Page 84 of Positively, Penelope

“Except you.” She grinned, giving his arm a little squeeze with her own. “You’re my closest friend I have in Skymar.”

He stopped again, searching her face. “Am I?”

The admission pooled through her with welcome warmth. Despite his being older, and certainly wiser, and having a daughter, she valued his friendship more than anyone else’s here. He just fit in her heart so well. “You sound so surprised.”

He tipped his head as if in thought and then continued their walk, his smile gentle. “Honored, more like.”

Something inside her bent, shuddered, and then expanded as if welcoming in a feeling so big that it needed more space to reside.

She searched his face as if he would explain it to her, but his tender expression only confused her even more. What was happening? She blinked her attention back to the path up ahead, but her mind raced with an impossible notion. Was she falling in love with Matthias Gray? Friendship took on a very different definition: deeper, sweeter, and topped with a few delicious tingles.

“We’re here!” called Iris with a giggle—a sound as at home among the forest as the other woodland noises. “We’re here!”

And whatever spell Matthias Gray had cast on her heart released as she turned to the little girl. “Are we?”

“Come, we’ll show you,” Matthias said, taking the lead in tugging their linked arms forward.

They followed Iris through a last veil of trees and the forest fell away to reveal the most magnificent waterfall she’d ever seen. Itplunged over the cliff and across a deep gorge from the field in which they stood, so high a few birds even flew below the waterfall’s origin spot. Maybe Penelope had stepped into a storybook!

“Vandermeer.”

She looked from Matthias to the falls and back.

Everything felt too big to take in. The view, the possible mole, this realization about her feelings for Matthias. But as the latter idea sank deeper into her heart, she embraced it.

She wouldn’t have noticed him a year ago in her world of busyness and college fun. Not with her silly list of what she thought she wanted, but the truth in her heart began to form more clearly in her head. She’d been so focused on some crazy definition of a leading man that she’d forgotten some of the best characters played the secondary roles. And sometimes, they should’ve been in the spotlight all along.

Her heart squeezed against the thought. She couldn’t fall in love with Matthias Gray, could she? He was six years older than her. There was no war. And she was returning home in less than two months.

Chapter17

A perfect day.

That’s how Matt would describe this particular Tuesday of his life.

He’d had a few before, but not in a long time, so the presence of this one glowed a bit brighter than the ones before. But that’s how life seemed to work. By comparisons. Seeing the good more clearly and with more gratitude when placing it next to more shadowy memories. Or in this case, setting one relationship next to another.

This hopeful, intelligent, and lovely woman riding beside him toward home shone a clearer light into how broken his relationship with Deirdre had been. How one-sided. How much he’d changed to suit her demands or whims. How he’d come to dread entering the house at the end of the day to one of her tirades or criticisms. Nothing ever seemed good or right or... happy.

But spending time with Penelope was wholly different and... beautiful.

Penelope never seemed jealous of Iris’s presence but instead pulled his daughter into conversations without a hint of exasperation. She painted the world with melodies and joy—he couldn’t help but grin—as much a real-life fairy-tale heroine as anyone he’d ever known. Her arm had slipped through his with such familiarity, as if she’d always belonged beside him. Her laugh came quickly and often, and he hadn’t realized how much he craved someone looking at him the way she did. Like he wasn’t a second choice or a failure but... important to her. Her friend? Yes, and his heart wanted even more. The impossible more.

How strange a turn of life.

He’d never have expected to be drawn to her, and yet it was almost as though she matched him like no one else. And as he’d looked down into her lovely face after she’d called him her friend, he wondered for the first time whether her heart felt the same draw. A flicker of something in her eyes. A change in the way she’d touched his arm or the way her gaze lingered in his.

His chest deflated. But how? How could it work? He lived here. Iris’s life and family were here. And clearly, Penelope longed for home. But Iris came alive under Penelope’s care. So did he.

Was he a fool to pursue something that could very well break both their hearts?

“You never know,” came Penelope’s voice in the car as she spoke to Iris about the possibilities of performing as a princess in a musical one day. “The biggest dreams are the ones that take the most risk, but they’re worth it, Iris. You may just have to make it through the hard things first.”

So he took those words to heart.Risk.Worth. The two words went hand in hand. He would never do anything to hurt his daughter, but what if loving Penelope meant the best for all three of them? Could that be true?

He pulled the car up to the cottage.

“This has been the very best day. I just don’t want it to end.” Penelope smiled over at him, the green of her blouse bringing out the same color in her eyes. “Would you and Iris like to come in for dinner? I make homemade pizza for my birthday every year and, well”—her teeth skimmed over her bottom lip—“I’d love for you to join me in the making and the eating.”

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