Page 115 of The Sugar Maple Inn

The guard hesitated, then buzzed him through.

The terminal was quiet except for the muffled sound of the helicopter outside. Every person in the place was staring at him and Grace like they were the evening’s entertainment.

Grace stood there in the middle of it all, breathing hard, mascara smudged, looking like she’d just survived a car chase.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi yourself.” His voice came out rougher than he meant it to. “You get my letter?”

“I got your letter.” She took a step toward him. “You bought me an inn.”

“I did, yeah.”

“You’re an idiot. Or, as you’d say, a real hoser.”

Reese felt his mouth twitch. “So I’ve been told.”

“A stubborn hoser who thinks he can just—just—” She gestured wildly at nothing and everything. “—fix everything with money and grand gestures!”

“To be fair, the grand gesture thing usually works pretty well with you.”

“Reese Spencer, I swear to God—”

“I love you.” The words came out before he’d meant to say them. Before he’d planned this conversation or figured out the right way to do it. But there they were, hanging in the air between them like something he couldn’t take back.

Not that he wanted to.

Grace went very still. “What?”

“HE SAID HE LOVES YOU, GRACE!” her mother called over.

Grace gave her mom a death stare and turned back to Reese. “Say it again,” she demanded.

“I love you,” he said, quieter this time. More certain. “I’ve been in love with you since you told me those eagles were named Doris and Clive. And I know I screwed up. I know I’m not good at this,” he gestured between them, “—feelings thing. But I’m trying. And I need you to know that buying you that inn wasn’t about fixing things or making some grand gesture. It was about giving you what you deserve. What you’ve always deserved.”

Grace’s eyes were shining with tears. She closed the distance between them. “You really love me?”

“OH, COME ON, GRACE, OF COURSE HE DOES!” Sophie shouted.

“But…how would that work?” She looked at the helicopter. “You’re leaving.”

His face softened. “I’m not going to Vancouver, Grace. I want to be wherever you are.”

“Really?”

He took a breath, trying to find words for something he’d never let himself want before. “I’ve spent my whole adult life moving. Never staying anywhere long enough to call it home because I figured home was the thing that trapped you, that hurt you, that fell apart when you needed it most. But you—” His voice roughened. “You make me want to stop running. You make me want to plant roots so deep they’d take an earthquake to shake them loose.”

Grace’s eyes were swimming with tears.

“I want to build something with you,” he continued. “Not just the inn. A life. A real one. The kind where I know which mug is yours in the morning and how you take your coffee and what side of the bed you sleep on. Where I get to watch Zach grow up and teach him how to fish in that lake.”

“I don’t like fishing, dude!” Zach called over. “But you can take me to watch ice hockey.”

Reese gave him a thumbs-up. “Deal.” He turned back to Grace. “I want to come home to you every night instead of another hotel room in another city I’ll forget the name of in six months.” He cupped her face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the tears tracking down her cheeks. “And I want to take you to London. To all the places you’ve dreamed of going. You’ll show me what home feels like. And I’ll show you the world. Every corner of it you’ve dreamed about but never got to see because you were too busy taking care of everyone else. We’ll do it together. Build something neither of us could build alone.”

Grace sobbed. “You can’t just say things like that and expect me to function like a normal human being.”

“Good thing I’ve never wanted you to be normal, then.”