My head is pounding when I wake up. The wine felt much better last night. I roll over into a very hard body.

What the fuck is Easton doing here?

Did I call him?

Wait, he was calling me all night. And I ignored him.

I think.

I glance at my phone to try and piece together my night and see that I talked to Drew last night. “Shit.” I don’t recall any of that conversation.

Easton’s eyes blink open. “Shit is right,” he says as he looks at me. I don’t know what he means, but I can only guess last night I was a mess. He brushes his fingers through my hair and drags a thumb over my cheekbone. “You look like you got hit by a truck.”

I groan and turn my face into my pillow.

“You don’t need to talk about it, babe. I talked to Summer. I know enough.”

With that, I burst into tears again because I’m not sure if that means he wants to break up with me, if he knows the things that were said in the diner.

He sits up on the bed, picks me up and curls me into his lap. “Shhh, it’s okay. I know you don’t know what you want right now. I know everything with Drew still hurts you. But I’m here. And I’ll be here. I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait until I’m old and gray if that’s how much time you need. But I need you to know you’re worth it. All of it. Every mountain of pain and every grain of happiness. All of it. You’re worth it to me. Because I love you. And if you can’t stay and see how this love grows, then that’s okay too. Because at least I had those moments with you. That magical spell you used to open the lock on my heart showed me it was okay to love again. So I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you.”

Those words hit me so hard and shattered the guard I kept around my own heart. Shattered it and then slowly started mending all the pieces back together.

“Harper, let’s go, we needed to leave twenty minutes ago.” I hear Easton shouting for me. But trying to get ready with a hangover is not the easiest thing. I redid my hair three times before deciding to just throw it into a ponytail. Then I somehow managed to stab myself twice in the eye with my mascara wand. And now I can only find one of my shoes.

“You know maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to drink enough wine for three people last night.”

“Yeah well, I didn’t think I was going today as of last –” I look up with every intention of flipping him off, but the sight before me cuts me off. I thought he looked good in those tight ass jeans he liked to wear, or well you know, naked, but the suit was bona fide drool-worthy. The dark gray made his green eyes pop out and the sparkle in them was making my heart beat faster and I was sure we were going to be leaving more than just twenty minutes late.

He smirks at me and prowls toward me. “You think I look good, sweet cheeks?”

I just nod. He brings his lips to mine in a slow soft kiss. As he pulls away, I try to lean into him to him to keep it going, but he laughs and pushes me away. “Not going to happen. We need to leave.” I frown at him and put on my grumpy face. “Pouting is not gonna get you anywhere.”

I sigh and turn away back on the hunt for my shoe when he grabs me around the waist and pulls my back to his front. His breath whispers into my ear, “But if you behave tonight, I am sure I can find a way to get you begging for me to take off that sexy dress of yours.”

He sucks my earlobe into his mouth and I whimper and clench my thighs together.

It’s going to be a long day.

I crawl on the floor and find my other shoe under the bed. I stand up and straighten my champagne sparkly dress and strap on my stilettos. I grab my clutch and motion for us to leave but Easton stops me. He licks his thumb and wipes it under my left eye. “Your makeup was smeared.”

I smile up at him and kiss him swiftly on the lips. My heart a jumbled mess on the floor.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful. I heard the oohs and ahhs all day as everyone expressed their love for her old farmhouse. I can’t help but smile as I see the happiness on her face.

I sit at one of the tables far off to the side sipping on a glass of wine, which helped the hangover go away. I probably should have tried the old hair of the dog trick before getting ready for the wedding. I’m staring at Easton over at the bar laughing with Brett and Brooks when someone sits next to me.

“I don’t think I have ever seen someone look at him the way that you are right now.”

I’m startled when I realize it’s Trace. “You here to give me a lecture too?” I wince because it came out harsher than I intended.

“Nah. I really ain’t the lecturin’ type. I came over here to apologize for Ivy, though it should be her doing it and I’m sure she will come around eventually.” I nod and turn back to looking at the dancing crowd. Ivy and Summer giggling and twirling around to the gentle sounds of Nora Jones. “Ivy loves you, Harper. And she is so afraid of losing you, she does the only thing she ever does when she’s angry, cause a scene. But at least she didn’t light your house on fire or anything. ‘Course she’d probably be kickin’ herself afterward when she remembered it was her own damn house.”

I burst out laughing and turn to look at Trace as he continues to speak. “I like you Harper and I think you are the best thing to happen to Easton. I’ve never seen him the way he is with you. I mean you don’t even need to be around him and he’s different. He’s finally the guy I grew up with.” He nods his head toward the bar and I see Easton with his head thrown back laughing. “He was missing that fun-loving part of himself for so long and now it’s back and I don’t want to see it go away again. Ivy wants nothing more than for you to stay here and Easton needs you to stay even if he won’t admit it. But I’m not gonna tell you what to do. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. I thought you might want a different perspective is all.”

