When Sebastian angles us toward the main house, I wiggle out from under his arm.

“I can’t go in there,” I say tightly.

His gaze sweeps across my determined expression and the arms I’ve folded tightly across my wet chest. He nods. “Okay. You can take the couch.”

“So chivalrous,” I gripe, but I’m smiling as I follow him to the guesthouse.

I wait outside for him to bring me a towel, which I use to squeeze moisture from my ruined dress. My heels are at the bottom of the deep end, a similarly lost cause.

Towel wrapped around me, I gratefully enter the warm guesthouse and jog upstairs to his room. In the bathroom, I drop the towel and crank on the shower, hopping from foot to foot while it heats. The mirror shows me Sebastian entering the bedroom. He disappears from sight—dresser drawers open and close—then reappears in the bathroom doorway wearing sweatpants and no shirt.

“Do you have everything you need?” he asks softly.

I focus pointedly on his face, ignoring the sudden heat in my body that has nothing to do with the steam now curling through the bathroom. “Yep, all good. Thanks.”

He nods, expression guarded, but doesn’t move to leave. In the ensuing silence, my heart begins to race.

“Bast?” I whisper.

He blinks, gaze rising from my chest to my face. “Tell me to go, Candace,” he says roughly.

My breath hitching, I shudder with helpless desire. Everything about this moment feels different. More intimate. Always before, our lust for each other superseded our shared history. For myself, at least, my heart was never on the table. Not since the first time. Dimly, a thought surfaces—have I ever made love since then, or just fucked?

I swallow hard. “I don’t think I can do casual anymore, Bast.”

“Who says it’s ever been casual between us?” he asks darkly.

I lift my chin. “You know what I mean.”

The glimmer in his eyes winks out. Then he shreds my heart. “I can’t give you what you’re asking for. Not now…” He shakes his head. “Candace, I care about you. Maybe too much. But we’re volatile. Always have been. A relationship between us would explode in our faces. I think we both deserve more.”

I sag against the bathroom counter, dropping my gaze so he can’t see the pain in my eyes.

“Well, thanks for being honest. I guess.” Forcing a laugh, I look up. “Besides, my brothers would kill you.”

He smiles slightly, but his eyes stay solemn. “No doubt.”

I clear my throat, smiling as my heart continues to disintegrate. “So, uh…”

Sebastian shifts back, grabbing the door handle. “I’m leaving early tomorrow. I’ll see you at Thanksgiving?”

Unable to speak, I nod.

He gives me a final, searching glance, then leaves. The bathroom door clicks softly shut, a paltry echo of the door slamming closed in my heart.

* * *

Hours before dawn, Sebastian lifts me from the couch and walks upstairs to settle me in his bed. I pretend sleep as he tucks the sheet around my shoulders and gives my forehead a soft kiss.

I don’t respond when he says, “Be happy, Candy,” even though my heart whispers, You are my happy.

Eventually I fall back asleep. The next time I wake the sun is shining, and the aromas of coffee and bacon waft upward from the kitchen.

Blinking blearily at the ceiling, I breathe the lingering scent of his presence. Nothing as substantial as cologne—the scent of the man beneath. A scent as familiar to me as dew-damp grass in the spring, as popcorn at a Friday night football game, as the halls of high school and cookies in the kitchen.

A weight presses down on me, deep and hard and suffocating.

I have to get out of here.

Propelled by the base desire, I jump out of his bed and hustle downstairs. Nona turns from the fridge as I enter the kitchen. A brow lifts at the sight of me in Sebastian’s borrowed t-shirt and an old pair of boxers, but she doesn’t comment.

“I need to go,” I blurt.

Her eyes shut briefly, expression falling. “Oh, Candace. I’m so sorry.”

Clenching my teeth, I shake my head. “I’m okay. It’s okay. He doesn’t want… anyway, I can’t stay here anymore. In either house. There’s too much…”

“I understand. Sit and eat. We’ll talk about what you’re going to do.”

Beyond grateful for her acceptance and help, I slump into a chair at the table. She brings me coffee and a few minutes after that, bacon and scrambled eggs. I pick at the food, taking bites I don’t really taste.

Nona eats without speaking while I focus on my coffee, drinking it and getting a refill. The need to cry is a constant, dull pressure in my head, but my eyes are parched. In my chest is an odd blend of emptiness and… anticipation. For the first time—in probably my entire life—I feel a sense of possibility. Of freedom. There’s nothing holding me back. I can do anything I want.

“Have you thought about calling Charles?” asks Nona, watching my face carefully.

My brows lift. “No. Why?”

Nona shrugs, but by the cunning in her eyes I have a feeling she’s going to drop a bomb. “When I spoke to him a few days ago, he mentioned he was having trouble selling the property in Maine.”

I wince. “The one he bought for Olivia as an engagement present?”

Nona tsks. “I told him it was a mistake. That girl was city through and through. No way she’d get her hands dirty, much less her shiny shoes.”

Guilt stabs me. My baby brother’s engagement ended horribly last year, and I’ve maybe talked to him once a month since then. Brief, casual check-ins. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own life—and so relieved he wasn’t marrying the stuffy, annoying Olivia—that I hadn’t considered he might need support.

I’m a shitty sister.

“Nona, this family would implode without you,” I say with feeling.

She nods. “Yes, it would. Now, unlike She Who Shall Not Be Named, you don’t mind getting dirty. I’ve seen pictures. It’s a beautiful property. Farm, actually.”

“Wait,” I say, holding up a hand. “What are you suggesting?”

She smiles. “I think you should buy it from him.”

My jaw drops. “I don’t know the first thing about running a farm, Nona! Horses and cows and God knows what else. Are you kidding me?”

She laughs. “There are full-time people who run the farm. It’s small, an orchard and a few fields. The main crop is apples. More importantly, you can grow your very own garden.”

And boom, there’s the bomb.

I stare at the table, my mind mush. Maine? Besides ski trips in my youth, I’ve never spent any time there.

Alone.

I’d be totally alone.

My own garden.

I’ve been gardening and growing with Nona most of my life, but without her…

“Gardening isn’t about success or failure,” she says, correctly assuming my thoughts. “It’s about devotion to the process of learning. Plants have much to teach to the right listener.”

I finally look up, meeting her avid gaze. “Shit,” I whisper. “Maine?”