“Yes.”
“To a town where you didn’t know anyone.”
She glances at me. “Correct.”
“And you’ve built a life here. A job you love and a boss who clearly thinks the world of you. That’s not nothing, Birdy. That’s not someone who doesn’t know what she wants. That’s someone who’s braver than she gives herself credit for.”
She stares at me.
“It’s true,” I say.
“Thank you, Jude. I never looked at it like that.”
“What about you?” she asks. “You said you moved here after a job in the military?”
“Yes,” I confirm.
“And this is what you wanted? Just peace and quiet?”
I think about lying. It would be easy.Yes, just some peace and quiet, exactly what I wanted, nothing more to it.But how could I ever lie to this woman?
“I needed to stop being needed for a while. Fifteen years of showing up when everything fell apart. And don’t get me wrong, I was fucking good at it. But there’s only so much a person can carry before it costs more than you’ve got to give.”
“And now? Has it helped? The quiet?”
“Yes,” I say. “I know.”
It’s true. I know what I want. I’ve known it since the moment I looked out my window yesterday morning and saw Birdy standing at my fence line. I want her. That’s not something I’m going to say out loud, though. Not now anyway.
“You should come and see the dahlias,” Birdy says after a stretch of silence. “When they bloom. In July. Nell grows these dinner-plate ones that are completely insane. You’d have to come into the valley for it, but—sorry, you probably don’t want to leave your mountain to look at some flowers.”
“I’ll come to see the dahlias in July.”
But even as I say it, I grit my teeth. July is a damn long time. Three months. I don’t think I can wait that long to see her again, which is insane because forty-eight hours ago I didn’t even know she existed.
The idea of not seeing her for months makes me sick to my stomach.
“I’m making dinner tonight,” I tell her. “Come over and eat with me.”
She smiles. “I’d love that! What are you making?”
“What do you think about bear stew?”
She laughs, and fucking hell, I already know I need to hear that laughter every day or I’ll be a starved man for the rest of my life.
Chapter Five
Birdy
I changed my outfit three times before settling on an ankle-length dress with brown suede boots and a jacket. But now that I’m standing on Jude’s porch, I’m afraid I might’ve overdone it. We’re not going to a fancy restaurant or anything—not that Timber Peak Valley has one of those. He invited me for a casual dinner at his mountain home, so why did I decide to dress like I needed to impress someone?
I stare at the front door but don’t knock. I’m too nervous. I let my gaze sweep over the porch and spot the pair of enormous boots sitting beside the mat. Those were the boots Judedidn’tput on when he ran out of the cabin to save me yesterday.
Come on, Birdy, knock on the door!
I take a deep breath. It’s too late to turn back. First, I don’t want to. I want to spend time with Jude. And second, Nell is long gone by now. She gave me a ride, which was very kind of her, even if she did have an ulterior motive. Specifically: Reid. He lives on this mountain too, only further up. His cabin is so secluded that nobody’s entirely sure where it is. I genuinely don’t know what her plan is, though. Is she going to drive up a mountain road in the dark in the hopes of accidentally running into a man who actively avoids human contact?
Only when it dawns on me that I’ve been standing on this porch for five whole minutes and Jude might’ve seen me acting like a fool that entire time do I knock. The last thing I want is to come across as weird.