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He lifted his eyes back to hers. “Excuse me?”
She advanced toward him, and a vein of fear crossed his expression. That gave Gretchen power, and she seized onto it and used it to fuel her next words. “You better not,” she said. “I don’t want a different version of you.” Her nerves shook, but she plowed forward. “I love your temper, and I love your mouth, and I love that you just say what you want. It took me a while, but I realized you were trying to support me in the way you knew how, and I’m really sorry I made you feel like that wasn’t good enough.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” he said, that grumpy cowboy she loved shining right through. He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Please, don’t.”
“Then don’t you apologize to me,” she shot back. She reached him, and with only a couple of feet between them, Gretchen could see the amazing flecks of color in his eyes. “I don’t want a watered-down version of the man I fell in love with. I just want the real Will Cooper, and it’s okay that you’re loud, and opinionated, and that you sometimes lose your cool when you have to wait for a pizza for two hours.”
Those pesky tears filled her eyes again. “I’m sorry about the pizza. I’m sorry I asked you to go. That wasn’t me asking you to change.”
Will reached out with one hand, sort of lobbing it toward hers. She grabbed onto him, wishing they’d clung to each other when things had gotten really hard. A sob worked its way toward the surface, but she wasn’t done talking yet. “I hate this place,” she whispered.
He looked right into her eyes. “No, you don’t. You love Sweet Water Taffy.”
She shook her head. “Not without you. I hate coming here if I can’t talk to you about it. I hate leaving here, knowing I won’t hear your voice later. I hate it. I hate that I let this stupid candy shop come between us, and I hate that instead of letting you help me the Will-Cooper way, I pushed you away.”
“You didn’t,” he said.
“I did,” she insisted. “And blast you, Will Cooper, you let me.”
Anguish crossed his face, and then he wrapped her up in those arms she missed so much and held her right against his chest while she cried. “Someday,” he whispered. “Somehow, I’m going to make this okay.”
Gretchen pulled back her tears once again and looked at him. “You just did. Today.”
Hope shone through the clouds in his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead, which wasn’t where she wanted them at all. “Can we go back to that bit…I thought I heard you say…maybe it was something like…I don’t want a watered-down version of the man I fell in love with.” He raised his eyebrows, and Gretchen smiled for the first time since she’d gotten the call from Jon that Sweet Water Taffy was on fire.
A real smile. One filled with hope, and joy, and William Cooper.
“What about it?” she challenged.
“Do you mean that?”
“Did you?” she asked. “When you said you’d fallen in love with me?”
“I did,” he said. “Mean it, I mean. I do.” A smile spread across his face, reaching clear up into his eyes. “I love you, Gretchen. I won’t be happy with anyone but you.”
“And I won’t be happy with anyone but you,” she said. “You, Will Cooper, just as you are now. Not whoever it is you were saying you were going to become.”
He searched her face, but she didn’t know what he was trying to find. “I’m worried you won’t like him for long. That he’s not good enough for you.”
“Will,” Gretchen said. “I liked you from the very moment I laid eyes on you. There you were, in the drugstore, and you seemed so…I don’t know. Upset. I thought you were upset. I thought maybe I could brighten your day with a caramel apple. Then I smashed the whole tray into your chest, because, well, because you smelled so good, and your eyes were so mesmerizing.”
“Stop it,” he said, his smile faltering.
“Don’t you dare change for me,” Gretchen said firmly. “You change if you want, but you do it because it’s whatyouwant. Not because you think I want someone besides the grumpy cowboy I met in that drugstore.”
“How could you possibly want him?” Will asked, and she detected true surprise in his voice.
“Because he’s perfect for me,” Gretchen said. “And he loves me, flaws and all. So I’ll love him, flaws and all.”
Will chuckled and shook his head. “You’re my favorite person.”
“Oh, I am not,” she said, pressing further into him.
“No?”
“No, that’s your mama, who I still haven’t met, by the way.” She lifted her eyebrows, clearly asking him when he was going to take her to the farm to meet everyone.
“Mm, we can fix that.” He kneaded her even closer to him, and Gretchen stumbled as she tried to get her shoes between his boots. Their whole relationship had been filled with stumbles, and she embraced this one as they smiled at one another. “It’s Rissa’s night to cook. It’s a good day to come.”
He slid his lips along her neck, and Gretchen roared to life. “One more thing,” she said, her voice hardly her own as airy as it had become with the reintroduction of his lips into her life.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Stop kissing me everywhere but in the right spot.” She tipped up and matched her mouth to his, the flames between them fueled by passion, love, and acceptance. Oh, how Gretchen missed kissing Will, and she hoped she’d never have to go another day of her life kissless.
