Lexi broke off, realizing she missed far more than Gunnar. “It’s just…different, Kate. It’s not just about a man. It’s about a life.”
“A life you think you’d like to have?” Katie’s voice was impossibly quiet.
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “But I think I might have liked a little more time to figure that out.”
—
The next morning, Lexi was back at work, but so tired she was moving on autopilot. The standard collection of kindergarteners had already been through, needing reassurance and magic tummy water, and now she was settled at her tiny desk making out a schedule for vision screenings.
The oblong window in her office looked out on a little courtyard garden that she’d always found kind of charming, but this morning, it felt claustrophobic. She missed her west-facing windows. She missed the mountain breezes. She missed the mountains themselves.
She took a shaky breath. Dammit. She missed Gunnar.
There was a knock on her door, and she looked up, feeling her eyebrows pull together. Nobody knocked on her door. They just came in. Then the door opened just wide enough for a to-go cup of coffee to come through, and she laughed.
“Very funny, Steph. You can come in. I won’t bite.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
Lexi dropped her pen at the sound of the voice—which wasn’t Steph’s voice at all.
It couldn’t be. It wasn’t. There was no way.
And then he stepped through the door, and she was pretty sure her heart flew right out of her throat and leaped across the room to meet him.
“Gunnar?”
“Oh, good. You remember my name.” He grinned, then braced himself as she jumped up from her desk and into his arms.
“Oh, my God. I can’t believe you’re here! Why are you here?” She pulled back, but didn’t let go. She couldn’t. He was here. In the flesh. Looking so good-God-gorgeous that she couldn’t believe she’d ever been able to let him go before.
“Why do you think I’m here, cowgirl?” He reached out for her, pulled her back to him. “I miss the hell out of you, Lex. I didn’t plan to, and—I’ll tell you what—I didn’t want to, but that’s what happened.”
“Oh,” she said, because her thoughts were spinning so quickly in her head that she couldn’t actually form more than that word.
He laughed. “Now, there’s the Lex I remember.” He looked around. “Any chance I could steal you away for a cup of coffee? Do schools work that way? Can you leave?”
“No. Yes. I mean—yes. Hold on.”
Leaving him standing in her office, with that half-smile she adored on his face, she opened the door that adjoined the front office. As soon as she closed it behind her, the school secretary leaped up from her chair and did a silent mini-squeal.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“That”—Lexi felt a huge grin take over her face—“that’s Gunnar. We met in Montana.”
“Holy cannoli,” Bridget said, fanning her face. “Can I book a vacation at that ranch next summer? Why’s he here?” She peered over Lexi’s shoulder, obviously trying to catch a glimpse of Gunnar through the window. “Did you know he was coming?”
“No. Total surprise.”
“Well, don’t you have all the luck?”
“Not usually.” Lexi smiled as she reached for the log on Bridget’s desk, signing her name and the current time. “But today, yes. I’m going to head out, okay? I’ll keep my cell on if there’s an emergency, but I’ve already handled the frequent fliers this morning. I think we’re all set till recess.”
“If you don’t come back, should I assume you’ve eloped with Mr. sexy cowboy in there?”
“Absolutely. Yes.”
“All the luck,” Bridget muttered, but it was good-natured. “Have fun. And see if he has any brothers!”
Lexi headed back into her office, finding Gunnar studying a print she’d recently framed for her wall.
He turned. “You drew this?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “You might recognize the place.”
“If I didn’t know better, I might—looking at this sketch—think somebody here misses Montana.”
Lexi grabbed her keys and motioned him toward the door. “Somebody here misses a lot more than Montana, Gunnar Steele.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were seated at a little café in town, with laminated menus in front of them. Lexi was trying to sit still, but her entire body felt like someone had strapped live wires to her limbs.
He was here! Here, in Maine! To see her!
She was afraid to ask how long he’d be here—afraid to think about anything but the absolute present moment, because in that moment, she could suspend reality and pretend they were just a normal couple having a quick cup of coffee before heading back to their respective jobs.
Oh, who was she kidding? She had to know.
“So, how long will you be here?”
He looked up from his menu. “Not long enough. The only flight I could get back leaves tonight.”
“Tonight?” She looked down, devastated. She’d waited forever, thought maybe she’d never see him again at all, and now that he was here, he had only hours before he had to be back on a plane?
“I know. And believe me, when I saw the flight choices, I almost decided it wasn’t meant to be. I thought it’d be more torturous to be here for the afternoon than to not come at all.” He sighed, sliding his hand over hers on the table. “But I couldn’t not come.”
Lexi picked at the corner of her menu with her free hand, struggling to keep a smile on her face even while she was dying inside. To get a taste of him like this, and then have to say goodbye again, would be sheer, utter torture.
