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“Come for a drive with me.”
“What?” She’d braced herself for him to say a lot of things, but that hadn’t even been on the list. Adam was a lot of things, but cruel wasn’t one of them. “Absolutely not.”
“Please, sugar. I want to show you something.”
“Is it a hole in the ground where you’re going to stuff my dead body?”
He shot her a reproachful look. “It’s funny—your mouth is moving, but I’m hearing the redhead talking.”
Probably because Aubry was a hell of a lot smarter than Jules. She had things down. She stayed inside and interacted with people solely on her own terms—with the safety net of a computer between them. She wouldn’t be standing here, seriously considering going somewhere with a man who’d broken her heart. “Adam, I can’t do this. I’m barely getting through as things stand, and taking a drive with you is only going to make it worse. I don’t think I can survive another go-round.”
Instantly the smile was gone from his face. “I’m sorry for that, sugar. I really am. Let me make it up to you.”
I can’t. It would be a mistake of epic proportions. “No.”
“You’re really putting a wrench in my grand gesture, you know that?” He sighed. “I guess we’ll have to do this a different way.”
She blinked. “Uh, what?”
“Come here.” He pulled out his phone and started typing.
What the heck is going on? She slowly crossed the distance between them, feeling like she was approaching a rabid animal. He’d either run or attack, and she wasn’t sure which would be preferable at this point.
“Here.” He hooked her waist and pulled her into the circle of his arms, turning her so her back met his chest. She was so distracted by the sheer presence of him and the longing the feeling of him touching her awoke that she almost didn’t realize he was trying to show her his phone screen. Jules frowned at it. “That’s one of those house-finding apps.” She liked to search them when she was bored, though she had no reason to move from the comfy little apartment above the café.
His chuckle made her shiver. “Look at the house.”
It was a cute little thing. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths. Just outside town on twenty acres. It needed some love and probably a few months’ worth of renovations, but it had promise. Her chest ached, something like hope sprouting there. “Why am I looking at a house?”
“I bought it yesterday.” His breath ghosted over her ear. “Or at least I started the process of buying it. That shit takes forever. But the earnest money is in place, and assuming all the paperwork goes through, it’ll be mine just inside of thirty days.”
The screen started to blur before her eyes. “You’re buying a house.”
“I’m buying a house.” He turned her in his arms, his hands on her hips. “I’m staying, sugar. I’ve been running for my entire life, and I finally found a reason to stop.”
“Your mom.”
His eyes were intense on hers. “She plays into it, I’m not going to lie. But you’re the one who made me stand still long enough to realize what I’d be missing if I left again. Devil’s Falls isn’t perfect, but it’s got one point in its favor that no other town I’ve ever been to has.”
“What’s that?”
“You.” His hands flexed on her hips like he wanted to pull her closer. “When I said I’d never met anyone else like you, I was telling the truth. You make this world a better place, and you make me want to be a better man.”
They were words she’d wanted to hear so badly, she almost convinced herself that he hadn’t actually said them. “But…” She could barely process this 180. She’d been halfway prepared to spend the rest of her life wasting away into spinsterhood, holding close the memories of the last few weeks to keep her warm at night, and now here he was, saying things she never would have dreamed he’d say. So she focused on the—slightly—easier thing. “You bought a house.”
“I bought a house.” He inched her closer. “And I’m going to be honest with you—someday I want you living there with me. We can take it slow, but if you’ll give me a second chance to do this right, that’s it for me. You’re the one I want, and I fully intend on there being a ring and a couple of babies in the plans.”
A ring. Babies. A house. Her heart leaped into her throat, making it hard to get words out. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”
He grinned. “What’s the point?”
Truer words were never spoken. She put her hands on his chest, resisting the last little space between them. “What happened the other day?”
This was it. If he shut her out again, she’d know that his words were just that. She could compromise on a lot of things, but this wasn’t one of them.
