Page 59 of Blindly Yours

“No. You wouldn’t.”

I furrow my brow. “So, you have a place up at the lake, too?”

“Yep.”

Immediately, I picture Malcolm’s parents’ large estate with the wraparound deck and an elegant, rustic staircase leading down to the water. “What’s it like?”

“It’s a seven-hundred-and-fifty-square-foot cabin,” he says. “I don’t need more. I can’taffordmore.” He looks away from me, out his own window. “But Kara loves it.”

I turn my gaze to my lap. “So, you didn’t lie.”

“I didn’t lie to you about anything, Rose,” he says quietly.

I pick at the edge of my skirt, feeling torn.

“Did you lie to me?” he asks.

Out the windshield, I see my half-buried car come into view. “No.”

As he pulls up behind it, he sighs and rests his hands on the steering wheel for a long moment, but he doesn’t look at me. I think he might sit back and tell me more, but he unbuckles his seatbelt. “This’ll take me a while. You can stay here in the truck.”

I start to offer to help, but we both know I’d probably make things worse, and he’s already slammed the door before I can finish. So, I wait patiently and watch him begin to shovel.

While he works, I focus on the beaded bracelet hanging from his rear-view mirror. Kara probably made it. It’s obvious he absolutely adores her. I loved watching them together this weekend, and maybe that was the glimpse I needed in order to realize this man is the same one I’ve been talking with online. Is there really someone sweet living behind that grumpy exterior? Would he show me that too? Would he even want to? When he was BigSpoon, he made me feel like I could tell him anything. And when I did, he said all the right things. They seemed true. And apparently, they were.

A part of me wonders what would happen if I gave us a chance.

My mom would try to talk me out of it. That’s what would happen. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she knows how miserable I would be if I tried to live in his world.

And if I go for it, my relationship with her would struggle even more. I might even lose my chance at AWP.

Could I risk that?

I’m not sure. This is all too much, too fast.

It takes twenty minutes for Nate to clear the snow around my car, but when he’s finished, he takes off his gloves and grabs my bags from the back.

I open my door and gingerly step out to cross over to my car. He’s not only cleared the snow around it but he’s also scraped the windshield and windows for me. It’s a chore I haven’t asked of him. But he did it anyway.

Would grumpy Nate do that?

Maybe.

Would BigSpoon?

Definitely.

I open the door, but I don’t get in yet. He stores my bags in my trunk and then comes to stand a few paces away.

“You should be good to go,” he says simply, shoving his hands into his pockets.

I press my lips together and look up into his blue eyes. They’re so clear they reflect the bright white around us. Bits of snow cling to his short beard and his cheeks show just a touch of pink from the cold.

Internally, I groan. He no longer resembles my annoying ceiling repairman. Why do I want to reach up and brush the snow from his beard just to see how soft it is?

I clasp my hands together so I don’t, and then I take a deep breath. “I hate this.”

“What?” he asks, holding my gaze so intently I have to look away.

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