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“Next best thing.”
“Good.” He leaned in and pressed another firm kiss to her lips. “Knew you could do it.”
Curling a hand in the collar of his shirt, she kept him close for a second. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For believing in me.”
They kissed again. He tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. “Always.”
She let him go and settled back into her seat. “So, what’s the plan?”
The nerves he’d felt earlier while thinking about this moment melted away. “You mind going for a drive?”
She scrunched up her brows at him. “Uh… okay?” Once she was buckled in, he put the truck back into first and steered toward the road. While he drove, he asked her about her day, and he told her about his. They commiserated over how tough it was to get Arthur to delegate and rest. She spoke with pride about her juggling act taking over for him.
But she had good people with her. Sherry and Tania had been only too happy to start managing the supper service by themselves most nights. Volunteers had come out of the woodwork to lend a hand, because that was what people in Blue Cedar Falls did. They took care of one another.
As he glanced over at her, warmth grew in his chest.
He was so glad to call this place home.
He was so glad she was going to stay. Here. With him.
Clearing his throat, he forced himself to focus on the road. Before long, he turned off onto the country route leading out of town.
Zoe shifted beside him. “You’re not taking me out into the middle of nowhere to act out some weird serial killer fantasy, are you?”
Devin laughed. “Is that really the first thing to pop into your mind?”
“I mean…” In his periphery, she waved a hand at their surroundings.
“Not much farther,” he promised.
Five minutes outside town, he put on the blinker.
“Wait—isn’t this…?”
Zoe held her tongue as they took the gravel road he’d been imagining driving down for the last three years. He came to a stop where the road ended.
It wasn’t much. Just a small clearing in the wooded lot. He pulled the keys from the ignition and reached behind his seat for the camping lantern he stowed there. He turned it on and flicked his headlights off. Twilight settled over them, quiet and peaceful. Exactly the way he liked it.
He opened the door on his side. For a second, Zoe sat there, gazing out the front windshield.
“You coming?” he asked.
She looked at him. “This is Arthur’s place, right? The old lot he snatched up in his real estate phase.”
“None other.”
“What are we doing here?”
“Just come on.”
She followed him out, wary but smiling. Maybe she had a clue. They went to the center of the clearing. He breathed in the woodsy scent of the air. Tipped his head up at the stars just beginning to come out.
“I know you’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately,” he told her. “I did some of that myself a while back.”
“Yeah?”
“You know about my dad. I was… kind of directionless for a long time after I got out of his house. Just so glad to be on my own, I wasn’t thinking about what I really wanted, you know?”