But seriously? She should be happy he was here at all. He’d come! He’d gotten on a plane this morning and traveled across the country to see her. It had to mean something.
“I’m glad you came. I hate that you have to go back. Do you have to go back?” She looked out the plate-glass window. “What if I disable your rental car or something? Make it so you can’t get back to the airport?”
He smiled. “It’s a thought. And I have to admit, I’m relieved you’re not sending me back to Logan right now.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Well?” He shrugged slowly. “I know things are completely crazy here, and you’ve got way more on your plate than any woman should have, but I guess”—he took a deep breath—“I guess I’m kind of flying in a little blind here.”
Lexi blinked, tipping her head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when I stepped off that plane an hour ago, I didn’t really know whether you’d be happy to see me.”
“What?”
He laughed. “Well, that’s a reassuring response.”
“How could you possibly think I wouldn’t be happy to see you?”
“Well, we haven’t exactly connected very well over the past few weeks. I’d started to convince myself that you were pulling back, deciding you just didn’t have time—rightly so—to pursue a relationship that never actually got off the ground, anyway.”
“Um, no.” She shook her head slowly. “That’s not—no. You are so unbelievably, terribly wrong.”
“Really?”
“Really. I have been dying here, thinking you had come to the same conclusions.”
He smiled, squeezing her hand. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that.”
“Well, you have no idea how happy it makes me that you got on that plane this morning, even if you do only have a few hours here.” Lexi felt tiny tears spring to her eyes, and she hated that she couldn’t blink them back before he saw them.
“Aw, Lex. Sweetheart.” He took both of her hands in his. “Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it. I’m sorry.” She blinked hard. “I’m trying not to, but you’re here. All I’ve wanted for the past month is for you to be…here. With me. And now you are, but you’ll have to leave, and it’ll be worse than it
was, and—oh, hell. Listen to me.”
She pulled back one hand, reaching for her napkin to wipe her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He studied her for a long moment, then pulled his hands back. “Stay right here. I need to get something from the car.”
He slid out from the booth and headed for the door, and Lexi couldn’t help but notice that every female in the café—married, elderly, or otherwise—locked their eyes onto him as he passed. He was just that magnetic, dammit.
Two minutes later, he was back, carrying a folder that he set carefully on the table as he slid back into his seat.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s…a plan.”
“What kind of a plan?”
He tapped on the folder, looking far away for a moment, like he was trying to decide if he should really open it. Then he met her eyes, and his smile was warm, affectionate, oh-so-beautiful.
“I’m calling it Lexi 3.0.”
Chapter 24
“What?” She sputtered, putting down her coffee cup.
“Well, the way I see it, you’ve got a Lexi 1.0 and 2.0 already, and neither of those are quite working out, so I—I designed a new version.”
“You des—what?” Lexi couldn’t help but smile.
“Hear me out.”
She made a lip-locking motion. “I’m all ears.”
He took a deep breath, opening the folder, where she could see a pile of papers and—were those architectural sketches?
“So Lexi 1.0 is almost perfect, in my opinion. She’s smart, she’s sweet, she’s generous, and she’s sexy as hell. She makes me laugh, she makes me crazy, and…she makes me scared.”
“Scared?” Lexi’s voice was quiet among the clanking plates and glasses of the diner.
“Yeah, scared. Out of my wits, actually.” He nodded. “Because completely against my will, and against any sense of logic, I apparently fell in love with her.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
He smiled, like he knew that was her standard response now. Then he put up a finger. “But Lexi 2.0 turned into a problem.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yep. She came in, all bluster and hope and misplaced trust, and she tried to bury Lexi 1.0 on her way to becoming some woman she didn’t really know how to be—some woman she never needed to be.”
Lexi nodded slowly, sadly. Yeah. That’d been her.
“So.” He spread out the papers. “Upon close examination, I believe the right path here is to discard Lexi 2.0 and embrace Lexi 1.0, because with a couple of alterations, I’m pretty sure she’d be perfect.”
Lexi tipped her head. “Against my better judgment, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt on where you’re going here. What sorts of—alterations—are we talking about?”
He raised his eyebrows as he shuffled through the papers. “I’m so glad you asked. Exhibit A.”
Lexi took the page he handed her. It was a job description for a Whisper Creek Ranch nurse, and it looked like Ma or Kyla had posted it just last week.
“Oh. So…they’re looking at having somebody there year-round?” Lexi felt a little stab in her gut at the thought of someone else coming into her adorable little medical office at the ranch, changing things around, looking out her gorgeous window, seeing…her gorgeous Gunnar.
