Page 8 of After the Mountain Man

Oh, hello tears. Yes, thank you so much for showing up. That helps a lot.

“I never told you the real reason I called off our engagement,” I say, somehow, schooling the tears stinging the backs of my eyes.

“Yeah, you did,” Bennett asserts.

‘I was born in Idaho, Benny. Grew up here. And now we’re doing all of this…planning, and it’s exciting, but it also feels…limiting. Just staying put. I guess what I’m trying to say is I need… I need…’

‘Adventure,’ Bennett finished the thought.

But he was the adventure. We were the adventure. Everything else I said to him was bullshit.

I nodded, anyway.

I went with the lie that was easier to say out loud than the truth.

“I can’t have children, Ben,” I tell him now. My voice is calm and the words come out steady but the tears I’ve tried holding at bay come falling out. When my cycles were all out of whack the doctors had ordered a blood test that showed I was never actually ovulating. Alarmed, they performed more tests after that. Without taking extreme measures it wasn’t likely that I could ever get pregnant, and I knew in my heart, it wasn’t going to happen.

Tears pouring down my cheeks now, Bennett doesn’t say anything, he just takes me into his arms.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he eventually whispers soothingly, stroking my back. I breathe him in at the base of his neck, the familiar scent and his warm, masculine voice calming me down. Why didn’t you tell me? I expect him to say. Why the fuck keep something like that from me?

And then I remember, he isn’t Maverick. He isn’t anybody else. He’s Benny. My Benny.

He’s the man that says instead, in a moment like this, when it’s all I need to hear and I need to hear it more than anything in the world right now, “I never stopped loving you.”

I look up at him. I find a way to smile. “We lost so much time,” I whisper.

His expression changes, subtly. His tone shifts. Eyes darkening like the midnight sky, complete with shiny bright sparkles of light.

“In this life, we get to decide what’s ours. And you are mine,” the words are a soft, yet roiling growl, “You’re mine, Kinsley.”

My breath leaves me in a rush as he draws me in closer. Harder. Into his chest. Possessive and protective and absolutely loving in equal measures.

This man. Gosh. What did I ever do to deserve him? Not once, but again. I could cry harder or kiss him. I shackle the back of his strong neck with my hands, lifting myself up against him.

“Kiss me. Kiss me, Benny.”

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