Page 51 of Wild Thorns

“Should I be worried about the gossip?”

“The gossip started the day you moved in.” He grinned, utterly unbothered. “By now, they’ve probably married us off and named our children. Welcome to small-town life.”

I laughed, but the joke had landed somewhere complicated in my chest. The idea of being linked to Jasper, publicly, permanently, should have felt presumptuous. Instead, it felt… not unwelcome.

"So," he said, stealing a bite from my plate, "what do you think?"

"I think you were right about the ribs."

"I'm always right about food." He grinned. "What else?"

I looked out at the festival. The people laughing, the children running, the easy intimacy of a community that had known each other for generations.

"I think it's nice," I said slowly. "Being somewhere with history. Somewhere people have roots."

The question was casual, but I heard the real curiosity underneath. Jasper had a way of asking things that sounded light but landed deep.

"You don't have roots?"

"I had roots. Then I pulled them up." I shrugged. "Then I pulled them up again. And again. After a while, you stop trying to plant them."

“Why?”

I considered the question. Considered how much to tell him. The full story was too heavy for a sunny afternoon at a festival, but the surface version felt dishonest.

“The first time, it was for college. Normal stuff; growing up, moving away. The second time, it was for a job. Also, normal.” I paused. “The third time was for a relationship. That’s when it stopped being normal.”

“The relationship that brought you here.”

Not a question. He already knew; I’d told him enough that night on my porch, the morning after Marcus’s text. But he was giving me space to decide how much more to say.

“Yeah.” I took a breath. “When you’re with someone who… isolates you, I guess is the word. Who makes your world smaller and smaller until you don’t have anyone but them. Leaving means leaving everything: your friends, your job, your apartment, your whole life. You have to pull up every root at once just to get free.”

Jasper was quiet, his easy humor set aside. When I glanced at him, his expression was intent, serious.

“That takes courage,” he said.

“Or desperation.”

“Maybe both.” He shifted closer, not quite touching but near enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off him. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you landed here. Whatever brought you.”

“Even if what brought me was running away?”

“Running away is just running toward something else you haven’t found yet.” He smiled, and the seriousness softened into something warmer. “Maybe you were running toward Magnolia Creek all along. Maybe you just didn’t know it.”

It was a romantic thing to say. The kind of thing that should have made me roll my eyes, dismiss it as charm, file it under things men say when they’re trying to impress you.

But Jasper’s eyes were steady on mine, and there was no performance in them. Just sincerity, offered without expectation.

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Maybe you just haven't found the right soil."

I turned to look at him. In the golden afternoon light, his face was soft, his eyes serious, his usual easy humor stripped away. He was watching me with an intensity that made something turn over in my chest.

"Maybe," I agreed.

The moment stretched between us. Festival noise fading. His shoulder against mine, his hand on the stone wall inches from my thigh.

If I leaned in… if I closed the distance…