I look over at him, tears welling up in my eyes. He puts a hand on my shoulder as he gets up to leave and I murmur a thank you.

I see Easton saunter over to me as Trace walks away. They both clap a hand on each other’s shoulder in passing. “Trace tryin’ to make the moves on my woman?”

My woman. Something about it seems to fit just right. “Uhhh…no. Then Ivy might actually murder me. Or him. Double homicide. Bloody mess.”

Easton grabs my hand and pulls me from the table. “Yeah if she murders you who is gonna clean up the mess?” I scoff at his remark only because he’s correct. Ivy loves to leave the cleaning to me. “You need to stop moping and come dance with me.”

“East, you know I don’t dance.”

“That video from Summer’s bachelorette party tells me otherwise.”

My face blanches. “What video? You said there was only the karaoke one.”

“Well maybe if you dance with me now I’ll let you see it.” He smirks at me.

“If I dance with you will you delete it?”

He spins me around as he leads me not to the dance floor but between a cluster of magnolia trees near the lake. The faint whisper of the music drifting through the flowers. “Not a chance. I enjoy watching it too much.”

I try to push him away, but he grabs me by the hips and pulls me flush against him, grabbing my arms and wrapping them around his neck before settling his own around my hips resting just above my ass. He weaves a trail of kisses up my neck to my ear, suckling on the sensitive spot right below, sending heat between my thighs. He whispers, “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?”

“Not enough.” I blush into his chest. He lifts my face to meet his gaze. I search his eyes for the courage I’ve been looking for, for weeks. He places a chaste kiss against my lips and I murmur, “Sell the parts to my car.”

He pulls away from me abruptly and I’m scared I may have upset him by saying the wrong thing. For weeks I’d been trying to make this decision. What I thought was going to be the hardest decision to make, whether to stay or leave. I was being a selfish asshole. Being in White Creek has given me a new perspective on life. The constant pressures I was feeling for years disappeared within days of being here. And the love this handsomely gorgeous man standing in front of me has for me is so blindingly obvious I would be stupid to turn away from it. After this morning when he held me and let me cry knowing too well what I had gotten so drunk about stirred all those thoughts in my head. And when he told me he would love me either way, no matter if I stayed or left, I knew I was being an idiot for not telling him then I needed to stay. Not wanted to stay but needed. Because I needed him like the breath in my lungs.

“What did you say?” he asks me. I’m almost scared to look into his eyes, but I find the courage and look up into glistening emerald eyes filled with love.

“Sell the parts to my car. I don’t need them.”

He slowly smiles as a lone tear trails down his cheek. “I already sold them.”

I try to blink away my shock. I can’t believe he would do that without asking. Okay, maybe this is something I should say aloud. “Why? Why would you do that without asking?”

He sighs and pulls me closer to him. “We were at Ivy’s house one night and you were laying on the floor playing with her kids. You were laughing so much that night. And then you looked at me and I just knew at that moment that you loved me.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wasn’t gonna flat out tell you that you were in love with me.” I roll my eyes at him as he continues. “It was as if something hit me square in the chest and unlocked the chains I kept wrapped around my heart and put all the missing pieces back together. One look from you Harper. That was all it took.”

“But that was before I even said I loved you.”

“Yeah, well I think we might have both been in love with each other before we knew it ourselves.”

I blink away the tears in my eyes and smash my mouth into his. He lifts me up into his arms and I wrap my legs around his waist. He moves us against one of the magnolia trees and presses my back into the tree as he presses himself into me. I chant I love you, I love you, I love you repeatedly as he does the same mixed with the sounds of my name as we find bliss under the stars and the blooming flowers of the magnolia tree.

“Well, I am glad that you two kept it down when y’all decided to sneak off to have sex at my wedding,” Summer snorts at us.

“I…we were just-—” I try to get out while shimmying my dress back down my legs.

“Oh save it. If I was Easton, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you either.” She reaches for my head and plucks a flower out of my hair. “I’m just glad y’all didn’t do it in the house because me and Brett haven’t christened everything yet.”

Easton cracks up while muttering something about finding that hard to believe. I look at Summer and start to apologize, but she cuts me off. “Harp, it’s me who should be apologizing to you. I said some nasty shit.”

“You were speaking the truth.”

“Yeah, well sometimes the truth doesn’t always need to be heard.” She wraps me into a hug. “I am so sorry and whether you stay or leave is your decision, not mine or Ivy’s. I just hope that East over here will be okay with whatever you decide.”

I pull back and smile at her. “I think he just proved he is more than happy with my decision.”

