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Colette laughed, but she did not object.
* * *
Colette was glancing down at her phone as she walked up toward the college and not paying a lick of attention as she approached her cottage later that day. She was tired, so very, very tired after waiting for Piper Lee’s arrival at the hospital almost the entire night before. But she also didn’t think she had ever felt quite so full of love in her life.
Derek had texted her new pictures of the baby, and she was smiling down at them as she unlocked her door. And because of that, she didn’t see the small vase with half a dozen red roses sitting on her welcome mat until she was practically stepping on it.
“Oh!” Colette squeaked in shock as she looked down at the flowers on her doorstep.
She stooped down to pick them up, bringing them to her nose so that she could sniff at them delicately. When she looked up at her door, ready to stick her key in the lock, she also noticed a folded-up piece of paper that had been taped to the wood almost exactly at her eye level.
A smile tugged up the corners of her mouth as she began to guess who it might be from, and her suspicions were confirmed when she unfolded the piece of paper and read the note that had been scrawled within it.
Meet me at the main house for dinner.
-Z
She glanced toward the house in question, and more shock zipped through her. A trail of red rose petals lined the path from her front porch to the porch of the large house across the yard. The beautiful, glowing crimson was a stark contrast against the white of the snow, and she could not believe that she hadn’t noticed it sooner.
She walked across the snow delicately, careful to stay just to the side of the flower petals, as she didn’t want to step on or ruin a single one. Colette stopped in front of the door to the main house, wondering if she should actually knock or not. But she knew she couldn’t bring herself to not at least announce her presence, and opted to give the door one quick, hard rap with her knuckles before grabbing the knob and pushing it open.
The path of petals continued past the door, and after Colette kicked off her snow boots and took off her coat, she gladly followed the rose petals farther into the house. It wound its way through the hallway off the entryway, carving a direct path to the kitchen at the back of the house.
The moment the doorway was in view, she could see the light of at least a dozen candles flickering warmly off the walls. And when she finally stepped into the open space, she realized that she had underestimated the number of candles by a lot. They covered every surface, or at least the ones that didn’t present a fire risk. Even more flower petals peppered the floor, enough of them that the smell floated up to greet her. Or maybe that was the scent of the candles? Either way, the combination of it all made Colette dizzy with joy.
And in the center of the room, standing on one side of the small, circular dining room table, was Zach.
He looked handsome in a deep green sweater and dark jeans. The colors of it complemented his tanned, freckled skin and his auburn hair. He smiled at Colette as she approached, holding out a hand to her which she gladly took.
Without a word he helped guide her into the seat that had been pulled out for her, and her head kept swiveling around to try to take in every detail of the room. She knew she would want to recall all of this later.
“Thank you for coming,” Zach murmured, his voice low and appreciative as it broke their small bubble of silence.
“This is amazing,” Colette breathed, still staring around the room in awe.
“Colette,” Zach said, bringing her focus over to him.
His green eyes were darting around her face, shining with some emotion that she was having trouble placing.
“Dinner will be ready soon,” he explained. “And don’t get me wrong, I love having the opportunity to feed you. But I also brought you here for a reason.”
He paused for a moment, but Colette got the sense that he wasn’t done speaking yet, so she gave him the time that he needed to collect his thoughts. She reached across the table to where one of his hands rested on the polished wood, placing her hand on top of his.
He smiled at her the moment her skin touched his, seeming to find the strength in it to keep saying what he’d brought her here to say.
“I don’t know what I expected when I first rented out this place,” Zach continued, and now that he’d found his words, they were leaving him in a rush. “Meet some new people, get back in touch with my creativity. Sure, those all sounded great. But I think there was a part of me that didn’t really expect anything more than that.”
He smiled at her. “But then here you come along, and everything changed. For the first time, it’s all so startlingly clear. The reason my art wasn’t fitting me anymore, the reason it was all so drab and lifeless, was because I was trying to create as a person that I just wasn’t anymore. I had changed, but my art hadn’t. And you helped me see all that. You, and this place.”
He took a deep, steadying breath before closing his eyes to speak again.
“I love you, Colette.”
The words clanged around her, sending a whirling rush of joy through her. She could not see her face, but she was sure that if she had a mirror, she would actually find herself glowing from the strength of it.
“I love you, and I don’t want to leave,” Zach said, watching her face for any reaction.
“You love me?” she asked, with a simple cock of her head.
