Her brows knit. “A lumberjack?”
I nod, already bracing for impact. “Yeah, I figured you wanted plaid and sawdust. Big guy with an axe.”
She blinks at me, then shakes her head, snowflakes scattering from her hair. “Jack, I don’t need a lumberjack.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she silences me with a hard, fast kiss that robs every smart-ass rebuttal from my throat. When she pulls back, breath warm against my skin, she adds, “And no, not a Christmas tree farmer either.”
Her hands fist tighter in my shirt, her eyes burning into mine. “I need someone by my side. Someone who makes me slow down and actually notice the world instead of racing through it. Someone caring enough to worry over a stray dog’s limp and look after a neighbor’s lawn gnome rights. Someone who organizes a surprise celebration of sexual-innuendo pastries because the owner of the store is too blind to see what’s right in front of her.”
My chest tightens. The air steams between us. I should kiss her—agree with her—but the only thing that comes out is, “But what about your dream of small-town life?—”
“That was made whenIwas an idiot. Before I met you.” She huddles closer as if afraid I might slip away.
Which is ridiculous. I’m not going anywhere. Not anymore.
Her fists tighten around my flannel. “You’reall that matters.”
I’ve always been a man of considerable vocabulary. It’s imperative to persuasiveness, which is key in my line ofwork. And yet on top of a mountain, on the side of a road, a foot from a ditch, all I can think to say is, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she parrots, my stupidity apparently making her smile. “And forget small-town life if you don’t want it. Eli told me about the house listings.” Still smiling, she shakes her head. “Thank you, Jack, but you don’t need to move or buy a house. I know your work is in LA.”
The lawyer in me—the part that always hunts for the rebuttal—snaps to attention. “But yours is in Hideaway.” My counter comes out as more plea than argument.
“Yes, but thanks to you”—she flutters her lashes, a stray flake catching like a rhinestone—“I can open a Making Whoopie anywhere in the country.”
My brain flashes to the trademark application I drew up; the idea fits in my head like a puzzle piece turned the right way.
Her arms wrap around me, warm and fierce. “Even the diet-driven citizens of LA need a whoopie pie now and then.”
“You’d do that?” My voice reads less like a lawyer and more like a kid who’s just been offered his favorite thing.
She regards me like I’ve declared both the most outrageous idea and the most obvious truth. “Jack,” she says—no drama, only steadiness—“I just closed the bakery in the middle of a holiday sales rush for you.”
My jaw drops. I glance at my watch over her shoulder; she’s right—she should be cash-register deep in Whoopie celebrations. “Wow. You really do love me.”
She pauses, as if the sound of it surprises her, then the shock melts into a smile. “I do, Jack. I do love you.”
“I love you, too.” The words come out raw and certain.
“I know.” She kisses me again—a real, deep kiss. Not that the ones before weren’t real, but this one is different: not an experiment, not a dare. This kiss folds in everything—apology and forgiveness, danger and promise, half-forgotten jokes and serious plans. It lands like a promise, a vow, a private treaty: whatever comes next, we choose each other.
I hold her until the world resumes—engine ticking, snow settling, the truck cooling—until the scent of wet wool and buttercream fills my senses, and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Audrey
By the timeJack and I roll back into town in my mom’s SUV, my toes are finally thawing courtesy of Jack’s dress socks unearthed from his suitcase. I wedge my bundled feet into my dried-off Crocs—not exactly what Armani had in mind, but it works for me.
The rest of his luggage came in handy, too. Because when we finally stopped kissing long enough to realize certain vital parts of our anatomy were courting frostbite—my fingers and toes, Jack’s cold bits more centrally located—the look he gave me as he peeled off my wet clothesbefore wrapping me like a present in his dry ones was enough to save me from hypothermia.
We left his new-old truck by the side of the road, one of his white Calvin Klein undershirts flapping in the driver’s side window like a surrender flag. Probably not the official way to mark an abandoned vehicle but close enough.
As the SUV noses into Main Street, my heart, already fit to burst, stutters at the sight: Making Whoopie is glowing like a lantern, spilling warm light onto the snow-packed sidewalk. People are coming and going, their arms full of boxes.
I sit forward. “It’s still open?”
Jack glances at me, brow arched. “Didn’t you say you gave the keys to Eileen?”
“I did.” I squint down the road, spotting the line of bundled coats outside my door. “Told her to close it.”
