It didn’t hit me until I’d had some sleep. I was book-weary and exhausted after Steele and Mary’s emotional ride. It had been a satisfying read, but draining.

I woke around ten after only a few hours’ sleep. As I showered, I came to understand what I hadn’t seen before bed.

Mary.

Mary Poppins.

That was me in the story, and Steele was Stone.

For two weeks, Stone had poured his heart onto the page, and what had I done? Nothing. I hadn’t been brave enough to reach out to him, acknowledge his note, or see if he needed any help. Instead, I’d shut down the things I’d felt and tried to move on. Sure, I hadn’t been successful, but I’d started that journey and put in some distance.

Stone had written the book he didn’t want to write so that I could have the chance to secure a job at CJM, and I hadn’t even thanked him.

Mason offered to drive me to the station, but I said I needed to drop something off to Stone and that the walk would do me good. He said we could stop at Stone’s on the way, but June growled at him.

When he frowned, she rolled her eyes.

“If Katrina needs a ride to the station from Stone’s house, she’ll call.”

I thanked them profusely, told them what a sanctuary the cottage had been for me, and hugged them both goodbye. I left with their offer of using the cottage any time I wanted.

“Hopefully, that won’t be necessary,” June said, giving me a wink.

The fact that Stone had felt driven to change the locks almost stopped me, but the thought of Mary and Steele fortified me. I could hear Buster in the house, barking and scratching frantically at the door, and it gave me an awful feeling that something was wrong. I went around the back and discovered the patio door was unlocked. With a thumping heart I entered the house.

Buster hurled himself at me, licking my hands and clawing his way up my legs. Then he ran off, barking again. He bounded halfway up the stairs to the tower, then back down, his barking and whining relentless.

I followed him, and this time, he shot up the stairs with me on his heels. One of the tower windows was completely off the latch, banging against the side of the house.

Oh, God.

Surely, Stone hadn’t...I couldn’t even finish the thought as I treaded carefully to the open window and peered out.

The height was dizzying, and there was no sign of him, so I stepped back. But Buster rushed to the window and continued to whine. I pushed the chair closer, climbed up, and looked along the roofline. There was Stone, sitting with his back against the chimney.

“Are you insane?” I called out.

“Poppins, you came.”

My chest tightened as he wobbled to his feet, a bottle of whiskey in one hand. He weaved dangerously, a leg out one side, his arm in a drunken counterbalance in the opposite direction.

“Sit down. You’re going to fall.”

“Come and have a dance with me, Poppins. Bring your umbrella, and we’ll float off on the wind.” He launched into a song about being a chimney sweep.

“Please, Stone. Please, come back into the house.”

“Come out here with me. Have a drink. The view’s quite amazing. Not as pretty as you, but still, it’s a fine view.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m scared,” I told him truthfully.

“I’m scared too, Poppins. Tell me what you’re scared of, and I’ll tell you what I’m scared of, then all our worries will go away. Or something like that.”

“I’m scared of heights. You know that.”

“Ah, now that’s just not true. I recall you going hot air ballooning.”

“And I was scared.” He was weaving again. “Stone, sit down.”

“Not until you come out here and sit with me.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“I knew you cared.”

“Stone—”

“Come on, Poppins, show me you’re not scared. Prove to me you can do this. I’ll keep you safe. Come on out here. Be with me.”

His words struck something inside me. They’d been written in the story when Mary hadn’t been able to allow herself to trust Steele. She’d pushed for him to believe in himself, but when the crunch came, she feared that making a commitment to him would mean she’d have her heart broken. She resisted for a while, then she took that leap of faith.

I tried not to look down, my sweating palms slipping against the window frame as I pulled myself up to stand on the sill. “Stone, my legs have gone numb.”

“Wait there. I’ll come and get you.”

This was foolish. He was drunk, his balance wavering, and my legs refused to cooperate. Gingerly, I lowered myself so that I was sitting on the sill, my legs dangling outside. That felt daring enough for me.

Stone made his last few steps at a run and sat beside me. He sighed, then nudged me. “I missed you, Poppins.”

“I missed Buster,” I teased. I think it was the relief at not having to walk out onto the roof.

