push you away?” He let his eyes run down me then, holding me before him and really looking at me. I felt the brush of his gaze down the length of my body, felt my skin tingle and react as if he’d touched me. “And then,” he said, his voice a little sad now. “You were smart enough to tell me you’d had enough and strong enough to move forward with your life. You weren’t going to wait around and put your life on hold.” He shook his head. “And you have no idea how I admire that. It nearly killed me, knowing you were leaving, but God, I admire it.”
His eyes bored into mine, and a faint buzz began in the back of my head.
“The thing is, I can’t let you go. I mean—if you want to, of course, I’ll let you leave. But I need to tell you first that you’ve changed my life. I’m a better person for having known you, and no matter what happens now, you’ve forced me out of the cage I’d made. You’ve made me realize I want to live again, even if it means there’s a chance I’ll get hurt.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if searching for strength, and then he said. “I’m falling in love with you, Harper. I am in love with you, actually. And I just needed you to know that. In case it might affect your decision to leave. And of course I know it might be too late, and I’d never want to get in your way. I just…I needed you to know.”
I stared at him, the shock of the evening compounding, making it hard for me to sort one emotion from another. “And what does that mean if I stay?” I asked.
He smiled, an uncertain but no less handsome smile. “I hoped maybe you’d be willing to spend some time with me. Maybe let me take you out? I hoped maybe we could play some more cards some time.”
“You want to play cards with me?” I asked, feeling a smile begin to tug at my own mouth.
He stepped closer, an arm going around my back. “I’ll even let you win,” he said, his voice low and taking on an edge of suggestion.
I tilted my face toward his. “Nobody lets me win,” I told him. “I’ll kick your butt with no help at all, thanks.”
“I look forward to it,” he said. “Does this mean…?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what it means. For right now, it means you’d better kiss me.”
And he did, his lips meeting mine tentatively at first and then more possessively, our bodies pressed together and a kind of sweet relief washing through me as we kissed. I honestly didn’t know what this would mean, how my plans might be affected—I’d made promises, made commitments. But I knew that in that moment, in Cameron’s arms under the big broad Sierra sky, I was happy.
Chapter 21
Cameron
Kissing Harper there under the twinkling lights with music playing around us, and my words finally out, finally where they belonged, it was one of the best moments of my life. When I took her in my arms, held her against me and felt her softness meld against me, when her mouth opened to mine and her arms clung to me, pulling me nearer, I was happy. Not just happy, but like I could climb out of my skin and die in this moment fulfilled.
I’d wanted Jess. There was a time when we’d been in love—or at least in deep lust. And Jess was a good person who didn’t deserve to be married to someone who hadn’t been sure of his feelings in the first place, and she didn’t deserve to die.
But as I kissed Harper, though most of my mind was incapable of actual thought in those moments, part of me knew this was different. This wasn’t even on the same planet.
Jess and I probably shouldn’t have gotten married, but at the time, my yardstick for measuring the intensity of my feelings only went so high, and it seemed big—what I felt for her.
But as I held Harper in my arms, the world condensed around us, and this was all that mattered. The intensity of my desire astounded me, shocked me. I didn’t just want the physical part of her, though I absolutely wanted that—every inch of it and as soon as possible—I wanted so much more than that. I wanted