AT LEAST SHE was close to the ocean now. The air smelled like salt here, and mixed easily with the salt of her tears. She had wandered down the main street of the little town of Copper Ridge for most of the day before going back to the little bed-and-breakfast she had booked herself on a neighboring ranch.
She and Jackson had never taken Lily to the beach before. Oh, she would love it. Love to squish the sand in her fist and kick her feet in it.
She could just see Jackson’s face. The way he lit up when he looked at his little girl...
It was the most beautiful thing. The only thing that was better was the feeling she got when he looked at her.
And right now, no matter how charming the B&B was, she felt like she was going to be crushed beneath the weight of her own pain.
The hostess at the B&B was sweet, and she had a little gray cat, and several beautiful children with a hot cowboy who also happened to be the sheriff in town.
She shouldn’t have come here. She felt surrounded by cowboys after she had just managed to escape one. Here, there were two, the sheriff and his older brother, their wives and children, and she felt surrounded by both Stetsons and happiness.
She wasn’t particularly in the mood for either.
Still, the quiche had been delicious this morning, and the room was adorably appointed. She couldn’t really complain about that.
Well, she could. But it would be churlish.
Everything was terrible. The benefits of flaky crust and a soft mattress could not be minimized in those circumstances.
She heard heavy footsteps in the hall, and wondered if someone was staying in the room next to hers. But the footsteps paused, and there was a knock on the door.
“Hello?”
“Savannah,” came the familiar voice on the other side of the door. “Thank God.”
She jumped back, her hand on her chest. “How did you find me?”
“Think of me as a small-town James Bond. I have a select network of informants.”
She scrambled across the room and cracked the door open. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like it means. I follow the gossip chain and it led me here. Asked at Sugar Cup if anybody had seen you leave this morning. Called around to see where the vacancies were in these parts. It all led me to the B&B.”
“How did you know which room I was in?”
“You left it in the guest ledger,” he said. “That was easy enough.”
“They need better security for this place.”
“I suspect security’s not a real big issue around here.”
“Clearly it is!”
“Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“Because I need to start over. I need to try again. Last night... Early this morning... Whenever it was. I messed up. I don’t know how to do this. In my experience, loving someone just ends with loss. But in this case it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Somehow, I justified that to myself because it was protecting Lily. From getting more attached to you. From thinking of you as her mother and losing you.”
“Jackson...even if something ever happened between the two of us I would always love Lily.”
He nodded. “I know that,” he said, his voice choked. “That’s the real problem. I really can’t stand losing you. For me. For selfish reasons. And I was a dick last night asking you how you would know if it was real. It was me. I was the one that was worried it wasn’t real. I want you. I would never have met you if it weren’t for Lily, but I would want you even if I didn’t have her. It’s you, Savannah.”
She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and dragged him into the room, slamming the door behind him. And then she kissed him. Kissed him with every ounce of pain and pent-up anger that she had inside her. “Why did you do this to us?” Tears filled her eyes and she looked up at him, at that beautiful, familiar face. “Why did you put us through this?”
“When my father divorced my mother, well, after she left him, there was a big hole in my life. I was five when my mother left. I can remember her. Just enough. And not enough. And when he brought home my first stepmother, I wanted it to be real. I wanted it to be real every time. But it wasn’t. Over and over again. How many times can you open up your heart only to let it get kicked around?”
“Jackson,” she whispered, her heart tightening in pain for him, for the little boy he’d been, the man he was now. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what it’s like to be physically abandoned. But I know what it’s like to live with people who aren’t really there for you. I know what it’s like to love people who don’t love you back. And to decide you’re not going to let yourself get hurt again. But you’re worth it. I would love you and take the risk, every day, forever, rather than go back to a world where I don’t know what it’s like to have you in it.”
“Me too,” he said gruffly. “Me too.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Kissed her until her walls broke down again, until the pain vanished. Until there was nothing between them. No defenses, no past hurts. They kissed until they might as well have been the only two people in the world.
They would go back home, to his place, and there would be three of them. A family. The very idea made her heart swell.
But right now, just for now, it was her and Jackson. Nothing and no one else.
When he laid her down on the bed, he looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too,” she whispered back.
“Do you want to know what made me the maddest when I went to pick you up from the airport?”
“What?”
“You said you were plain. Plain and tall. There’s nothing plain about you, woman. You were sunshine in the dark. There’s no way to hide from the sun. And I think part of me knew it from the first moment I saw you.”
“I’m not the sun. I’m not anything special,” she said.
“You’re everything special. You told me you were plain. And, honey, the first moment I saw you... I couldn’t believe you thought that. You’re beautiful, do you know that?”
“You look at me and I... I feel like I might be.”
“You are,” he said. “Beautiful. Perfect. Everything I needed. Everything I need.”
There was such deep, real love in his eyes. She felt the furthest thing from plain. She felt singular. Special in a way she never had before. And she was damn glad she didn’t have any walls left, because she didn’t want anything between them at all.
“You’re everything I need, Jackson. Because without you... I would still be buried behind all those rock walls. But now look at us. There’s none of that left anymore. Just love.”
“Good thing,” he said.
Savannah had come to Gold Valley with nothing but one flowered suitcase, hoping to start a new life.
But she’d found so much more. She’d found everything.
She’d found love. A family.
And home, in Jackson’s arms.