I’m not in love with this man. But I could easily get there.
The way he looks at me. The safety I feel when I’m with him. The happiness I got just reading a dumb sticky note. The way he ran to my rescue yesterday with Bryson, and the night before that with the raccoon.
Even the barbeque sauce.
A future with this man plays out in my mind...Waking up to spectacular mountain views. Mowing the grass and taking Oscar for walks by the stream. Remodeling these cabins into dream getaway rentals. Making dinner together. Shooting pool at the bar on the weekends with friends. Getting snowed in and fucking in front of the fire. Curling up in his arms during thunderstorms. Talking him into getting baby chicks in the spring. Having bonfires. Eating breakfast in bed. Stacking wood while he chops it. Showering a hard day’s work off our bodies together. Swimming in the creek.
Every day with this man would be the hardest work, and easiest life imaginable. Simple, sweet, and separate from the awful universe I live in now.
The way he looks at me doesn’t just say he wants to fuck me.
It says he wants to take care of me.
There’s a loneliness in him that I recognize all too well. Tears prick my eyes when I beg, “Let me take care of you, too.”
I can’t read his mind. There’s no way to tell what he feels. Dean’s got a mask in place, and I’m worried I’ve fucked things up already.
“Let me help you,” I practically beg.
“On one condition,” he says in a low, soft, gruff voice.
“Anything.”
“When it’s over and you leave… don’t ever come back.”
Chapter 11
Dean
Hello, abandonment issues. It’s been a while.
Grace doesn’t deserve the shit I’m now giving her. She’s too sweet and I’m a brute with no sensor. The instant I named my condition, the glass bubble we’ve been in shatters.
Jesus, the hurt in her eyes because of what I just said… I should throw myself in the woodchipper for this.
If she truly wants to help, I’m desperate enough to take it, but not at the cost of my soul being torn to pieces afterwards. I’ll owe her everything. And I’m not even sure how she’s going to help me, but just like anything else with Grace, I won’t deny her what she wants. Honestly, I should be flattered, not terrified.
“Is that what you really want?” she asks, cautiously.
No. It’s not. But if she doesn’t meet this condition, my heart won’t survive seeing her again when she leaves in the spring. I’ll be pining and waiting for a woman who might never come back. I’ll wait for her… and wait… and wait… and wait. It’s better to know that once spring comes, and she leaves, that she won’t return. There will be no guessing on my part. No staring out the window, hoping to see the glareof her car come up the drive. No checking my phone for a text or notification.
I waited for my parents to come back once. I thought…Hey, this is just a temporary thing. I’m their kid. They’ll come back.
They didn’t.
I can’t go through that heartache again, so I say, “Yes.”
I’ve never been good at relationships. I can count on one hand how many girlfriends I’ve had, and they each ended the same way: Me left alone and them moving onto something better. Someonebetter.
A life with me at Bear Creek wasn’t their dream, and since I’m never leaving this mountain, they did. They didn’t look back, either.
The girlfriend I had in high school left right after graduation. Never saw or spoke to her again. The next one I had for two years, and she said I didn’t give her enough attention and moved onto someone else… while she was still with me. The woman after that left me once my grandfather got too sick. And the one after her was a quick fuck in a bathroom. She wasn’t from around here, and didn’t stay longer than one night for a work thing. I’ve given up on finding love. This place sucks up all my energy and asking a woman to stay up here, cut off from society, isn’t fair to her. I’ll never have time or money to travel, so all I have to offer are long, hard days, and dark, solitary nights. That’s not enough.
Grace isn’t going to want to stay longer once she suffers her first winter here, anyway. The fascination will wear off, she’ll get cabin fever and hightail it out of here once the snow melts, leaving me alone on my mountain again.
I think even if she left today, right this second, my heart would break.
I’m not in love with her. I’m enamored by her. She’s the exact opposite of everything I know. Soft, dainty, sweet. My world is harsh, bitter, and desolate. Beautiful but brutal. There’s a tiny part of me that wishes I’d just sell it all and walk away. But the biggest part of me refuses to give it up. I needed this place when I was a kid, and I need it now. It’s all I know. It's what I love.
