Page 87 of The One Who Saw Her: Boone

Part of her loved that kind of possessiveness, the feeling that she mattered enough to him to stake that quiet territory. Another part—her independent, wandering-heart part—felt a tiny flicker of panic because what if she was mistaking possessiveness when it was really control and just like the other men in her life, she’d let Boone crush her freedom.

Her life had been spent being one doormat after another, changing direction whenever someone in her life turned on their blinker. She was done with being a passenger in her own life and she wasn’t sure how to be fully open without losing herself.

“Also,” he added before she could voice her concern. “Can’t do a reverse cowgirl without a proper hat.”

"Boone?" a voice cut through like a blade.

“Kayla?” Boone said so surprised he nearly stumbled.

There she stood, her hair perfect, smile generational, and her arm linked with some guy in loafers who looked like he'd been assembled from a catalog. He was the kind of man who had never wrestled a heifer or fixed a fence line or stayed up all night in a January freeze because the pipes burst and there was no one else to fix it.

Boone's stomach dropped into rusty reflexes, the one that lived in the muscle memory of the worst year of his life. And just like that, the weight pressed back in.

He felt it coming on. Felt the dark tide that dragged him back to the months after the crash, to the hollow and echoing ache of his parents being gone. Every small victory he'd wanted to share with them, every laugh that had nowhere to land. Kayla standing there so effortlessly unburdened was a reminder of how completely alone he'd been through all of it.

The grief wasn't just sadness, it was a living thing—a reminder that the people who shaped you could be taken in a single second, leaving only the echo.

Then Vivi's fingers brushed his in a quiet reassuring way that was like a tether bringing him back, fast and clean, like a rope pulled taut.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Last we spoke, you were in Hawaii."

"Honeymoon," the loafer guy said, with the self-satisfaction of a man who enjoyed delivering information. He held out Kayla's hand—five carats, minimum, catching the light like a taunt. "Three weeks in Bali. Three weeks seeing the Hawaiian Islands."

Less than a year and she'd built an entire life while he'd been duct-taping his back together.

"That sounds beautiful," said the voice beside him.

Like a shot of neat whisky after a sugar-spun cocktail, her words washed over him. Warm and steady, her fingers still linked loosely with his, her thumb moving in one small reassuring arc.

He didn't look at her—he didn't need to. He could feel her wrap around him like bright sunlight.

Damn. One minute he'd been barreling back into the worst chapter of his life, and then there she was, pulling him straight back into the now.

"Congratulations," Vivi said.

"Thanks," Kayla said, but her eyes were locked on Boone, reading him the way she always had, gauging exactly how close to the edge he was standing.

"Small wedding," Kayla added. "Just family and close friends."

"That sounds lovely," Vivi said. Another gentle squeeze of his hand. "My friends all had big weddings. I always thought I'd want something small. More intimate."

Boone heard the word wedding and waited for the cold sweat that he assumed would come with it. It didn't arrive. Instead, he found himself actually listening—filing the details away somewhere specific. Small wedding. Intimate. Not what he'd assumed about a woman with designer boots and a New York skyline on her phone wallpaper. Not what he'd assumed at all.

He'd been filling in her blanks with his own damage for too long. It was past time he stopped.

"I'm Vivi, by the way."

"Oh, I know," Kayla said, her gaze dropping to their joined hands before coming back up to Boone with a smirk that said she knew exactly what she was looking at. "I'd apologize for the rental mix-up, but it seems like it worked out the way it was supposed to."

Boone gave a noncommittal grunt and both women laughed like he was the punchline to a joke he wasn't privy to. Under other circumstances that might have irritated him but right now he didn't particularly care.

"How's the family?" Kayla asked, her voice careful—like she was afraid the question might still break something.

A year ago, it would have.

He felt Vivi beside him. Her eyes on his face in a way that said she wasn't going anywhere until he was done needing her to stay. He wasn't sure that time was coming anytime soon.

"Doing well," he said, and meant it in a way that surprised even him. "Actually, your rental sparked something. Vivi's idea, really. We're turning the old bunkhouse into a vacation rental."