Page 45 of Oops, I Fell For The Town Bad Boy!

“I didn’t know you could cook,” she said.

“I can’t. I looked up how to make the sauce online, and anyone can boil pasta — well, I hope they can. I did what it said on the box.” He shrugged. “I hope it’ll be all right.”

“I’m sure the spaghetti is fine. Kane, what are you still doing here?”

“Did you want me to leave?” he asked her quietly. “If you do, I’ll go.”

“I— No, of course I don’t want you to leave.” She put her things down. “I never wanted you to leave. But I thought you’d made up your mind to do it anyway. That was what you told me. You said you were going to be gone by the time I got home today.”

“I was going to,” he said. “That was the plan.”

“What changed, then?”

“It’s a little hard to explain.”

“Try,” she suggested.

“I found a note from my father.”

“He never told me he had left you a note.”

“No. He wanted it to be just for me. Not that you would have read it, but… there was something special about finding it the way I did.” Kane sighed and raked a hand through his hair again. “I don’t quite know how to explain it. It felt like he was reaching out to me from — from beyond, from wherever he is now — and telling me that things were going to be all right.”

“Oh, Kane,” Taylor murmured. She crossed the kitchen and wrapped her arms around him. “I wish you’d known that was there. I wish you had found it ages ago. I think it might have really helped you to have it.”

“It would have,” Kane agreed. “But I also think I found it just when I needed it most. It was almost as if Dad knew what I was going to need and when I was going to need it, and he reached out to give it to me.”

“That’s a nice thought,” Taylor said softly. “Does it help to think of it like that?”

“It helps to know that he wasn’t angry with me,” Kane said. “At the end of his life, he wasn’t upset with me. He forgave me for everything that happened. And he says he wants me to forgive myself.”

“It sounds like a wonderful letter.”

“You can read it,” he said. “If you’d like to.”

She looked up at him, a smile on her face. “That’s generous,” she told him. “But from the sound of it, your dad meant that to be a letter just between the two of you. He wouldn’t have hidden it the way he did if he wanted me to see it. And I want to honor that.”

“That’s very understanding of you.”

She stood back and looked up at him. “So what happens now?” she asked. “You were about to leave town, and then you found this letter, and you’re still here — I don’t know what to make of it. Are you staying?”

“I’d like to,” Kane said. His voice was hoarse, and she could tell he was trying to suppress emotion. “If you’ll still have me. I mean, I’m going to stay in town either way, because I want to be here for the farmers market after all the work we’ve put in. My father wrote that he knows I’m a good man, and that’s the life he’d want to see me live. And I think that means staying here, making amends for the past, and starting fresh with the town of Miller Creek.”

“That’s what I thought you wanted too,” Taylor said. “That’s why I was so surprised when you told me you were going to leave.”

“I suppose I let myself believe too many painful things,” Kane said. “I thought… well, I thought I was hurting you with my presence here, to be honest.”

“Hurting me? Of course you weren’t.”

“But my reputation is so tarnished. I know what people think of me. They’re bound to think less of you for spending your time with someone like me.”

Taylor squared her shoulders. “If that’s what they think, they’re welcome to think it,” she said. “It isn’t true. Spending time with you makes me a better person, not a worse one. All the strength you have, all the courage you show me every day in facing up to your past — it’s inspirational, Kane. It makes me want to be more like you. And if people look at you, at all of that, and all they see is negativity, then that’s their problem. It’s not something I feel responsible for, and it’s not something I can do anything about. So let people think what they like. The truth is that having you here has always been a good thing for me.”

“I think there was a long time when I wouldn’t have believed that,” Kane said quietly. “I would have assumed it was a lie.”

“What possible reason could I have to lie about something like that?”

“I don’t know,” Kane admitted. “And it’s not that I think you would. It’s just that… I can’t believe it’s true. It’s too good to possibly be true. That someone like you could feel that way about me…I never would have believed that.”

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