“But you’re thinking it.”
She didn’t deny it, just took a step backward and crossed her arms across her chest.
“Don’t shut me out, Anna,” I pushed, gently but firmly. “Not this time. After everything we’ve been through, don’t do that to me again. I can handle whatever you have to say, whatever’s in your heart or your head. But not your silence. Not you pulling away.”
She turned her back and took a few steps toward thekitchen. I ran a hand through my hair, bracing to hear the door slam. Instead, she paused. Her shoulders rose as she drew a shaky breath, then she turned back around, tears gathering at the corner of her blue eyes.
“Chase…” Her voice was quiet but steady. “Obviously, we were close once before. Really close. But we don’treallyknow each other anymore. Or at least, you don’t knowme.And don’t pretend my choices all those years ago didn’t hurt you. You have every right to resent me.”
“Whatever happened in the past,” I said carefully, “belongs in the past. We might have thought we were adults, doing grown-up things, but we were still kids trying to figure out who we were and what we wanted out of life.”
Anna’s shoulders relaxed slightly as she gave a quick nod.
“I might not have understood it at the time,” I admitted. “And you’re right. It hurt like hell. It hurt every time I saw you withhim.”
She looked down, biting her lip and blinking rapidly.
“But do you know why it still hurt all those years later?”
Her breath caught as her eyes met mine. Her lashes were still spiked with tears, but there was something different. Hope, maybe?
I decided to put it all on the line. I took her hands in mine, lacing our fingers together. “Because I never stopped caring about you. I’m not one to usually believe in fate, but you showing up here in the middle of a storm?” I shook my head, smiling softly. “Hell, if I can’t help but wonder if that doesn’t mean something.”
She stilled as if she wasn’t sure she was hearing me right.
“If you need me to say I forgive you, then done. I forgiveyou for any hurt you think you caused. As long as you forgive me, too.”
Her brow furrowed. “What on earth would I have to forgive you for?”
So I gave her the truth that had haunted me for all these years. “That I didn’t fight for you when I should have.”
A soft gasp escaped her lips. “Chase, I…”
“For letting you believe I didn’t care.”
Silence filled the space between us, but it wasn’t full of uncertainty; it was light with possibility. I could tell she was processing everything, that I was starting to reach her. Maybe I could prove to her that she was never far from my thoughts.
“Will you come somewhere with me?” I asked.
Silently, she gave a slight nod.
I kept her hand tucked in mine as I led her to my truck. I settled her inside, then jumped into the driver’s seat. The engine rumbled as I turned onto the main road and headed up the mountain on the same path I took just a few days ago.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice soft but curious.
I glanced over at her and winked. “You’ll see.”
I drove up the mountain until I turned down the gravel road, back to the clearing with fewer trees, and killed the engine. The quiet settled over us like a comfortable blanket.
“Where are we?”
I stared through the windshield, breathing in the pine scent. I’d never brought her here when we were young. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like anything special.
I stared over the steering wheel, the peace filling my head and heart. “It’s our Christmas tree plot. Uncle James started it when I was a kid. It was the first paying jobI ever had.” I chuckled. “All I had to do was put a tiny tree—really more like a stick with pine needles—in the ground and push the soil back in the hole.”
Her eyes grew soft as she looked at the rows and rows of trees.
“Back then, it was just another part of the farm. But after you left, it became something else.”