Page 10 of Sugar-Shacked with the Mountain Man
"Yeah," he agrees. "It was."
"Kane?"
"Mmm?"
"I'm falling for you." The admission slips out before I can stop it. "I know it's crazy, but I am."
He lifts his head to look at me, his green eyes serious. "Sophie..."
"You don't have to say anything. I just needed you to know."
"I'm falling too," he says quietly. "So hard it terrifies me."
"Really?"
"Really. Which is why we need to talk about what happens when this storm ends."
Reality creeps back in, cold and unwelcome. The Morrison deal. My job. Mom's medical bills. The impossible choice I'm going to have to make.
"Can we not think about that right now?" I ask, pressing closer to his warmth. "Can we just have this moment?"
He tightens his arms around me. "For now. But Sophie, eventually we're going to have to face the fact that you're here to take away everything I love."
"I know," I whisper, but I don't tell him the whole truth—that I'm starting to think he might be everything I love too.
four
Kane
IwakeupwithSophie in my arms. The storm is still raging outside, but in here, everything feels perfect.
Which is exactly the problem.
In a few days, the snow will stop, the roads will clear, and Sophie will go back to her corporate life. She'll present whatever offer Morrison has authorized, and I'll have to choose between financial security and everything my family built over five generations.
Except now there's a third factor I never anticipated: the woman sleeping peacefully against my chest, who's managed to turn my entire world upside down in less than forty-eight hours.
"You're thinking too loud," Sophie murmurs without opening her eyes.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."
She lifts her head, brown eyes soft with sleep. "What time is it?"
"Early. Sun's not even up yet."
"Good. I wasn't ready to face reality anyway." She traces patterns on my skin. "Kane? Last night... it wasn't just physical for me."
I tighten my arms around her. "For me either."
"I know this complicates everything."
"Understatement of the century." I press a kiss to her head. "Sophie, there's something I need to tell you about the farm."
She goes still. "What?"
"It's not just family sentiment keeping me from selling. The operation is in trouble. Has been for the past two years."
"What kind of trouble?"
