The way she relaxed into him, exhaling deeply, wrapping her arms around him and burrowing in, he liked to think he’d given her just that.

She nuzzled closer. “You care about me?” she asked, her voice muffled in his shoulder.

He ran his fingers through the strands of her hair, rubbing up and down her spine with his other hand. He liked this, probably more than he should. That she’d lean on him, that she’d ask for something from him. That she’d trust him enough for both.

“Yeah.” He cared. Hell, he was probably in love with her, and now wouldn’t be such a bad time to say it. Maybe. Or maybe it was the worst time and he was an idiot. “Dinah, I . . .”

“I care about you too, you know. I wouldn’t be here . . . It wouldn’t even be a question.”

He pulled her away gently, wanting to see what was going on in her expression so he could maybe read this. “What wouldn’t be a question?”

Her eyes widened and she looked a little panicked, and he wished she would be honest with him. Just open, so he couldgetit.

But maybe if he wanted her to be honest with him, it had to start with him. It wasn’t honest to hold her and offer words of care without telling her the whole thing. The whole, big, scary-as-fuck thing.

“It’s . . . it’s more than care, Dinah.”

She sucked in a breath and held it there. It was funny thatnowthe panic left her expression, and she was only looking at him in a wide-eyed silence she didn’t even breathe through.

Considering she just kept holding her breath, he figured he’d better force himself to say it. Just blurt it out and deal with the fallout, because he wasn’t a coward. He faced his shit head-on. “I’m in love with you. Which I would not have believed possible in a million years that day you tried to pick my unripened squash.”

She let out a breath, eyes still wide but watery now too. “That soundssodirty,” she whispered.

He laughed, though he didn’t know how he managed it when his heart was pounding and his gut was twisting into a hundred tiny but heavy and painful knots. “I’d make an even dirtier squash joke, but I’m not sure I have it in me right now.”

She stepped closer then, though they were already close. This was like a step into him, her palms resting on his shoulders, her breasts brushing his chest, her legs stepping into the sturdy shelter of his.

Her dark hazel eyes searched his face for something, though he didn’t know what. There were so many things she was searching for, determined to find and achieve. It scared the daylights out of him that love might be the last thing she wanted, that it’d never be enough for her.

But she curled her fingers into his shirt, and she looked right at him. “I love you too, though I’ll also have to agree on the not-having-a-clue part. It snuck up on me and grabbed ahold of me and I don’t know how to shake it off.”

He pressed his fingers into her shoulders, a reassuring squeeze. “I don’t think you have to when we’re in mutual agreement on the subject.”

Her mouth curved, but Carter didn’t think it constituted as a smile. She was probably scared, or maybe nervous. Maybe, like him, she’d never given so much to a relationship before. Even being quite certain of his feelings for her didn’t make the feelings easy, or magically let him know what to do or say.

“What does it mean?” she asked, her hands curling into his shirt even tighter. “To all the other things in our life? All those other important things. I don’t know how to make room for . . . love. Another person, other hopes or dreams. I’ve only ever had my own.”

“I don’t know either. I’ve never made room before.” Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been this honest before. Not so plainly and with someone he wasn’t related to, that was for sure. “I don’t think it’s easy, but I think you’re just supposed to keep working at it until it fits or gels or something.”

She chewed on her lip for a few seconds, and he had to admit this wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured a declaration of love. He’d assumed confessions of that nature usually got sealed with a kiss, sex, anything but staring at each other, floundering already.

“I need you to do me the biggest favor,” Dinah said, though her voice was barely louder than a whisper. But she was earnest, fierce. “I need you to hear me out, listen to mywholestory without . . . walking away.”

“That sounds bad.”

“It isn’t good, but we can figure it out.” He recognized the look on her face, the determined glint in her eye. Recognized the way she made a decision and then held on to it with everything she had in her.

He loved that about her, that fierceness and dedication and certainty, but it also concerned him, because he wasn’t always so sure that fiercenesswascertainty. Sometimes it seemed she went after things simply because she had it in her head that it was the only way—not because it wasactuallythe only way.

“We’ve figured it out so far,” she continued. “You said it yourself, you keep working at it until it fits or gels or something.”

But Carter knew what it looked like when love came with impossible strings and impossible dilemmas, and shouldn’t he have known better with a Gallagher?

But she’d saidI love you. They’d said it to each other. Surely this thing couldn’t be so bad.

“My grandmother gave me an ultimatum.”

Or maybe it could.