“Good.” She took a long sip and seemed to arrive more fully into the morning. “You packed a bag yet?”
“I’m going to.”
She looked at me over the rim of the mug, taking in whatever my face was doing, which, based on her expression, was probably quite a lot. A slow smile spread across her face—warm and entirely knowing. “I love you so much,” she said. “You enormous, lovestruck sap. Look at you.”
“Thank you for staying last night,” I said.
She waved it off. “Where else would I be?” Not a question—just a statement of fact, simple and complete.
I sat on the edge of the bed, and we drank our coffee, the cats rearranging themselves with great ceremony.
She left an hour later with a hug at the door. I sent Jasper a text to let him know my plans, then I went to shower and get dressed.
The cats were doing their morning rounds. Wentworth was on the kitchen counter, where he was not allowed to be,watching me with the serene confidence of a cat who knew the rules and had decided they did not apply to him. Knightley was on the windowsill in the living room. Darcy was on the floor next to my overnight bag, watching me with the expression of a cat who had opinions.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I told him.
He sniffed and looked away.
“I might not stay all night.”
He blinked once, slow and deliberate, then turned away with the dignified finality of a cat who had made his assessment and found me unconvincing.
I finished my coffee, rinsed the mug, and picked up the bag. I gave the cats enough food and water for the night, locked the apartment behind me, went down the back stairs into the alley, and got in my car. I sat for a second with my hands on the wheel, my heart turning somersaults in my chest, then started the engine, pulled out into the road, and headed for the river.
I had always loved the drive out of Honeybrook Hollow. The road left town heading east and climbed gently through the trees, and within a few minutes, the buildings and the sidewalks and the familiar storefronts were gone, and it was just the road and the forest and the mountains in the distance. The light came through the windshield in long pale shafts. The air through the cracked window smelled like pine and cold water and the faint mineral tang of the river somewhere below the road.
Jasper had texted to take the east road out of town, turn right at the unmarked gravel drive just past the old green mailbox, and follow it down toward the water. I found the mailbox. I found the gravel drive. I turned onto it and felt the car dip as the road curved away from the main road and dropped gently toward the river.
The trees opened up, and the cabin came into view.
It was exactly what he had described at dinner. Warm wood tones against the dark green of the riverbank. It sat back from the water but close enough that I could hear the river before I had even cut the engine. There was a porch across the front with a single wooden chair on it. His truck was parked to the side. A thin curl of smoke from what I assumed was the stove, gray against the pale sky.
I pulled in next to his truck, cut the engine, and sat there for a second.
The river was the first thing I heard. Constant and steady, exactly as he had described it—the thing I fall asleep to and the thing I wake up to.I understood it now. I understood why he had chosen this place. The sound of the water was the sound of something that was going to keep going whether or not you figured yourself out, and there was a comfort in that I had not expected.
The front door opened.
Jasper came out onto the porch in jeans and a flannel shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, his hair a little damp. He had a mug of coffee in one hand that he set down on the porch railing when he saw me. He came down the steps—taking the first one carefully—and crossed the gravel toward my car.
I opened my door and got out.
And then I did not know what to do with my hands. I had driven mindlessly, while rehearsing absolutely nothing, and now I was standing in a gravel drive in front of a man who had thoroughly kissed me, and my overnight bag was visible through the rear window of my car, and there was really no graceful way to address that, so I addressed it immediately and at full volume.
“I brought an overnight bag,” I blurted.
Jasper stopped. He was maybe six feet away from me, close enough that I could see the expression that moved across his face—a flicker of something warm and a little undone, quicklysteadied. His eyes went to the bag in the back window and then came back to me.
“I see that,” he said.
The heat climbed straight up my neck. “I might not stay.”
“Okay.”
“I’m just saying.” I crossed my arms, which was not helping, and uncrossed them. “I brought it in case. It seemed practical. It’s not—I wasn’t assuming anything, I just thought in case the day ran long or?—”
“Cara.”
