“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he said, for what seemed like the millionth time.
The frustration that had been buried for years bubbled to the surface. “Yes, you were, Cal! Can’t you own that you didn’t want anything to do with me?”
He leaned in and lifted her chin as his eyes burned with passion. “Can’t you see that I had to leave you there that day because everything inside of me wanted to tell you that I…”
“What? What could be so awful?” she bit out.
He dropped his hands and paced in front of her. “You were thirteen years old, Mabel. I was sixteen. And I was your brother’s best friend.”
“That stopped you from being nice to me?” She wasn’t about to give him a pass. Yes, she could understand his hesitancy with city-living. But until that day under the tree, she’d never given him a reason to treat her so cruelly. “Why did you leave me there by myself?” she pleaded, needing to know.
He held her shoulders. “Because if I had stayed, I would have told you that I loved you.”
“You loved me?” she whispered, taking a step back.
He stared up at the sky. “You were only a girl, and all I wanted to do that day was take you in my arms and kiss you. Even then, you were so damned beautiful. And the way you looked at me made me feel like I was invincible—like there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. But I couldn’t give in to it. I had to pretend like I didn’t have feelings for you.”
That might have made sense when they were younger, but she hadn’t been a child for a very long time.
She shook her head. “I’m not buying it, Cal. We grew up. And you still shunned me,” she shot back.
“I didn’t know how to talk to you. After that damned day, all you wanted was to leave Elverna and spend your life in London or Paris. You put up pictures of cities in your bedroom. You started wearing those fancy outfits, and you carried your passport with you everywhere you went. You still do,” he replied, disdain coating his words.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “That’s not a good enough reason. You had to know that you were the catalyst for everything. With one kind word, you could have had me. With one touch, I would have been yours. But you took it away—your attention, your affection. It ended, and I thought it was my fault. I’ve lived all these years trying to figure out why I wasn’t enough for you.”
He ran his hands through his mass of honey-brown hair before falling to his knees at her feet and taking her hands into his. “You have always been enough. And I never stopped loving you. I told Jamie everything the morning of your twenty-first birthday.”
“The day he died?” she whispered, lowering herself to the ground.
Cal brushed another hot tear from her cheek. “Yes. We were in the west field, and I thought he was going to punch my lights out when I told him that I was in love with his baby sister. But he didn’t. He was happy. He was so damned happy, Mabel. We were laughing when he suddenly pitched forward and clutched his chest. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was going on, but he must have sensed that he didn’t have much time because that’s when he told me what he wanted me to do. He made me promise him something.”
“What did he say?” She’d known Cal was with her brother when he’d died, but she’d had no idea that they’d spoken of her.
Cal’s bottom lip trembled. “He told me to make Elverna a place where you’d want to be—a place you’d love. He knew your dad was having health issues, and he asked me to keep the farm going because it would be yours one day. And he wanted me to save the town. It’s your home, and it’s your legacy, Mabel. That’s what he kept saying until he was gone.”
She wanted to understand his actions and his pain, but he’d kept this to himself—a secret that wasn’t only for him. “Why didn’t you share with me what Jamie said?” she bit out, then caught her breath as her tears threatened to silence the other question she needed him to answer. “And why didn’t you tell me that you loved me?”
He shook his head and blinked back tears. “I wanted to. I bought you a gift for your twenty-first birthday. I was going to tell you after I talked to Jamie, but then he died, and everything went to hell,” he answered through a sad, teary smile.
She brushed a tear from his cheek. “What gift are you talking about?”
Cal touched the charm at her neck. “A rose gold necklace with a letter M charm.”
She could see the box, white with a delicate bow, placed on the kitchen table.
“But this necklace is from my brother,” she replied as it hit her. There wasn’t any card. Jamie hadn’t left a note. She’d just assumed it was from him.
Cal cupped her face in his hands. “You found it on the kitchen table at your spot.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“I put it there for you,” he replied.
His confession hit her like a wrecking ball, shattering everything she knew to be true.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
His sweet, sad smile returned. “Because I could see that it brought you comfort to think that it had come from Jamie.”
She stared into his eyes. “The day I went to that meeting in New York, I’d held the M and asked Jamie to help me find the right path to happiness, and it led me…”
“Here—back home to me,” Cal finished.
She nodded. Was she always meant to return to Elverna and be with Cal? Was that her destiny?
“Look at what we’ve done for the town, Mabel. We’re drawn together. Even when you make me crazy, I can’t stay away from you. I’ve loved you all my life.”
More tears rolled down her cheeks. “You have?”
But as she replayed their every combative interaction, she now saw their relationship through a different lens. He hadn’t loathed her, but he knew he couldn’t have her—that’s what he’d believed.
“Cal,” she said, gazing into those stormy eyes that had graced her dreams for over a decade.
“Say you don’t need the city. Tell me you’re happy here in Elverna with me. I made your brother a promise. I poured my heart and soul into this town, and it’s for you. It’s always been for you, Mabel,” he finished, resting his forehead against hers.
Trembling, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he gathered her into his lap.
“Will you let me love you and protect you?” he whispered into the night air.
She’d imagined this—the moment where Cal confessed his love. While it was everything her heart needed to hear, she couldn’t forget that she had also made a promise to her brother. She’d promised him that she’d follow her dreams. But dreams could change. They’d have to if she wanted a life with the man she could never forget—the man she’d loved for as long as she could remember.
“Kiss me,” she breathed instead of answering.
Before she could blink, their mouths connected in a ravenous frenzy of lips and teeth and tongue. Salty tears ran down her cheeks, and he kissed them away.
“I need you, Mabel,” he breathed against the shell of her ear.
She needed him, too. A tangle of emotions twisted inside her. Is this where her path ended? Was this what Jamie had wanted for her?