fifteen years old and I know that it probably makes you uncomfortable to find out this way, but here it is. I love you and I believeyouare my soulmate. I believe my horizon is filled with you and Bear, and Bluebell and Deuce and Ev. I believe you were meant to come here with Tessa, and have your son and start the farmers market and launch Gray Farms, all soyou and I could find one another.” My heart has never beat so hard. He just blinks at me.
“Say something,” I whisper. Now that the veil has been torn away and my secrets have been exposed, some of my assuredcertaintygrows wobbly.
“Please say something,” I beg.
“I have trust issues,” he announces, still holding my eyes. It’s not what I thought he was going to say but it’s better because he’s clearly thinking. Had he said“I need to process”or something alike, that would've meant he got weirded out. But he’s still sitting here, and in fact, he hasn’t moved a muscle. And what he’s saying is that he needs to know all of my secrets. He needs to know the ins and outs because Tessa left him a distrusting, brokenhearted mess.
“I have a speech, you know,” I tell him, sliding closer on the bench. He looks at the gap between our bodies, a growl sounding off in his chest. My skin prickles with heat. “Something I planned for this moment. When I finally get to tell you how I feel. I have a speech that covers all of the things I’ve done in order to learn more about you or feel closer to you over the years.”
“Feel closer to me,” he repeats, his tone husky but quiet.
I nod. “I knew a respectable man like you would never be with a girl, so I learned as much about you as possible, stole as much of you for myself as I could, and then when I became a legal adult, I’d start trying to get your attention.”
He shakes his head, widening his knees as he gets comfortable on the bench. “I don’t—” He pauses, then tries again. “You’re twenty.”
“Almost twenty-one.” That feels important to say.
“You’ve been trying to.. Getmyattention for two years?”
I nod. “It’s been hard. The fence damage and repairs, the storms, Ev’s wedding. It’s been difficult but yes. I’ve been begging for you to see me for so long, it’s why I’m a little smiley right now… finally, you see me.”
His face grows serious. “I’ve always seen you, Dolly.”
I shake my head, and move my tongue along my bottom lip. “Not in the way I want you to see me.”
“Jesus Christ,” he growls, tugging at the knees of his jeans to adjust his pants. My belly flares with heat. His eyes come back to mine. “And Tiffani?”
“Was in my way.”
He blinks. “And after the creek, when you attacked her…” he trails off, and though my first reaction is anger, I don’t. I take a breath and sort out what Hudson’s after. He doesn’t truly think I’m a killer, but he has to know that what I did that day was in defense of Bear, not because of him. He has to see that my passion is rooted in a place of love.
“I attacked her because she was negligent with a child. A child whom I love very much. I won’t say that I wouldn’t have killed her had Deuce and Trace not been there. I don’t know if I would have. I couldn’t see or think straight, Hud.” I swallow hard around the emotion that appears in my throat at the mention of that scary day. I scoot closer to him, and my knee hits him mid-thigh. I slide my hand over his leg, sinking my fingers into his thigh, smiling despite the rush of arousal that hits my panties at freely touching him in broad daylight. “I love you, Hudson, and I love Bear too. And I’d do anything for either of you. Even if that meant giving my life.”
I thought I’d feel like a Band-Aid was ripped off, but ashe blinks at me, saying nothing, I’m overwhelmed with the worst thing:doubt.
He stands, and my hand falls from his thigh to the metal bench below. “Bear and Ev are waiting,” he says, stroking his big hand through his soft hair.
I stand too. I knew this was a possibility. I knew that it may seem like too much. But knowing something and planning on it are two different things. My heart drops. I really thought he’d understand me.
Don’t do that, Dolly, he does understand you.
He just needs time.
He hasn’t been loved hard in a long time.
He isn’t used to what true love feels like.
“Hudson,” I say, putting his name between us as if it will stop him from going.
But it doesn’t stop him. He goes.
