He set the flowers on the counter between us with careful hands, as though releasing something he had carried too long. Then he met my eyes. “I took the job. Formally accepted it.”
The words landed heavily in the stillness. I went still.
“I drove to Emmett’s office. I sat across from his desk and told him I was in. The partnership, the office in Willowmist Falls—everything. I said yes.”
“Jasper—”
“Please. Let me finish.”
I closed my mouth and waited, heart thudding against my ribs.
“I told him yes, but I told him how it had to be. I wasn’t going to build my life around the job anymore. The job would have to fit around my life, I told him. I’m keeping the cabin. I’m coming home every night I can. Then Emmett looked at me for a long time and told me something I didn’t know.” His voice thinned, not quite shaking, but stripped of its usual steadiness.
“What did he tell you?” The question was a whisper of breath between us.
“He started the firm with one rule—he was never going to let the job consume his life again. That’s the firm I’m walking into. He’s been trying to tell me that for months, but all I heard was partnership and saw the Marines all over again. I thought the work would be grueling with a lot of travel, but Emmett takes cases that are almost exclusively local. The travel is limited—mostly just occasional day trips. That changes everything.”
His knuckles had gone white against the counter.
“I should have told you everything,” he continued, voice low. “I should have told you before you ever came to the cabin. Before I kissed you on the landing. I had a hundred chances, and I didn’t take one. And the reason wasn’t good, but it was true.”
“Tell me.”
“I was scared.” His eyes glistened, wet in the soft light. I had never seen Jasper cry. “I’ve been scared my whole life of becoming the man who leaves. Every woman I’ve been with, I was only half there—present in body, but my mind was already planning the next deployment, the next mission. They all left, and they were right to. I wasn’t really with them.”
He swallowed hard, the sound audible in the quiet shop.
“When Emmett offered the partnership, the first thing I felt wasn’t excitement. It was fear. Because I thought it carriedthe same danger—hours away, mental space I wouldn’t have, stretches where I couldn’t be fully here. And I had just found you. You were the first person who made me want to be completely in my life, Cara. The thought of showing you that door—of watching you see the man who might leave again—I couldn’t do it. So I carried it alone. I told myself I’d figure out the right way first, then bring it to you without scaring you. But every day it got heavier, and the conversation got harder to start. I let you fall in love with me while I kept that in my pocket. That was wrong. That wasn’t protecting you. That was protecting myself from the chance you might look at me and decide I wasn’t worth the risk.”
The shop felt smaller, the air thick with the hope and love between us.
“That’s what I’m most sorry for,” he said. “Not the job. Not even keeping it from you. I’m sorry for not trusting you. You’re the smartest, steadiest woman I’ve ever known. You took your grandfather’s shop and made it your own. You’ve made every important decision about your life yourself, and every one of them has been right. I didn’t trust you with this one. I decided for you. I’m never going to do that again.”
Silence wrapped around us like a held breath.
“I went to my parents’ house,” he added softly. “Told the family I was staying. Hannah sat me down on the back porch and told me I was wrong to keep this from you—and she was right. She said I let you fall in love with me while making a decision that would change your life without you in the room. But she also said that hurt doesn’t mean we have to be done. That when a woman says, ‘don’t call,’ it often means she needs space to think, not that she’s finished. She told me to give you room and when you were ready, to show up and just listen.”
“You’re giving me a speech right now, Jasper.”
A faint, rueful smile touched his mouth. “I know. I tried to come in with nothing prepared. Then I opened my mouth, and all of this came out. I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait for you to call. I’ve been sitting in that cabin for days, building a bookshelf.”
I blinked. “You—what?”
“I built a bookshelf. In the bedroom, against the wall next to the dresser. It took two days because I’ve never built one before. The first attempt was terrible—I had to take it apart and start over. The joints are rough. The stain isn’t even. If you look from the side, you can tell I should have bought a level or taken a trip to IKEA. But it’s there. I put the books on it. All of them. In the order you gave them to me.”
My throat tightened until breathing hurt.
“There’s an empty space on the top shelf,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “Where the morning light comes through the window. I left it forDevotions. The one I gave you on the landing. The one you left on the stack at the cabin because you wanted it to live with the others. It’s at your apartment now. I know it is. I left that space because I’m asking you to bring it back.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, warm and silent. I didn’t wipe them away.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me tonight,” he continued. “I’m not asking you to move in or decide anything about the job or us right now. I’m asking you to bring the book back. I’m asking you to come fill that shelf. I’m asking you to let me show you the life I’m trying to build—with the job inside it, not the other way around—and to tell me if it’s a life you want to be part of. If it isn’t, I’ll take it. If it is, then I’ll spend every day making sure you never regret it.”
He fell quiet, eyes wet, everything laid bare. The flowers scented the air between us with something fresh and alive, like spring breaking through frost.
I stood there a long moment, crying softly, letting the tears come the way I had with my grandmother—quiet, unstoppable.
“You built a bookshelf.”
