My throat tightens, but I push through. "And then I turned around and did the same thing to you. Anyone connected to Richard gets painted as the villain, and I fell for it. I was scared, Mason. Scared of how much I care about you, and I used your past as an excuse to run away before you could hurt me."
I reach for his hands, my fingers trembling. "Can you forgive me? And can I ... would you hold me? Can I hold you? Because I've felt lost for four days, and I think I need to remember what it feels like to be somewhere I belong."
He doesn't hesitate. He stops pacing, closes the distance between us, and wraps his arms around me like I'm a person he thought he'd lost forever. I melt against him, my forehead resting on his shoulder, every knot of tension in my body unraveling at once.
After a long moment, he sinks onto the edge of the nearby chair, pulling me down with him. I settle onto his lap, curling into his chest like I've belonged there all along.
This. This is home. Not the barn. Not River Bend. Right here, in the circle of his arms.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper against his neck, breathing in his scent, feeling his heartbeat strong beneath my cheek. "I'm so sorry for making you feel like you had to choose between helping me and respecting my walls."
"You're here now," he whispers into my hair, his voice rough with emotion. "That's all that matters."
We hold each other for a long moment, and I feel the last of the distance between us evaporate. When I pull back to look at him, his eyes are bright, with relief, with gratitude, with the sense of coming back to life.
"Now," I say, my voice stronger, steadier. "About this choice of yours."
He thinks he's choosing between two bad options. He believes his choices are either to fight a battle he's already lost or surrender and become the man he hates.
The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of it. The noble, self-destructive, infuriatingly masculine hubris of trying to carry this alone.
The cracks and fissures I allowed, grief, fear, disappointment, they don't split me open.
They weld together.
A lesser mortal might break.
But I'm Maddy.
And this is where I get sharp. Focused. Dangerous.
He's not alone. Not if I have anything to say about it.
"No," I say, and though the word is quiet, it rings with absolute authority. He looks up, startled from his trance of misery.
"No?"
"You've got more than two options." My voice gains strength, infused with a purpose that cuts through his despair like sunlight through storm clouds. I stand up and begin to pace, the familiar motion of a planner seizing control. My mind catches fire, not with fear, but with strategy born from righteous rage. "Your plan is flawed, Counselor," I say, that old defiant spark returning, bringing life back to this deadened space. "You're a brilliant lawyer, Mason, but you're thinking like one. You're analyzing this fight based on his rules, on his battlefield. The courtroom, the back-room deals, the secret negotiations, that's his territory. He owns that space. Fight him there, and you've lost."
I stop in front of him, my eyes blazing with energy I thought I'd lost forever. "We don't fight him in the dark. We drag his entire ugly operation into the light. We fight him on our territory."
"What are you talking about?" he asks, his voice thick with confusion being pierced by the faintest sliver of hope.
"I'm talking about the story!" My energy surges as the idea takes full, brilliant shape in my mind. "Richard Kingston is trying to write a story where the Morrison Center is risky and unstable. We write a better one. A truer one. Remember our festival? It's not entertainment anymore, it's a weapon. We turn it into a movement. We call it River Bend Builds. We don't hide from his lawsuit. We shine a giant, unflattering spotlight on it. Local paper, regional news, social media, everyone gets to see what he did to Silver Creek, what his Anvil strategy looks like from the ground, and what he's trying to do right here, right now."
I watch the idea strike like lightning, then ripple across his devastated features. Hope wars with disbelief in his expression.
"We turn this from a private legal battle into a public story about a predatory corporate bully trying to crush a small town that dared to dream. We fight his money and his lawyers using the one thing he doesn't have and can never buy, people. Community. A heart that beats louder than his legal briefs."
I see the fog of his despair begin to clear, replaced by dawning, reluctant awe. He has been so trapped in the prison of his guilt, so focused on the legal mechanics, that he couldn't see the way out. But I can see it clear as day. This is what I do. I create experiences that change hearts and minds. I craft narratives that matter. And I am about to craft one that Richard Kingston will never see coming.
He rises from his chair and walks toward me, his movements slow, as if emerging from a trance. He stops inches away, his eyes searching my face as if seeing me for the first time. "That ... could work," he says, his voice a rough whisper threaded with what might be hope.
"It will work," I say with unshakeable confidence that comes from bone-deep certainty. "Because it's the truth. And we do this together. Or not at all. That's the deal. No more noble sacrifices. No more lone wolves carrying the weight of the world. Partners."
He reaches for me then, his hands finding my waist, and pulls me into an embrace so tight it feels like he's trying to merge our bodies into one, to absorb my strength, my hope, my absolute refusal to let him face this alone. He buries his face in my hair, and I feel a shudder rack his entire frame. It's the feeling of a man who has been holding his breath for a lifetime and has been given permission to exhale. The chasm between us doesn't close, it ceases to exist. The fragile bridge has become solid ground beneath our feet.
I lean back to look up at him, my heart hammering with adrenaline and a deeper truth, rare and quietly powerful. "So,Counselor," I say, a fierce, brilliant grin spreading across my face. "Are you game to plan a festival?"