“He missed you, too. I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to cry, except, you know, dogs don’t do that...not tears. But his heart was crying.”

“You really are attributing a lot of human emotions to that dog.”

“Are you still scared?”

I nodded. “I’m scared of how much this hurts, and that tomorrow, I’m going to wake up in my apartment and want to be back here with you. I didn’t mean to fall so hard for you, Stone. I’m not very experienced at this sort of thing, but I wanted you to know that you mean a lot to me.”

“Did you read the book?”

“I did. I think deep down, you wanted me to do that. Otherwise, you’d have sent it directly to Sarah.”

He stared off into the distance for a long time. “When’s your train?” He finally asked.

Right there, the hope that he’d ask me to stay was dashed. Was he going to tell me I needed to be on my way? I checked my watch. “Twenty minutes. I’ll call Mason and ask him to give me a ride to the station.”

“Don’t go.”

“What?”

“Don’t go, Poppins. You scare the shit out of me, and I care for you so much. I didn’t want to break you, so I did stupid shit like changing the locks so I wouldn’t have to see you...because if I saw you again, I wouldn’t be able to let you go. But I’m fucking terrified that if we’re together, we’ll end up like my parents, and you’re too good for that. You deserve better. Then I finished that book, and I’m not going to lie, you were in it from the start. I thought it would be fun to write a character like you...a real person, not some pumped-up club bimbo.

“Then in these last two weeks, as I gave you your happily ever after, I wanted to be Steele. I dug deep in that story because Steele was such an ass. But the deeper I went with Steele, in order to make him worthy of Mary, the deeper I had to go inside myself. If I were capable of creating my own misery, then surely I was capable of creating my own happiness, too. I realized I don’t have to follow the blueprint my parents set out for me. I can simply say that within me is the ability to be someone different, and I believe I can do that with you at my side. For you. Because I don’t want to go through another day feeling the way I felt for the past two weeks. You make me whole, Poppins. I looked inside and found the real me, and that person is capable of loving you and promises to do that until...forever. I love you, Poppins. Please stay.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My heart swelled, and my eyes burned with tears at Stone’s honest, if not slightly drunken, declaration.

“I wanted to say...” I stopped, digging for a tissue in my pocket. I took a deep breath. “Okay. I wanted to say sorry for not checking up on you. I really wanted to, but I’m also glad we had this time apart because I went out and did things I wanted to do instead of just wishing. You taught me how to live, Stone. And I enjoyed doing that, although it would have been much better to do with you by my side.”

I turned to face him, and he brushed my tears away and licked his thumb. “Everything about you is delicious. Even your tears, because right now, I’m telling myself these are happy tears. And if you ever have sad tears, I’ll kiss those away and make it all better.”

I laughed. “You’re crazy, you know that? Don’t ever change your craziness because it makes me brave.”

“Didn’t make you brave enough to come out onto the roof with me. Let’s do that now.”

“You’re drunk, Stone. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go downstairs and get you a lot of water. Then let’s take Buster for a walk, because he’s kind of missing out here, and once you’re sober, we’ll have this conversation properly.”

“Just tell me you’re staying.”

My heart was in danger of cracking my ribs. “I’m staying.”

“And tell me the other thing that you feel in here.”

He placed his hand over my thundering heart. I looked into his gray eyes and saw something bright and new. I covered his hand with mine. “In here, Stone Logan, all I feel is love for you.”

“I feel it too,” he said quietly.

Stone attempted to swing his legs through the window, but he finished up on the floor with Buster leaping all over him and licking his face. He grabbed the dog by the shoulders, holding him off. “I’d rather this were you licking my face, not the dog.”

I eased myself from the window frame and offered a hand to Stone. He tugged me down on top of him, then rolled us until I was on my back.

“You do feel good, trapped beneath me.”

“Feels good to be here,” I whispered.

Stone lowered his mouth to mine. His kiss was tinged with whiskey, long and gentle.

“That was number thirty-six, Poppins. The list I’ve made goes on for pages, and I’ll keep adding to it, even when we’re old and decrepit in our dual wheelchair in the nursing home.”