“Yeah, well, maybe all that doesn’t matter,” he said. “Because maybe it’s all for us. Did you ever think about that? Maybe we’re the only ones that matter.” The words flowed from him with conviction. As if his chest had been cut open and everything was just pouring out. “Fuck everyone, everyone but us. I love you. And maybe that’s all that matters. Maybe it’s all that ever mattered. Maybe everything...every hard thing—my dad being an asshole, my mom leaving, your mom leaving, your dad being dead, me spending time with your family, my friendship with Sawyer and Wolf—maybe it all just led here. And maybe there will be collateral damage, but it’s worth it.”
“We are not the center of the world,” Elsie said.
And logically, he understood that that was true.
But in his heart, he felt this with an intensity that defied everything. “I don’t care about anything else. Because I thought... Elsie, I thought that I wasn’t worth a damn. I thought that I broke my family in deep and profound ways, and I thought that was my only purpose. To break things. My mother was tied to my father because of me. Because I was the youngest. I had to figure out how to help let her go. But I knew that doing that made things harder for my brothers. And I thought that’s all I could do. Make it harder. Make it worse. What if I was meant to love you? All along. From the beginning. What if the whole world exists so I can love you?”
“That is insane,” Elsie said, her eyes filling with tears. “It is insane, and I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“Say that you love me. Because the sun shines so that I can love you, and fields are out there full of flowers all so that I can love you. And sometimes things are bad, just so loving you feels better. I’m convinced of that. You are my faith. And you are my hope. And most of all, Elsie Garrett, you are my love.” He moved forward and cradled her face in his hands. “Wretched little varmint, you are everything and I love you with all that I am. With all that I have. There will never be anything more important. And I don’t care what anyone thinks. I don’t care what happens next. As long as you love me.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Because love shouldn’t make you a smaller, meaner person who doesn’t care about the people around you.”
“It won’t make you small and mean. Not once you realize you don’t have to protect it. That’s what you’re doing, sweetheart. You are just protecting yourself. You don’t have to. Because I’m here to do that. I’m here to protect you. I promise.”
“And what about when you aren’t, Hunt?”
“I already told you that moment won’t come.”
“Look how much we’ve changed. Just in these past weeks.”
“But what about all the change that was good? I talked to Gus about his scars. I told you all about mine. I’m ready to talk to my brothers about...all the hard things I’ve kept inside forever. I became the man I needed to be through you, for you.” he said. “This was the path.” He needed her to understand. He needed her to. It was so hard, something he had only just come to realize himself. “I need you to understand that this was the path all along. It wasn’t a random shift. This is where we were headed the whole time. This is fate, Els. It is. You are my fate.”
“I don’t believe that, Hunter,” she said. “I don’t. I don’t...”
“I believe in it enough for both of us,” he said, grabbing hold of her and pulling her toward him. “I believe in you. I believe in us. Whatever you want to call it beyond that, I don’t care. You’re all that matters. Every last bit.”
“Well, I can’t do this. I...”
He kissed her to show her, to show her how deep he believed. In them. In this. She kissed him back, a sob rising in her throat, one that he captured.
“I love you,” he said.
“It’s not enough,” she said. “It’s not enough.”
“What do I need to do? I will do it. I will do whatever you need me to. I will give you whatever you need me to give you.”
“I need you to leave,” she said, tears falling down her face. “I need you to leave. Because I can’t... I can’t be this. I can’t be this person that I don’t recognize. This person that I lost control of. I have to... I have to fix myself. And this was just supposed to be...to teach me to flirt. I wanted to have sex. I didn’t want forever.”
He looked at her, and for the first time he felt like he might be out of hope.
And then a glimmer started again. And it damned near killed him. He remembered Elsie was twenty-four. She might not be ready. It had taken him this long to get to this point on the path, and he thought that sex had brought them there, but that didn’t mean it was true. And if loving her meant letting her go for a while, until she was ready to see, then he was going to have to do that. Even if it killed him.
And it would. He would punch a number of walls about her being gone, away with other men. Thinking about all the life she was living. But he had to give it to her. He had to. That was what she needed, to find her way to him, then he would have to give it to her. And he would.
“Whatever you need,” he said. “Whatever time you need, it’s okay. You can have it.”
“Not time...”
“I love you,” he said. “I always have. And there’s not a limit on that. Time or otherwise. I will always be there for you. I’ll wait until you’re ready for me.”
He turned and walked out of the house, and he felt like he had left his heart behind. Bloody and battered on the floor of her cabin.
And dammit all, as mad as he’d been at that wall in a fistfight with his own emotions over wanting that girl, he was more incredulous now. She wasn’t just making him jealous. She had broken him. Little Elsie Garrett had broken him, because what they could be was so clear to him, and she couldn’t see it. There was no amount of fortification that could have prepared him. No amount of pain in his past. Nothing was this. Nothing had ever been this.
He got in his truck, and he didn’t know where to go.
Go to the Garretts’.
Go to Gus.
He would go to his brothers.
It was time they had a talk anyway.
* * *
ELSIE WAS CRUMPLED. Lying on the floor like she had been stabbed in the stomach. She’d spent the whole night in agony.
The truth of the matter was, she’d stabbed herself. She was the one that had caused all this pain. Her own and his. She was the one who was responsible for all this.
She had ruined everything. Everything. She didn’t even know where to begin picking up pieces. It was impossible to say.