She shrieks so loudly I need to cover my ears and more than a few heads turn in our direction. “Does that mean you finally hit your head hard enough to knock some sense into it?!”

Easton wraps an arm around me. “More like two bottles of wine and a Taylor Swift dance party.”

“Taylor Swift dance parties always help you make the right decision.” She winks at me then grabs me out of Easton’s grip and pulls me onto the dance floor.

It had been four days since Summer’s wedding and things could not be better between Easton and me. It was like this fence that we had been climbing over back and forth just disappeared. It’s not like it was hard for us in the past but things just seemed a whole lot easier once I finally decided to stay. Somehow in two days I even moved half my shit into his house. It’s not like we live far apart, but it’s just so much easier to get ready for work when my stuff is in his house. I mean we’re even saving gas money since we tend to just take one truck into town. Even Poe is ecstatic over the much larger yard he gets to run around in.

The only problem that is still weighing on me is Ivy. She hasn’t spoken a word to me since the fight. She ignored me the entire time at Summer’s wedding, which Summer was not too happy about, but at least there were no fights. Ivy decided to take a week off work after the wedding to spend time with the kids leaving me in charge of the diner. Although she didn’t call to tell me that. She told Anna who relayed the information to me.

Last night East and I went to Sawyer’s after work to grab an early dinner and even Trace seemed to have his lips sealed. He just shrugged when I brought it up. Easton so kindly reminded me of the fire to Ivy’s ex and that may very well be the bar if Trace chose any side but Ivy’s.

But I had finally had enough. This whole thing was complete bullshit and I wanted to end it once and for all.

So that’s why I’m sitting in my truck twenty feet from Ivy’s driveway trying to get up the courage to pull in, knock on that door, and tell her to quit being a fucking baby.

I finally pull into the drive and try to calm my nerves by taking deep breaths. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan for her not to be home. A tap on the window breaks my stare on her house. I turn to roll the window down and see her standing there with Chloe on her hip, her truck parked beside mine.

“Are you lost?” she chides.

I sigh as I turn the engine off. “No, I came here to talk. We can’t keep going on like this.”

“You can keep going on however you want. I am perfectly content,” she retorts as she starts walking toward her house, Mason and Jackson following behind her.

“That’s a lie and you know it.” I’m surprised by my forceful tone and so is Ivy as she stops dead in her tracks.

She puts Chloe down and tells them to go inside before turning to me. “You have some nerve showing up here.”

“We need to talk.”

Her laugh is laced with sarcasm. “You mean you came here to say goodbye. How noble.”

She turns away and starts to walk toward the house. “I know you think so little of me. That I would use you all until I was ready to leave and start my life again. But I was so blind to the fact I had already started my life again. With you and East, Summer and Trace. You all are my reason for staying.”

“Reason for staying?” she shouts while turning around to face me. “You finally have discovered a reason for staying?! You’ve been going back and forth about it for months, Harper. All of us have given you parts of our lives and our hearts in hopes you would stay and all you have constantly said was you didn’t know, you weren’t sure, you had to figure shit out. Do you know what it feels like to think you’re not worth it? Not worth sticking around for. I don’t even have to ask you that because I know that is the exact thought process you had with your ex. If I’m not worth it, is Easton worth it?” She pauses, cringing and throwing her hands in the air. “I just don’t get it. And now you think you know? How can I believe that? How can I believe that you are staying? You told me once before and within days you seemed to change your mind. So, what gives this time?”

I am thrown by her verbal explosion. I didn’t think she would be so vocal with me. I honestly thought I was going to need to dodge a few dishes or something to avoid her wrath but not this, not this version of Ivy. “I stepped back. I looked at everything from far away. I saw you and Summer having fun, Easton laughing, and Trace telling me I was a part of this place and it all hit me at once. You all gave me a piece of your hearts and I need to give you all of mine in return. You’ve become my family. And I haven’t had that in a long time. Hell, I’ve even had the money to fix my car for months but didn’t leave. It just took me awhile to realize I was sticking around for that family bond.”

She lifts her brows. “Family huh? Well, most family don’t run away from each other.”

“I’m not running away.” I take a deep breath and hope that she will accept my honesty and apology. “I am moving in with Easton. Slowly, but it’s already started. That way I can make the last huge improvements on your rental and help you sell it. I know it’s not much, but I thought it was the one thing that would help you believe me and how truly sorry I am for pushing you away and making you believe you weren’t worth staying for. I am an idiot. I was trying to find something that was in front of me all along. And I know it might take time, but I want our friendship back. Because I’ll be around for quite some time. Rather indefinitely now.”

A small smile broke across her face. “I can’t believe that big, old brooding man has finally settled down.”

I let out a quiet laugh still unsure of where we stood. But then she threw her arms around me and another missing piece of my heart mended back together.