Jesse got to his feet and held his hand out to me. “Let me take those,” he offered.

Blankly, I handed him the bags I was holding. They didn’t just crash to the ground, so that meant he had to be here—this had to be real.

He looked at me expectantly.

I tried my voice. “You want to come upstairs?”

He nodded.

I unlocked the door and let him into my apartment. My mind felt as though it had gone totally numb. A million thoughts were racing around my head at once, but I couldn’t focus on a single one of them. My head felt as if it might burst as I watched Jesse step past me and walk into my apartment.

He put the groceries down on the kitchen table and stood next to the fridge. I carefully closed the door behind us and leaned against the wood. He was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, and had a smattering of stubble on his face. His hair was shorter though, and his face looked slightly leaner.

“How did you find this place?” I blurted out at last.

He flashed a wry smile. “I asked your father.”

My eyebrows shot up. “And he gave it to you?”

“Yeah, but let me tell you, that was about the worst conversation of my entire fucking life. It was worse than being called to Mr. Steadman’s office. If I hadn’t been so desperate…” He shook his head.

I couldn’t help but splutter with laughter at the thought of my father being compared to the principal of our old school.

The bedroom door was open and he glanced over to the bed. It was just a single and not exactly built for entertaining.

I pressed my fingertips together, trying to ground myself in the moment and remind myself that this was real, that he was really here in front of me.

He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I guess I should explain what the hell I’m doing here,” he said, and he looked up at me with something close to—wow, fear in his eyes.

I wanted to make that strange, unfamiliar look he wore vanish, to just push him backwards onto my narrow bed, hold him tight and tell him without words just how much I’d missed him, but I held back. I wouldn’t let another man do to me what Mark did. If he was here just for a bit of fun, then I wasn’t going to let him. I needed healing, not getting my heart broken all over again. “I guess you should,” I replied, and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling the wild beat of my heart as I watched him.

He took a deep breath, looked away from me, and then spoke, “I want you to ask me anything.”

I stared at him, surprised. Did he really come all this way to just say that? “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I should have told you everything back when you were at my place.” He shook his head, his face painted with regret. “When I woke up and you weren’t there, I went crazy. I knew that you had gone. Fuck, I even turned up at Julie’s wedding reception, just to see if you would come.”

“Bet she loved that.”

“Yeah, they kicked me out as soon as I turned up,” he admitted. “But I deserved that.” He fell silent again and looked at me steadily, nervousness and excitement raced across in his face in equal measure. “So, what do you want to know about me?” he asked quietly.

I walked over to the bedroom, sat down on the bed, and patted the spot next to me.

He came over, sat beside me, and stared at the ground.

My mind was racing. What did I want to know? “Where were you before you came to Cold Creek?” I began.

He took a deep breath, and for a second, he looked as if he suddenly regretted coming to me, but then he swallowed and spoke, “Gaistend. That’s where I grew up. Well, we moved around a lot, but that town…that’s where we stayed.”

“And why did you move?”

“My father…” he trailed off, and then shook his head, as though rewinding something in his head. “Okay, I think I need to start from there.”

“Please do.”

He looked me dead in the eye, and I could see he was struggling to spit it out, so I took his hand and squeezed it, a silent promise that no matter what the hell had happened to him all those years ago, I would be here. I loved him and wanted him and I wasn’t going to be frightened away by anything that happened in his past.