At exactly three o'clock, his truck pulls up to my house.Of course it's a truck.Big, dark, and shiny without being ostentatious. Practical but just flashy enough to turn heads. It looks like it's been detailed this morning, probably by hand. I bet even his truck smells like cedar and arrogance.
I step outside before he can knock, refusing to give him the satisfaction of ringing my doorbell like this is a real date. He'sleaning against the passenger door like something out of a small-town thirst trap calendar—aviators perched on his straight nose, fitted jeans that cup him in all the right places, button-down shirt rolled at the sleeves to reveal forearms corded with muscle. And those forearms?Jesus.How canforearmsbe so hot?
"Afternoon, Junie," he says with a slow, devastating smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes.
"Don't sweet-talk me," I mutter, pushing past him and opening the passenger door before he can open it for me. "I'm only here for the trees."
He chuckles as he closes the door behind me, the sound warm and rich like honey over gravel. "Lucky trees."
The inside of his truck is clean but lived-in. A travel mug in the cupholder. A small pine air freshener hanging from the mirror. A worn paperback tucked into the side pocket of the door—something by John Steinbeck, from what I can glimpse of the cover. Unexpected.
We drive in silence for a few minutes. It's not awkward—more like charged. Like the air right before a thunderstorm. I don't ask where we're going. He doesn't offer.
Eventually, we turn off the main road and bump along a gravel path I don't recognize, lined with young maples all in a row like sentinels. My breath catches in my throat. They're tall and healthy, leaves just starting to shift into early autumn golds and reds. Maybe three years old, from the look of them. Planted by someone who knew what they were doing.
He parks in a small clearing and shuts off the engine. "Come on. I want to show you something."
Curiosity overcomes my determination to remain aloof. I follow him down a narrow trail, the autumn air cool against my cheeks, filled with the scent of earth and pine. Fallen leaves crunch under our feet, creating a rhythm that feels almost musical.
After about five minutes of walking, we reach a small clearing. In the center is a plaque, set into a stone:This grove was planted in memory of the Sugar Queen. May her roots live on.
My chest tightens painfully. That’s what the kids always called the old maple—the one I chained myself to. The one he arrested me over. The one I couldn't save.
"You did this?" I ask, voice barely a whisper, afraid speaking too loudly might break whatever magic exists in this moment.
He nods, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes on the trees rather than me. "I used to play under that tree as a kid too. After they cut it down, I started calling in favors. A buddy at the forestry department helped with permits. Some of the saplings came from her seeds—I collected them the day after..." He trails off, but we both know what day he means.
I kneel and touch the earth around the memorial stone, a lump forming in my throat. The soil is rich and dark, well-tended. For the first time in two years, I feel something shift. Not forgiveness exactly, but understanding.
"You never told me," I say quietly, looking up at him. The sunlight filtering through the trees dapples his face, highlighting cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and eyes that suddenly seem more green than blue.
"I figured you'd bite my head off." His voice is gruff, but there's a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"You figured right."
He smiles fully now, and takes a step closer. I feel him beside me, all warmth and temptation and complicated emotions I'm not ready to name. "I never wanted to be your enemy, Junie."
Before I can respond—before I can process what he's saying and what it means—thunder cracks overhead, startling us both. We look up at a sky that has darkened considerably in the last few minutes, heavy clouds rolling in with remarkable speed.
"Guess the forecast was wrong," he mutters, glancing around. "C'mon. There's a ranger's shelter nearby. We can wait it out."
The first fat droplets begin to fall as we jog back down the trail, quickly turning into a proper downpour. By the time we reach the shelter—just a wooden structure with a roof and a picnic table, but it's dry—we're both half-soaked.
We duck under the roof just as lightning flashes across the sky, followed almost immediately by a boom of thunder that seems to shake the very ground. Rain lashes the trees, wind whips through the clearing, and I'm suddenly very aware that I'm alone with a man built like a Greek god and smelling like late-summer rain and something spiced and uniquely him.
My hair's damp, curling wildly the way it always does in humidity. My sweater's clinging in places it definitely wasn't meant to. And Weston? He's just standing there, watching me like I'm the only woman on Earth, raindrops clinging to his eyelashes and darkening his shirt in patches that make it cling to his chest.
"Do you always bring women to remote woods and get them drenched?" I ask, trying to sound unimpressed despite the shiver that runs through me—only partly from the chill.
"Just the ones who chain themselves to trees," he says, voice low and rough in a way that makes heat pool low in my belly.
I cross my arms, partly for warmth, partly as a barrier between us. "That was civil disobedience."
"That was the moment I fell for you."
My breath catches audibly, and time seems to suspend around us, stretching this moment into something eternal and fragile.
He takes a step forward. Then another. His eyes never leaving mine, giving me every chance to back away, to stop this.
