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“Yeah. You?” She looked up at me with sleep still lingering in her eyes.
“I’m in heaven.” I brushed the hair away from her face. The rain had turned to snow, and the silvery light of the moon came through the large skylight in the ceiling.
“I don’t know what happened.” She looked away, almost like she was embarrassed.
“I do. We found our way back to each other.”
A deep sigh sent her warm breath racing across my chest. “You left me, Nate. If I hadn’t come looking for you, we wouldn’t be here right now. I’m the one who found you.”
“You’re right, and I’m so fucking grateful for whatever reason brought you back to me. We need to talk, but first you’ve got to have something to eat. Your stomach’s been rumbling, and I bet you haven’t eaten all day.” Ainsley always put everyone else’s needs before her own. That was going to stop right now. “Come on. I’ll see if there’s anything we can salvage from the leftovers Ruby sent.”
I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and climbed out of bed. My jeans were still damp, so I pulled on my boxers and headed downstairs. Ainsley came down a few minutes later in the yoga pants and sweatshirt she’d been wearing before.
“How about pie for dinner?” I asked. I’d tossed the food from the plate I’d fixed for her earlier, but Ruby had cut two big pieces of pie, one pumpkin and one pecan. She’d even filled a container with homemade whipped cream to put on top.
Ainsley grabbed two forks from the drawer before sitting down at the table. “Pie for dinner sounds perfect.”
My pulse steadily increased as I picked up the pie and sat down across from her. I’d dreamed about this moment for years—the moment I’d get another chance with her—but now that it was here, I was afraid I was going to fuck it up. She deserved to know the truth of what happened back then.
“So?” she asked, her fork poised over the container holding the pumpkin pie. “Are you going to tell me why you sent me away?”
Pressure filled my chest. “I didn’t want you to give up your dreams for me, Firefly.”
“What dreams? The only dream I ever had was to build a life with you, but you put an end to that.” The light in her eyes dimmed, and she set the fork back down.
“That’s not true. You should have seen the look on your face when you got that job offer in London. I couldn’t let you give that up.” The pain of losing her crashed over me again. “You’ve spent your whole life putting everyone else first. I wanted you to put your own needs first for once.”
“So you broke up with me.” She stated it like a fact, not an accusation. “Yeah, once I learned how to live with a broken heart, I realized you thought you were doing me a favor by ending things.”
I sat back, stunned, and a little relieved that she’d figured it out on her own. Feeling like I needed to justify my actions, I tried to help her understand. “It worked, didn’t it? Look at you now. You’ve got an awesome job with a great company. You’re seeing the world, not stuck in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere.”
“You know what’s really sad about the whole thing?” She stabbed her fork into the piece of pumpkin pie and broke off a bite.
I could think of a few things… not being able to see her every day was at the top of the list. “What’s that?”
“Did you ever think about what I wanted?” She dipped the bite of pie into the container of whipped cream, then lifted her head to meet my gaze. Her blue eyes drilled into mine. It was like she could see beyond the front I’d put up for the rest of the world. Like she could see straight into my soul. “The really sad thing is, if you’d asked me, I would have told you all I wanted was to stay with you.”
CHAPTER8
AINSLEY
Around three in the morning,Nate and I reached a truce. We’d wasted so much time apart that I wanted to make the most of the few days I’d be in Mustang Mountain. I had no idea what, if anything, would come from our reunion, but the only way to tell if our feelings were genuine and not just left over from our shared past was to spend time together.
The first thing we did was head to Nate’s place so he could grab a change of clothes. He’d always loved his solitude, so I wasn’t surprised when he pulled into a narrow drive at the end of a mountain road.
“How did you find this place?” An inch or two of the snow we’d received last night covered the ground. I was glad I’d thought to bring my snow boots as I stepped out of the truck.
“It was just a patch of land when I saw it.” Nate rounded the back of the truck and took my hand.
“Wait, you bought the land first, then had this cabin built?”
“I had help. A lot of my friends have built their own places around here.” He gave me a one-shoulder shrug, like it wasn’t a big deal.
As we stepped onto the porch, I gained a new appreciation for the gorgeous log cabin we were about to enter. He’d always been good with his hands, but I had no idea he had it in him to build something like this.
“You ready to see where I live?” He looked nervous, like he was worried I might not like his home.
“I can’t wait.”
