I inhale a steeling breath. Then I wrap a scarf around my neck, step into my boots, open the door and walk out into the snow.
“Christ.” Breaths heaving out of me, I stalk around my workshop. I’ve been pacing since I left the cabin.
Bellamy stayed inside with her paints, cranking her music, working through what she needed to.
Just not with me.
She’s scared, looking for a reason to leave again, a reason we won’t work. But she’s wrong. So damn wrong. She hasn’t said the words, but I feel it. She never stopped loving me either. But fuck me, I don’t know how to make her see it.
Time’s ticking down and I’m in fucking agony. To love her so damn bad and let her go a second time? If that’s what she wants,fine. But I have to know for certain she’s done with me before I’ll let her go.
The creak of the door startles me.
I whip around, find Bellamy standing in the doorway in that oversized T-shirt, boots, bare legs and a scarf. Paint streaks across her cheek.
“Where’s your damn jacket?” I bark, stomping toward her. I grab her arm and pull her inside. Then I shrug off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders. “You tryin’ to freeze to death twice this Christmas?”
Fire flares in her pretty amber eyes. “You came here for me.” She jabs a finger in my chest. “You stole my Christmas on purpose.”
Despite all the shit we’ve stirred up, I chuckle. “Took you long enough.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but before she can utter a word, her attention drifts to the work bench.
“My painting.” Her wide-eyed gaze swings to me. “You have it.”
Marveling, she steps closer and runs her index finger over the edge of the canvas.
“I do.” Sighing, I settle on a stool and rub my palms on the thighs of my jeans.
“How?” She worries her lip between her teeth, looking from it to me.
“I went to San Francisco,” I say, shoulders falling. I’m caught. It’s all out now.
She makes a kind of soft whimpered noise in the back of her throat.
“I came to bring you home. But when I saw you at your showing, hell, you looked so damn happy…” I swallow, threading a hand through my hair. “I couldn’t do it.”
A long silence. I’m crawling inside my skin, waiting for her reply, waiting for words that could break or save me.
“I wasn’t happy,” she bursts out. Her eyes are blurry. “I had a thousand texts written out to you that night. You were the one person I wanted there and…” She sucks in a trembling breath. “You were there after all.”
“You were amazing that night, Bell.”
“Why? Why didn’t you say anything?” She meets my eyes with curiosity.
“I didn’t want to take you away from your dream a second time.”
“Youwere my dream, Hank. You.” Her gaze drifts to the window, to the snow falling outside, to Zelda, back to me. A soft, sad smile tugs at her lips. “My dream was Montana and a cowboy and dive bars and Christmas trees and little blue heelers with overbites and skunk breath.” She laughs, but then her brow furrows. “I never knew what my dream was until I got here…and it was hard as hell to walk away.”
My pulse beats wildly at her confession. Hope pulls at my heart, breaths catching in my chest.
“Then why did you?” I reach out, snagging her fingertips.
Her warmth, her body, is so close I almost lose it.
“Why’d you leave? Was it somethin’ I did, sugar? I know I wasn’t perfect after we lost Cody, fuck, but—”
“No, it was nothing you did.” Bottom lip quivering, she hooks her index finger around mine. “You tried so, so hard, Hank. I’m the one who pushed you away.”
