“I’m sorry. I don’t know why Gran’s doing this other than the obvious. I needed to make things right.”

“She is so sneaky. Looking back, I wonder how many of our coincidental encounters are because of her.”

“You know I have, too, and I think she’s behind them all at this point. This one is diabolical, though.”

“Do you think she was the one who called the fire station about my alarm that was clearly not going off? Would she do that?”

He takes less than a minute to think about it.

“Dispatch said it was an older woman who called, which fits. A man was telling her not to call in the background. Darrel at least tried to stop her.”

I burst out laughing. Tears spring to my eyes, and all Layton does is sit there and shake his head. But he’s smiling. Really, truly smiling with all his white teeth showing.

“I wonder how long she’s going to keep us trapped down here,” he finally says as I calm down.

“Now that is more the Layton I know,” I smile, still feeling the butterflies from his smile. From what I’ve seen of this grown-up Layton, he doesn’t do that much. The one exception was the night of the beard competition, where he strutted his stuff on stage.

“What do you mean?” He asks casually.

“Well, this grown-up Layton doesn’t smile often. Suits you.”

He smirks, and I swear it is the sexiest thing on earth.

“Well, except for the night of the beard competition, where you were strutting your stuff on stage,” I tease, and he groans.

“Don’t remind me.”

His response confirms what I thought, that was out of character.

“It’s why you won thought,” I laugh.

“Hey here, I thought it was strictly because of this handsome face, and superior lush facial hair.” He strokes his beard, and my eyes can’t seem to look at anything else.

That has me laughing. This is nice. Easy.

“Well, since we’re stuck down here anyway, why don’t we drink some of this,” I say, reaching over to the top of the barrel next to me for two glasses.

“Sure,” he replies, finding a corkscrew on the barrel next to him.

With a bottle open, he pours it into the two glasses I hold for us, and we sit back to take our first sip.

Mmm. It’s really good, and I can see why his grandfather liked it.

“What do you think?”

“Oh, I’m no connoisseur, but it’s delicious. I like it. What about you?”

He nods his agreement. “It is good.”

I laugh lightly. “It’s wild how our conversation went from intense to something so light.”

His breathy laugh is followed by, “Yeah. I’m still getting over your forgiveness, which I am not sure I deserve.”

“Isn’t that up to me? After all, it’s my heart you broke,” I say softly, letting it sink in.

“I promise you, it wasn’t just your heart I broke, Daphne. It’s hard to forgive myself for hurting the only person I’ve ever loved.”

The silence that follows his admission is suffocating, and my breathing becomes labored. I’ve only had one sip, but I feel dizzy thinking he could have felt the same way I have all these years. Like I was still waiting for him, unable to form any meaningful relationships, because I still only loved him.