He shakes his head and brings it closer to mine to lower his lips to my forehead. “I can see that you’re not.”

“I’m just…”

Confused.

Lost.

I don’t know how to describe it without hurting him, without destroying the few moments of peace we have managed to find in each other’s arms, without ruining everything—our friendship, the future I have on the mountain with Davey and this baby, a potential for one with Dalton.

God, is that what I’ve done?

Did I ruin everything?

The tears start to burn in my eyes, and he pulls his head back from mine and brushes them away the moment they trickle down my cheek. “Why are you crying?”

“I just feel like maybe…”

I close my eyes again, unable to look at him when my mind is such a dark spiral of uncertainty. He’s so strong. So confident in what he wants.

Why can’t I be that?

“Maybe what, Camille?”

God, this shouldn’t be so hard.

I force my eyes open to meet his again, and understanding lies in their depths without me even saying anything.

He gives me a soft smile, one that’s as kind and genuine as he has always been, and then leans forward and presses his lips against mine so gently it almost makes the tears come harder. “It’s okay for you to love him and want this at the same time, Camille. The two things are not mutually exclusive.”

My heart seizes with his words.

How did he know?

Because he’s Dalton.

Because he always seems to just understand what I need to hear.

He seems to just understandme.

It’s one of the reasons we’ve ended up like this, because things are justeasywith him. They have been since the minute he walked onto the property and I aimed that gun at him.

It shouldn’t have been, not with the way I attempted to ice him out, how I tried to decline his assistance, my vain struggle to keep him at arm’s length. Yet, slowly but surely, he managed to work his way under my skin and into my heart.

With how he loves Pops.

With how much he loves this mountain and the people on it and in the town below.

With how he loves Davey andme.

He dips his head to catch my gaze again. “Okay?”

One sandy-blond brow rises, and I nod, then bury my face against his chest. He tunnels his hand in my hair and holds me there, rubbing his other palm up and down my bare spine in a soothing motion that sends goosebumps skittering across my skin and makes me shiver in the best way possible.

His touch disappears for just long enough for him to reach down and grab the nearest edge of the sheet and tug it up over us. Then he presses a kiss to the top of my head and resumes the trickling fingers. “Are you cold?”

I shake my head. “No.” The heat of his body could keep me warm forever. And I want that more than anything right now. I lift my head to search his face for any sort of reservation I’ve been fearing. “Dalton?”

“What?”