"Our flight is at two."
"Our flight."He tests the word.His mouth curves into a full smile.The first real, complete, unguarded smile I've ever seen on Stephen Nelson's face, and it's so beautiful it hurts."I need to call Ryan about the dogs."
"Clara already offered to watch them.She texted me last night."
His eyebrows lift."The town knew before I did?"
"The town always knows before you do.Maggie apparently started a pool on whether you'd come to your senses before I left.Hilda bet against you."
"Of course she did."
He kisses me again.Soft this time.The kind of kiss that doesn't burn.The kind that warms.Slow and thorough and full of promise.
We walk back to the trailhead soaking wet, holding hands, with two dogs running ahead through the morning light.My boots squelch with every step and my jeans are going to take three days to dry and I don't care about any of it.
At the trucks, Stephen opens my car door.That old-fashioned gesture that comes from somewhere deeper than manners.
"Go pack," he says."I'll pick you up at the inn at eleven."
"You're really coming."
"I told you.I'm done standing on the shore."He tucks a wet strand of hair behind my ear.His thumb traces my jaw."This is me getting in the water."
I drive back to town with the heater blasting and my clothes dripping on the seat and my heart so full I can barely breathe.
At the inn, I pack in fifteen minutes.Everything I own fits in one duffel because I've been living out of Stephen's cabin for two weeks and most of what I need is already there.His flannel.My field notebooks on his counter.My toothbrush next to his.
My phone lights up.
Clara Whitmore:
Hilda owes me twenty dollars.I KNEW he'd come through.Safe travels.The dogs are in good hands.Come home soon.Both of you.
Home.
I look at the word for a long time.
I've been looking for home since I was eighteen years old and walked out of a house in New Hampshire where dogs lived in cages and love came with conditions.I looked for it in Vermont, in my career, in the book that made my name, in every kennel and training facility and rescue operation where I poured myself into broken animals because broken animals were easier to fix than the broken thing inside me.
Home was never a building.It was never a zip code.
Home is a man standing in a pool of water with tears on his face, saying I love you like it's the bravest thing he's ever done.And it is.Because for Stephen Nelson, walking into water is harder than walking into a burning building, harder than diving from a helicopter into forty-foot swells, harder than any rescue he ever performed.
He walked into the water for me.
Me:
We'll be back by Monday.Take care of my dogs.
Clara Whitmore:
YOUR dogs?Honey, they're Grizzly Ridge dogs now.All of them.Including Stephen.
I'm standing in the lobby with my duffel at my feet when his truck pulls up at ten-fifty-five.Five minutes early.He carries my bag to the truck and opens my door and Scout jumps in the back seat next to Duke's travel crate because of course he brought Duke.
"You brought Duke."
"Duke's never been on a plane.He needs new experiences."
