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“I don’t know,” Harry mumbled back.
Bullshit. He knew.
He was irreversibly, profoundly in love with Rowan McKinnon.
But being in love was supposed to feel good. It was supposed to strengthen and uplift. As much as he tried to mask it, he’d been completely dismantled and put back together in an unstable configuration, thoroughly out of his mind. This thing they had seemed the opposite of easy, the opposite of logical. For months, she’d been actively working toward anout. But for Harry, this place, this life—it had begun to coalesce into permanence. It was no longer simply a temporary stopover or an intermission from reality.
He’d known it would come to this. He’d known Rowan’s presence here had always been ephemeral. Losing sight of that truth was on him, and he needed to deal with the fallout.
Hell, he still had a life and a job on the other side of the country waiting, if he wanted it. Sinclair couldn’t keep a position open for him forever, though. And it was starting to feel like everything he wanted was right here within the radius of this little campfire. Maybe he could do what Arden said months ago. Be a country doctor.
That didn’t change the fact Rowan was leaving.
She watched him from across the flames, growing visibly more agitated as he and Temperance chatted in hushed tones. Grey had abandoned her lap, and she was trying to maintain conversation with Ma and Maren. But Harry saw how she wrung her hands together and nibbled her fingers. She slippedher toes in and out of her sandals, and twisted the ends of her hair. To him, her crumbling composure was plain.
“She doesn’t make anything easy,” he said.
“Things haven’t been easy forher,Harry.”
The heat of the campfire was hot on his forehead, but the blaze in his gut was hotter. “I know her grandmother loved her very much. Her mom was absent, at best. Then, some asshole named Noah broke her. That’s the sum total of what I know.” Christ, he was in love with a woman who doled out bits of herself so parsimoniously, it seemed each day he discovered more about her that hedidn’tknow than what he did.
Temperance squeezed his arm. “Listen. I told you I wasn’t getting involved. But I know this: if you’ve seen over those mile-high walls she puts up, I can’t imagine you’re not in love with her. And I think the only way you’ve seen over them is if she’s allowed it. That means she’s in love with you too, whether she knows it or not.”
He stared at the ground. “How does someone notknow?”
Temperance folded her hands in her lap and gave him a clinical once-over. “Harry Brady, have you ever wanted a thing, and didn’t get it? And I don’t mean luxuries. I mean basic human needs. Companionship. Emotional stability. True intimacy.”
Shame and frustration made a nauseating cocktail in Harry’s stomach. Rowan had lived a very different life than his. He simply couldn’t get his mind aroundwhy,after not having those things, she wouldn’t leap at the chance to finally have them. With him.
“Paging Dr. Brady. Where’d you go?” Temperance said.
“Sorry, I think I’m tired,” he said, and shook his head. “Duncan rides me from dawn to dusk right now. We’re painting the pool deck tomorrow, apparently. Forecast is over ninety. Shit.”
“You need to tell Duncan to take it easier on you, or I’m going to chat with him.”
“You really want me to tell him that?”
It was Temperance’s turn to go quiet. “No. Better not.”
“Might get him off my back. I think he’s afraid of you.”
“Good.” She turned her focus to the fire. “He should be.”
“You ever want to talk to me about Duncan, T-Bird?”
She looked up. Her eyes had gone frosty. “Why would I?”
Harry laughed softly. “Oh, I don’t know. But I just got more information than I could have ever hoped for by the look on your face right now.”
ROWAN DISAPPEARED.
Harry hadn’t seen her sneak away from the fire. While he tried to casually look around for her, he made inadvertent eye contact with Nate, who subtly pointed up the hill without missing a beat in his conversation with Dad. Harry groaned inwardly at how transparent he must be, and acknowledged with a single, silent nod. Nate lifted a curious eyebrow and nodded back.
Eventually, he was going to need to havethatconversation.
But now, he needed to find Rowan.
The gardener’s cottage was dark. Next door, a faint glimmer of lamplight shone through the foggy windows of the greenhouse. She’d set a beacon for him, intentional or not.
