Page 21 of Pushed to the Peak

Ten

Flint

Remember her by? Just like that, I slam back down to earth with all the force of a burning comet. I don’t want to remember Marigold—I want her by my side for every day of my life. I want my ring on her finger and her thighs clamped permanently around my skull like earmuffs, and I want to bring her coffee on our deck every morning.

Marigold smiles up at me, pink-cheeked and breathless, her bare chest rising and falling as water droplets streak down her body. I’m blocking most of the spray, but she’s still getting rained on down there, and Christ, she’s so beautiful that it’s hard to look at her. Can’t believe what she just did for me, and how good it felt.

That damp, mussed hair—a darker shade of blonde when it’s wet. Those freckles and those plump pink lips and those eyes. Those big, blue eyes that haunt me whenever I’m alone. I don’t want the memory of this woman, I want the real thing.

“What?” My head crackles with static, while my heartbeat has slowed way down. Each anguished thump rattles my ribs, while the hot shower pounds against my back. “What do you mean, when you’re gone? You’re leaving?”

Marigold’s smile fades. She shifts her weight where she’s still kneeling at my feet, her fingers twisting together in her lap. “Well… yeah. Eventually. That’s what tourists do, right?”

And I know she’s not playing games or trying to punish me for my careless words. She’s not that type. It’s worse than that—Marigold has really taken what I said to heart.

Fuck. Me.

Just a tourist. Those are the stupid words I hurled at her earlier, when she’d come out looking for me in the middle of a mountain storm, risking her own hide to make sure I was safe. She crashed into me on that dark trail, so small and vulnerable in my arms, and I lost my damn mind.

Yes, I was so worried for her that my brain shut down. Yes, I’d have died if anything happened to Marigold.

But that’s no excuse for what I said—and now my dream woman is talking about moving on, leaving me behind in this valley to mourn what could have been.

“No.”

The word rasps out of me, and now we’ve got matching husky throats. What a pair. Smacking the shower off, I lean down to help Marigold to her feet, scanning her body for injuries one more time. Need to be sure.

“But—”

“No.” Leading Marigold out of the shower, I pluck her towel off the hook and wrap it tightly around her body. It’s no good warming her up only to let her stand around shivering now.

“No, tourists don’t leave?” Marigold scrubs a droplet of water off her eyebrow, her face scrunched up with how confusing I’m being. The steam’s thick in this room, and I can’t breathe. So long as she’s leaving me, I’ll never breathe right again.

“No, you’re not a tourist.” Marigold sighs and looks away. I catch her chin and turn her back to me. “You’re not just some person passing through Starlight Ridge, Mari. You’re mine.”

And maybe this little speech would be more impressive if I weren’t naked as the day I was born, but damn it, I’m making do. Can’t waste another single second of time with Marigold thinking… what she thinks.

“Yours,” she says flatly, fiddling with a loose thread on the towel. Her shoulders sag. “While I’m here, anyway.”

“No.” Lord give me strength, because it’s not Marigold’s fault that she’s having trouble believing me right now. I’m the one who stomped around all summer without saying a word about how I feel, just hoping she’d figure it out by osmosis. I’m the one who screwed everything up when we were finally making progress. “You’re mine, for as long as you want to be. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Marigold’s laugh is strangled. “Flint, what are you saying?”

“Marry me.” The words tumble so easily from my mouth, and they’re unplanned, but I don’t take them back. Not when they feel so right, so good, and hearing them out loud makes the tension bleed from my shoulders. Why hide how I feel? Why try to play it cool? I’ve tried that for the last few weeks, and now Marigold’s talking about leaving. “Marry me and stay. That’s what I’m saying.”

Her chin wobbles. My little artist looks like she doesn’t know whether to laugh, punch my shoulder, or cry.

“That’s insane,” she says, her toes scrunching against the bathmat.

“Maybe.”

“People will say we’re crazy.”

I nod. “They surely will.”

“You barely know me.”

Fuck that. Drawing Marigold against my chest, I wrap my arms around her body and kiss the top of her head. “Yes I do.”

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