Page 15 of Stone Cold Mountain Man
“So, this is him,” her father says, disdain curling every word.
Her mother folds her arms. “It’s clear now why you want to throw your life away, Taylor.”
Taylor’s jaw tightens, anger and hurt warring in her eyes. She opens her mouth to defend herself, but I step forward before she has to.
“You don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about,” I say, voice low and firm.
Both of them turn their scorn on me, but I don’t flinch. There are many reasons to be afraid on this mountain, butThurstonandLovelyaren’t one of them.
“Taylor is the strongest, kindest, most incredible person I’ve ever met. She set out for an unknown place, on her own, and she didn’t just survive—she made it hers. She brought her sunshine with her, and this mountain’s better for it. I’m better for it.”
Taylor’s eyes glisten, but I don’t stop.
“You come up here thinking you can tear her down, make her feel small. But I’ll be damned if I stand here and let you.”
The clearing is silent except for the wind whistling through the trees. Her parents look at me like I’ve grown two heads, mouths opening and closing without a comeback.
Taylor steps closer, her hand brushing mine, her voice steady, before she turns back to her parents. “You need to leave.”
Her mother gasps like she’s been slapped. Her father mutters something under his breath, then storms toward the SUV. They climb in, slam the doors, and drive off, tires spitting slush and gravel in its wake.
The second they’re gone, Taylor collapses against me. I wrap my arms around her, holding her tight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers into my chest. “You shouldn’t have had to—”
I tip her chin up. “I tried to come up with the perfect way to tell you how I feel. Yelling at your parents wasn’t part of the plan.”
She laughs, watery but real. “It was perfect.”
I cup her face, my thumb brushing her cheek. “You are perfect. I love you, Taylor. I didn’t know I could feel this way, but I do. I don’t ever want to live a day without you in it.”
Her smile is radiant, brighter than any sunbeam slipping through the trees. “I love you too, Wade.”
The words hit me like a hammer and a balm all at once—heavy with truth, soothing every crack I didn’t realize was there. For too long I told myself that I wanted the solitude in my life, but it’s at this moment that I realize that I’d just been afraid of not finding someone I could be myself with. I built a stone-cold wall around my heart to protect myself. But this loud and loving beauty in front of me came in like a wrecking ball and tore it all down.
I lower my mouth to hers, and the kiss is everything—soft, fierce, a promise sealed between us.
The mountain around us doesn’t change. The pines still sway, the snow still falls in slow, quiet flakes.
But me?
My world tilts and locks into place.
For the first time, it truly feels like home.
EPILOGUE
Taylor
Spring has finally made it up the mountain.
The last patches of snow cling stubbornly in the shadows, but most of the world around Cedar Ridge is green again. Buds speckle the aspens, birds sing in the pines, and the air smells of wet earth and sunshine.
I made it through my first winter.
Every blizzard, every shovel-full of snow, every night the wind howled against the cabin walls—I survived all of it, and somewhere along the way I stopped surviving and started belonging.
I step onto the porch with two sweating glasses of lemonade, sunlight warming the boards beneath my bare feet. Down in the drive, Wade is bent over the open hood of his truck, sleeves shoved up, dark hair falling into his eyes. Even from here I can hear him humming under his breath—a thing I never expected from a man who used to speak in full sentences only when pressed.
