Page 134 of The Mating Game
“Hunter,” she says.
I swallow. “Yeah?”
“I love you too.”
I feel relief course through me, like all the adrenaline is leaving my system in one fell swoop. I breathe a little easier, stand a little taller, because the woman who holds my entire universe in her tiny little Fixit handslovesme.
“You do?”
“If you weren’t here right now, I’d have been back in Denver by tomorrow.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not even a little.”
“You mean I didn’t have to fly?”
“It’s so romantic that you did though. I still can’t believe you’re here. In California.” She looks me up and down. “Wearingthat.”
“I don’t exactly have beachwear.” I grin down at her, feeling lighter than I have in years. “You really would have come back?”
“I was literally coming to the decision when you knocked on the door,” she tells me. “You see, someone a lot smarter than me told me that it’s the things wedon’tsay that haunt us forever, and I realized…I didn’t go to Colorado looking for anything. But I showed up, and suddenly my whole world was turned upside down. I had just lost my sense of self when I arrived at your…dingy little lodge,” she says with a laugh. She reaches up to cup my cheeks. “But then there you were…This surly, stubborn, taciturn giant who frowned like it was his job. There was nothing at all that could have hinted you would turn out to be everything I didn’t know I wanted.You’re kind and steadfast, and you think about everyone else around you even when you pretend that you don’t.”
Her thumb strokes at my beard, and I cover her hand with mine.
“I’ve spent my whole life taking care of other people, so I know exactly what it looks like to put everyone else’s needs before yours. But with you…for the first time in a long time…I saw what it looked like to let someone take care ofmefor a change. And I didn’t realize how badly I needed that. I had no idea how desperate I was for someone to take the reins so I couldbreatheuntil I met you.” Her smile reaches her eyes, which look slightly wet now. “You see…I wasn’t looking for anything when I came to you, but Ifoundyou just the same. And as it turns out…you’re everything I never knew I needed.”
“Tess…”
“So ofcourseI was going to come back to you. I was going to march up to that lodge and make sure youknewthat you were stuck with me now. That for as long as you’d let me, I was going to take care of you right back.”
I feel a lump forming in my throat that is increasingly hard to swallow past, all of it feeling too good to be true, like at any moment I’ll wake up and realize it’s all been a dream. With that in mind, I lower my mouth to hers, kissing at her lips softly as I revel in her scent and taste, committing them to memory.
“I do want to take care of you,” I murmur. “Whatever that looks like. Forever.”
She giggles prettily, rising on her toes to let me sweep her up in my arms. I lift her from the ground and spin her as exhilaration fills me because I never could have anticipated this. Not in a thousand years. I never could have known upon meeting this tiny, fierywoman that she would be everything to me. That she would reach into me where all the cracks still reside, slipping past them and making herself at home to heal them from the inside out.
Because I can feel it. That this is what she’s doing. Healing me.
And I can feel that it’s only the beginning.
I’m kissing her furiously now, wrapped up in her soft scent and her warm mouth, so I don’t hear it at first—the quietAhemfrom the doorway.
I jerk up to see a man only a few inches shorter than me, graying at the temples, with eyes that are big and brown and very familiar.
“Dad,” Tess says sheepishly. “This is—”
“Hunter Barrett,” I say stiltedly, thrusting out my hand even as I keep one arm wrapped around her.
I can’t seem to let go of her now that I have her.
“Neil Covington,” Tess’s dad says, reaching to shake my hand. “I’ve heard a bit about you.”
I cock an eyebrow down at Tess. “Have you?”
“Oh,” Neil laughs. “Just a bit.”
I clear my throat, putting a minimal bit of distance between Tess and me, feeling my neck heat as I realize what all her father must have just seen.
