Did I really? I wasn’t sure I did.
“Bri…” He reached for my hand, fingers brushing mine with a gentleness that made my chest ache. “I will be back.”
“Will you really though?” The words escaped before I could stop them, raw and small.
Emotion flickered in his eyes–pain, frustration, longing.
“I just need time to sort things out,” he said. “I need to get things in order. And when I’ve done that… I’ll come back.” His voice thickened. “I will come back.”
“But you’re not telling me everything.” My voice broke. “This doesn’t seem fair.”
He closed his eyes briefly, jaw tightening. “I know. And I hate it. But if I tell you now, before things are secure, before I’ve put everything in place, it could go wrong. It could fall through. And I won’t risk giving you false hope.”
Something inside my chest clenched hard. Tears blurred my vision despite my best effort to swallow them down. He stepped closer.
“Please don’t think I’m walking away from what we’ve started here.”
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. I turned my face away, embarrassed, but his hand gently caught my chin, guiding me back to him.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
I did. And there it was, everything he wasn’t saying. Everything he felt and everything that terrified both of us.
“I don’t want to leave,” he murmured. “Not even for a day. But I have to. And I promise you, I am not done here.”
My breath shuddered. “What if… what if things change when you go back?”
His thumb brushed my cheek. “The only thing that’s changed is finding you.”
My eyes fell closed for a moment, overwhelmed. When I opened them, he was watching me with such tenderness that it only deepened the ache.
“How long will you be gone?” I whispered.
He hesitated. “I’m not really sure. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
He didn’t know, he could be gone weeks, maybe even months. I wasn’t sure how I felt thinking about the time away from each other. I just nodded, because I couldn’t trust my voice anymore. Oliver pulled me gently into his arms, right there in the quiet of the bakery, and I let myself lean into him, let myself breathe him in. Cedar, cold air, something warm and familiar I wasn’t ready to lose. His hand stroked slowly down my back.
“I’ll come back,” he murmured into my hair. “I swear it.”
I clung to him, eyes closed, heart breaking and hopeful all at once.
When he finally pulled away, he kissed my forehead, lingering for a heartbeat that felt like a promise.
“I will see you when you close okay.” he said softly.
“Okay, I will make us something special for dinner.” I whispered.
He left the bakery, disappearing into the falling snow. And when the bell jingled behind him, it felt like something in my chest went with him.
Chapter Thirty
Istood in the middle of my tiny hotel room, suitcase open on the bed, and felt something I hadn’t felt in a while.Dread. Not the sharp, anxious dread of losing a case or disappointing a client. This was slower, heavier. It settled low in my chest as I folded clothes with hands that weren’t as steady as I wanted them to be.
Three weeks’ worth of laundry. Three weeks’ worth of memories. Three weeks that were never meant to happen in the first place.
A scarf Brianna had teased me about slipping into my bag. A pine-needle I’d brushed off my coat after walking her home in the snow. The photo she insisted we take on the merry-go-round, her smile bright, mine soft, both of us pretending we didn’t already know what was coming.
I closed the suitcase. The click of the latch echoed too loudly in the small room.
