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“What do you want, Amelia?” The look he gives me freezes me in place. “I thought you’d be asleep in bed by now. Or gone.”
“That’s not fair, Sam.” I softly shut the door behind me and cross the room, working up my nerve for what I’ve got to say next. “I need you to listen to me.” When his glare grows, I add, “Hear me out. Please. This isn’t easy for me. I’ve never really had friends before you and Annabelle. Not in a really long time, and never as an adult. I’ve never been in a real relationship. I’ve never been in love, Sam.” When he looks away, there’s no doubt I’m losing him before I ever had the chance to have him.
Moving around the desk, I stand next to his chair and lean against the desk, facing him.
Close, but not close enough.
“Do you want to know the first time I knew, like really honest to God knew, that I loved you, Sam?” When he doesn’t answer, I push on. “It was a year ago. Well, a little over a year. It was the twins’ christening. You were wearing this navy blue suit, more royal blue than navy, actually. It almost matched the color of your eyes. You had on this crisp white shirt and a silver tie, and you were holding Gracie. She was babbling and cooing, and you were smiling at her. The next thing I knew, she puked all over your shirt, and you... You didn’t get mad. You laughed. Then you snuggled her closer to you. You ran your hand over her head and patted her back and told her you were going to go find her momma.”
“Snow...” His voice finally softens.
“I remember watching you and thinking ‘man, he’s going to be an amazing father one day.’ But when I pictured it... when I thought about you with a baby, it was our baby.” I manage to hold back the tears that want to flow again. “Then I remembered I don’t have a future here. At least, that’s what I thought then. You changed that. You gave me a future here. But Sam, you’ve got to remember I spent years running away. Years thinking someone was going to catch up to me. It’s hard to change that mindset, and I’m not quite there yet. It’s hard for me to believe I’ll get to stay.”
I slide over just a little bit so that I’m sitting between his legs. “Here’s the thing, Sam,” I reach out and take his hand, laying it over my heart. “I want to be sure I can stay here. My head knows you said I’m safe. But I’ve spent most of my life not believing that. I need my heart to catch up to my head. Because my heart is so freaking scared it finally found the one thing it’s always needed, only to turn around and lose it.”
Sam’s hand wraps around my waist and pulls me toward him. “You’re not losing me, Snow. This is a fight. Fire and ice, right? We’re going to fight.” He tugs me down on his lap. “We’re going to fight. Hell, we’ve been fighting since the day we met. It’s our foreplay. And we’ve had two years of it.”
I laugh and bury my face in his shoulder. “You’re not mad at me?”
“I’m not thrilled with the fact you’re still thinking about leaving. But we’ll work through it. I plan on giving you so many reasons to stay. I’ll give you reasons every day.” His hand slides up my thigh, giving me all sorts of ideas about what kinds of reasoning he’s planning. “Plus, there are things I need to tell you, things you need to know. I tried to tell you earlier. I tried to tell you last night.”
“Seriously. Hasn’t this been enough of a heart-to-heart for today? I don’t know how much more I can handle, Sam. I have to be awake in four hours.”
He holds my face in his hands, and his fingers wrap around the back of my head. “You might want to close the shop tomorrow, Snow. This may take a while.”
