“You can afford that?” I ask. Pulling in multimillion-dollar grants is one thing, but I have no idea what kind of salary a cancer researcher makes.
The look he gives me is a little embarrassed. “I don’t really spend a lot of money, and they paid me well. I’m… comfortable.”
I bite my lip. “I can’t imagine your dad and Jo living anywhere but the lodge.”
Forrest takes a sobering breath, making ripples in the water with his chest. “It wouldn’t be the first time my dad’s given up North Star to live there.”
It takes me a second to understand what he’s saying. Over the last week, I’ve gleaned more details about the woman who raised Forrest, but he guards his memories of her like a dragon over rubies. “For your mom?” I ask, sliding my hands up his chest.
After a moment, he nods. “Dad rented an apartment in Anchoragewhile she was undergoing treatment. I only learned about it when they let me visit her at the very end.”
My stomach twists. “What do you mean, theyletyou?” When he doesn’t answer, I ask, “What exactly happened that year, Forrest?”
Forrest exhales, and it’s abundantly clear he’d rather talk about anything else. But I think he knows that this isn’t me prying. This is about the walls I’ve torn down to trust him, and asking if he’s willing to do the same for me.
“She was diagnosed during my second year of residency, and I decided to switch my focus after getting my license,” he says eventually. “But going from patient care to oncology research required making up a lot of lost ground. I was stretched… very thin that year.” He blinks quickly down at the gently rippling water. “So my parents shielded me from how bad her condition was, hoping she would rebound.”
At the drawn look on his face, my heart feels like it’s been tenderized by a hammer, each thump pulsing like a bruise.
“The whole time, Mom insisted that I stay in L.A.,” he says. “Always insisted she was beating it. But when she didn’t, I realized too late that I’d thrown away my last months with her. I could have been by her side but chose not to be.” He looks at me, and the anguish in his eyes is something I want to wrap up in a warm blanket and rock until it’s soothed.
“You did what she wanted,” I insist in an unsteady voice, but it feels like offering drugstore carnations when he deserves a whole acre of roses.
“I didn’t, though,” he says bitterly. “What my mom wanted more than anything was for me to live my own life. It’s why she kept me away from Alaska. But after Dad’s accident, I came right back.” He presses his lips together, and I stop breathing, afraid to say anything that might discourage him from sharing this piece of himself. “I’ve been so scared,” he admits. “Scared of losing Dadand making the same mistake I made with Mom. I’d made my peace with giving up work and staying here to care for him. But then you showed up. Jumped right into my arms, and now I’ve got something I’m even more afraid to lose.”
His gaze travels over me feverishly, his hands pulling me in tighter against him. When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse. “So fucking smart, and beautiful, and giving, and difficult. Every day you’ve been here, I’ve thought that Mom must have sent you. She knew you’d be the only person who’d get me back to California.”
My world tips over, the same old pieces I’ve always known rearranging themselves into a kaleidoscope of possibilities. I feel the spaciousness of being with him without a clock counting down until my departure flight. I imagine visiting his lab and discovering yet another side of him to admire and pine over. I imagine introducing him to Savannah, and I’m filled to overflowing with a rightness I’ve never felt before.
The selfish words I’ve tried hiding tumble clumsily out of my mouth, tripping to get out. “I don’t want to go home without you.”
At this, Forrest grabs his phone from the table. He unlocks and taps it a few times, and he’s so casual about it, he could be checking the weather. But then I hear the smallwhooshof an email being sent off before he turns back to me. “Now you won’t have to.”
An incredulous laugh bursts out of me, high and panicky. “Did you just—”
He smiles and lets out a shaky breath. I want to kiss him, but there’s something I need to do first. “Hand me my phone,” I say.
“Margot, you don’t have to,” he says. “If you’re not ready—”
“I do have to,” I argue. “I came here to write a murder mystery, and I didn’t, Forrest. After you dragged me through every trope under the sun, how could I write anything but a romance novel?” I take a breath, trying to steady myself. “I stopped believing in Happily Ever Afters a long time ago. But now… if there’s anychance I could win my readers back by admitting I’ve been completely wrong, then I have to try.”
He hands me my phone, but it’s not as simple as shooting off an email. When I’m done turning my letter into slides for an Instagram post, I swipe over to my camera app. With my chest pressed against Forrest’s so that only my face and the back of his head, neck, and mile-wide shoulders are showing, I snap a photo and add it to the end of my post.
Holding my breath and silently vowing to enact holy vengeance on Savannah if this letter backfires, I post it and immediately silence my phone. There are looming question marks about the future, but it’sourfuture, and I want it to start right now.
26FORREST
Home. Home. Home.The word pulses through me with every beat of her heart, and all I can do is follow it. We’re going back to California together, and it’s too new to feel real. Like we’re a couple of kids pretending. And that feels reassuring because the idea of actually leaving my dad shoots an arrow of panic straight through me. Logically, I know he’ll be thrilled. Logically, I know his health and mobility have made slow but steady strides. But logic isn’t what made my thumb hit that send button.
Every single touch, every faint suggestion of her dimples, every needy gaze she sends my way has me by the throat, dragging me deeper into something I spent my whole adult life carefully avoiding. I’ve seen what losing someone precious can do to a man. Felt the cold shadow of it as a bystander when my mother passed away in my father’s arms. I know better than anyone that all good things—even the greatest things of all—eventually come to an end. But when Margot confessed tonight that she didn’t want to go home without me, it tipped the scales just enough. Just enough for me to make what was either the best or worst decision of my life.
And right now, with her body wrapped around mine as I carryher out of the hot tub, it feels like a no-fucking-brainer. Her wet skin is sunlight in my mouth, and every small gasp she makes is an X on a map I’m charting. Her lips find mine, and she’s licking into me softly. Nipping my bottom lip and pulling away before I can taste her like I want to. She’s a goddamn tease, and usually, I love it, but tonight it’s the last thing I want. I want reassurance that accepting the grant and watching her share her letter with the world mean what I need them to mean. That she’s mine. For as long as I can have her, she’smine.
We’re both shivering by the time we make it inside the suite, our robes hanging haphazardly off our wet bodies. I barely have time to close the heavy door behind us before she’s up against me, dragging down my gift-shop swim shorts and standing on tiptoe to press open-mouth kisses to my collarbone.
“Why—are—you,” she complains between frustrated kisses, “so—tall?”
“So I can do this,” I answer, scooping her up and holding her to my chest. Her gasp is cut short as I kiss her, carrying her a few short paces to the fluffy white cloud of a bed. Her laugh as I drop her on the mattress is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
