Page 36 of Christmas With My Mountain Man Landlord
Downstairs, the house is quiet, bathed in afternoon sunlight. I'm halfway to the kitchen when I hear the key in the lock. My heart leaps into my throat as the door opens.
Tom stands in the entryway, removing his jacket with mechanical movements. He's home hours earlier than usual, his presence catching me completely unprepared. When he looks upand sees me frozen on the stairs, something flickers across his face. Relief? Hope? It's gone before I can be sure.
"You're early," I say, the first words I've spoken to him in three days.
"Didn’t go in today. Was with Savannah." His voice is rough from disuse, or perhaps emotion. "Christmas dinner planning. Got done sooner than expected."
We stand in awkward silence, the distance between us more than just physical. He looks exhausted, shadows beneath his eyes suggesting he's slept as poorly as I have. There's a flatness to his gaze that wasn't there before, as if the life has been dimmed.
"I was about to start dinner," I offer, clutching my laptop like a shield.
His eyes drop to the laptop, curiosity momentarily replacing fatigue. "Writing going well?"
"I finished it." Pride colors my voice despite everything. "The whole book. Just today."
"Congratulations." His smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. "That's impressive."
Another silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken words. This isn't how I planned our reconciliation, caught off guard in the middle of the afternoon with no script prepared. But maybe that's better. No rehearsal, just honesty.
"I wanted to read you something," I say before I can lose my nerve. "From the book. The ending, specifically."
He looks genuinely surprised. "You want to read it to me?"
"If that's okay." I shift the laptop in my arms, navigating to the manuscript. "It won't take long."
He nods, gesturing toward the living room. We settle on opposite ends of the couch, the distance between us a physical manifestation of the past three days. I open the folder with trembling fingers, finding the pages I marked earlier.
"This is from the last chapter," I explain, unable to meet his eyes. "My protagonist is explaining to the hero why she's decided to stay in town rather than return to the city."
I clear my throat, focusing on the words I've written rather than the man watching me with such careful attention.
“I came here looking for silence,”she told him, watching snowflakes gather on the windowsill. “Space to hear my own thoughts again. To remember who I was before my words belonged to someone else”.
I sneak a glance at Tom.His expression is unreadable, but he's leaning forward slightly, listening intently.
"Instead,I found you. A man who listens more carefully than anyone I've ever known. Who sees me more clearly than I sometimes see myself. Who makes me feel both completely safe and wildly alive."
My voice wavers slightly,the line between fiction and reality blurring as I continue.
"I came lookingfor my voice, and you helped me find it. Not by telling me what to say or how to say it. But by creating a space where I felt brave enough to try."
Tom's expression softens,something vulnerable emerging in his eyes. I press on, determined to finish what I've started.
"I don't knowwhat happens next,” she admitted. “I don't know if loving you is wise or foolish or somewhere in between. But I know that returning to a life where you don't exist feels impossible now. So I'm staying. Not for you, though you're certainly part of it. I'm staying for me. Because I like who I am when I'm here. When I'm with you. Because for the first time in years, I'm not afraid of what comes next. I'm excited to find out."
I close the laptop,finally meeting his gaze directly. "That's how my book ends. With a choice to stay. To try. To be brave enough to risk pain for the chance at something real."
Tom is perfectly still, his eyes never leaving mine. "Is that how you feel?"
"Yes." The simple truth fills the space between us. "These three days have been... clarifying. I missed you every minute."
"I missed you too," he admits, voice rough with emotion. "More than I thought possible."
"I asked for space because I needed to know if what I was feeling was real," I explain. "If it was just the intensity of physical attraction or something more."
"And?" His question is barely above a whisper.
"It's real, Tom. The most real thing I've felt in years." I set the laptop aside, gathering courage. "I've fallen in love with you. And that both terrifies and thrills me."
