Page 99 of Something Like Sunflowers

“Once Ellie and I moved in and fixed it up, we turned it into a real farm. I paid him back as soon as I could, but he had one caveat.”

“You will not speak to my daughter. Ever again. Do you understand? If she comes to you, you will make it very apparent that you are no longer interested. Whatever you must do to convince her, you do it.”

I take a deep breath and dare to steal a glance at her. I step forward, taking her hands in case she tries to run.

I wouldn’t blame her.

“I was the caveat, wasn’t I?”

I don’t answer that. She already knows.

“Dev, I never wanted to keep secrets from you, but there’s more to this. And now that we’re being open about everything, there’s more to tell you that I—”

Her lips crash against mine, arms wrap around my neck, her tongue snakes its way into my mouth and tangles with mine. I think she’s claiming me, and that makes about as much sense as tits on a bull, because it dawns on me, as I stand here opening myself to her completely, that for the last ten years I’ve done nothing but lie to the woman I desperately love.

A woman I don’t deserve to feel in my arms, her curves pressing against my body, her hands slipping under my shirt.

Fuck.

But then she pulls her face away, lowering off her tiptoes and resting her cheek against my shoulder. My arms automatically wrap tighter around her.

“All this time, I thought you stopped loving me,” she says, pressing close.

“I could never stop loving you.”

I kiss her again, savoring this goddess of a woman who stands here before me while I lay myself bare to her, and still sees me as the man she did before.

“But there’s more. Since coming back—”

“You don’t have to tell me everything right this second, Hunter, but thank you for finally letting me in.”

She looks up at me, then, worrying at her hair tie.

“Wait, that time I came back, and you were with those Valley High girls?”

“I didn’t have sex with them,” I admit to her in a rush. I’ve hated letting her think that for years, and I’ll never forget the hurt in her eyes when she opened the door and I let her believe she was replaceable.

The truth is nobody could ever replace Devyn Lynn Campbell. Not in my bed and never in my heart.

“I wanted to tell you about rehab and Ellie, everything. The second time you came back, I tried. I had almost worked up the courage to come clean about your dad, about the lies or the fact that I hadn’t been with anyone but you, since you. But you took one look at me having drinks with Lem and Katie at the Sugar Stable, and you were back in the city the next day. You never came back after that, Dev.”

The moonlight spills in from the barn doors and illuminates her from behind. Like she’s an angel. She’s been gone so long, when I first saw her on that street corner, I thought she might be. Much too beautiful to be a ghost from my past, but an angel? They’re eternal. Just like Dev.

“I thought you’d never come back to Pine Forest.”

She looks down, and I tilt her chin back up to look at me. “I don’t blame you for that either, Dev. I figured you were happy in the city. You were Miss American Rodeo, for fuck’s sake. You were on the news every morning with a bright, beautiful smile on your face and in the tabloids at parties having fun like you’re supposed to in your twenties, not raising a child and fighting an addiction like I was. You were better off without me.”

“No,” she says, laughing into my shirt and…

“Are you smelling me?” I smile.

“Yes,” she says, sighing wistfully. “It’s just, we both thought we were fine without each other all those years, but it’s only because we were convincing ourselves the other person was better off without us. Neither of us wanted that. You don’t find that funny?”

“No, I find it depressing.”

“But what about Ellie’s custody?” Devyn suddenly remembers, and I groan. There’s still a lot to talk about, and that kiss earlier made me want to do anything but talk.

But this is life. This is adulting and this is partnership, and this is…our relationship. A relationship that, up until two months ago, I didn’t even think stood a chance of existing. My lips curve into an undeniable smile as I mull that thought over. The thought of a relationship with this woman. As my wife.

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