Page 147 of How to Walk Away

“Oh, you know. Just general tourism. Visit Loch Ness. See a few kilts.”

Ian smiled a little. There it was.

It was so strange, looking back, to feel on that crowded boat like there was nobody else around. The sound of the motor disappeared, and so did everyone around us, and so did the past and the future.

“Back when we met,” Ian said, “I was supposed to be helping you—but it was really you who helped me. The way you teased me—the way you called out my bitterness—the way you surprised me over and over and showed me the world from different angles. It made me better to be around you. You made me laugh—probably more in those weeks we spent together than in my whole life beforehand. You taught me about goofiness. You showed me a different way to be in the world. You brought out some warmer, more hopeful part of my soul. Then, after I left, I had to go cold again.”

He went on. “I moved home to the gray skies, and I took a job I didn’t like. I didn’t even try to look for something better, because all I could do was count the weeks until I could get back to you. I made a pact with myself to give you a year—but I almost broke it a hundred different times. My only exception was if you started seeing somebody else. Then I was allowed to go to Texas and fight for you.”

I gave him a look like he was crazy. “Seeing somebody? Like who?”

“I think that carpenter working on the camp lodge has a thing for you.”

“He does not.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if the architect did, too. He’s a bit too enthusiastic.”

“That is bananas.”

“And of course I keep expecting Chip to crawl back begging any minute.”

“Unlikely. Since he’s married now.”

“Short of that, I had to wait a year.”

“For my sake.”

Ian nodded. “So you could get back on your feet.”

I let out a long breath. “Not literally, though. Because it’s not looking like that’s going to happen.”

Ian nodded. “Maybe not, but you’ve done great. I’ve been cheering you from afar.”

Something about not just what Ian was saying but the way he was saying it—so intense, so unflinching—had me practically hypnotized.

“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” he asked then.

Did I? I could barely think. “Are you saying you’re glad I’m better?”

He shook his head, like,Not quite it.

“Are you saying it’s been a tough year for you, too?”

Not it, either.

I shrugged. “You’re going to have to tell me.”

He’d been resting back on his heels a bit, but now he rose up on his knees and edged forward, leaning in close.

“I think about you all the time, Maggie Jacobsen. I can hardly sleep for missing you. I ache to see you and be near you. I love you with a longing that I can barely contain, and I fear it’s going to drown me.”

Those eyes again.

Maybe I should have leaned in to kiss him then, but I found I couldn’t move. It seemed impossible that I could want something so badly—and also get it. I’d been holding back for so long, I didn’t know how to let go.

Until he brought his hand up to the back of my neck and pulled my mouth to his.

Because at the kiss, I came to life again.

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