“Yep.” He didn’t say anything else—just smiled.
“Are they getting a lot of applicants? Because I can imagine—you know—one look at the website, and they’ll be applying from all over the universe.”
“It’s not posted yet, actually. I was asked to deliver it to their favorite candidate.”
Lexi smiled sadly, setting it down. “That’s really sweet. It is.”
“But you can’t. I know.” He sighed. “Therein, I present Exhibit B.” He handed her another piece of paper, this one an architectural drawing.
She could see bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, two kitchens, two garages. Weird. Were they going to start building condos at Whisper Creek? She cringed, picturing ugly structures dotting the stunning hillsides. Why would they do such a thing?
“Gunnar, what is this?”
“Well, right now it’s just a plan. But by Christmas, it’s going to be a home. You remember Roscoe, right?”
“Of course.” Lexi thought back to the retired trooper they’d tried to outrun on her first day in Montana.
“He can’t be alone anymore, really, and his wife is exhausted, trying to care for him. Jenny’s been looking at places he might be able to live, and they’re either too far away, or crazy-expensive. She’s running the bakery, so she can’t be there 24/7, of course. So…Ma and Decker came up with a plan. They’re going to build this cabin beside the main lodge, and Roscoe and his wife will move there instead. That way, they’ll be at the ranch, where it’s active, and where there are plenty of people around to help look out for them.”
“Wow.” Lexi felt her eyes widen. “That’s really generous of the Driscolls.”
Gunnar shrugged. “It’s just how they are. You know them.” Then he pointed to the drawing. “So they’re going to live in this side.”
“And let me guess—the new ranch nurse gets the other side? So she can help take care of Roscoe?”
“No, actually, though that’s not a bad idea.”
“So who gets the other side?”
Gunnar sat back, silent for a long moment, like he wasn’t at all sure he should say anything more. Then he blew out a breath and sat forward again, elbows on the table.
“We’re wondering…if maybe you’d consider bringing your mother to Whisper Creek.”
Lexi felt her breath catch in her throat, just as she dropped her coffee cup, catching it at the last second, before it splashed hot coffee into her lap.
“My—what? Bring my mother—what?” She couldn’t process what he was saying.
He reached out for her hands. “Lexi, if you think this sounds crazy, you might be right…but this isn’t just a plan made by a lovesick bachelor whose true love abandoned him to go care for a mother who really, really needs her.”
Lexi tried to take in his words, put them in logical order, and make sense of them. Lovesick? True love? Bring your mother?
“I don’t—I’m not sure—I can’t…think.”
“I’m sorry to spring this on you, and believe me, if I could have thought of a more graceful way to do it, I would have.” He pressed his lips together. “But I’m short on time, and here’s the thing. I told you I miss you, but those words? They don’t even begin to describe it. Lex, my heart feels like—like you took it with you, dammit. I’ve got everything I dreamed of out there—horses, land, a family—but since you left, it’s like somebody turned off the color. I’m wandering around a black-and-white picture book, looking for…you. Everywhere I turn, every time I wake up, every night when I go to sleep. You’re in my head, and dammit, woman, you won’t leave.”
Lexi smiled at his tortured tone, finally filtering his words.
He loved her.
He loved her.
Not the sparkly woman she’d tried to become, not the other women throwing themselves at him from every angle.
He. Loved. Her.
“So, this plan?” He cleared his throat. “This plan’s been evolving all week, every night at dinner. It’s got all of our hands in it—Decker’s and Kyla’s, Jess’s and Cole’s, and even Hayley’s and Daniel’s—and especially Ma’s. We want you back, Lexi. All of us do. And if that means you come with a mother who’s going to need care, then we’ll make that work. We will.”
He reached out to touch her cheek. “Sweetheart. Aw, hell. You’re crying again. This was supposed to make you smile, not cry.”
“I just can’t believe—everyone. All of you.” Lexi broke off, picturing Ma’s dinner table, that glorious slab of scarred oak where the family gathered every night. And for the past week, all attention had been on creating some sort of plan to help Lexi join that family.
It was too much to bear.
She thought her ribs might actually crack from the pressure of her heart growing ten sizes.
But then she thought of Mom—of her big Victorian her porch, her settled, controlled existence. She thought about the fact that until three months ago, her entire life had revolved around this tiny town on the Maine coast. She thought of Katie.
“So, no pressure, but maybe you could say something here? Anything?” Gunnar’s eyes were pleading.
“I don’t even know where to start. It’s—it’s too much to take in. So much generosity, so much—God, I don’t even know. I can’t process it, Gunnar.”
He nodded, his face serious. “I understand. I do. And maybe I’m completely out of line even asking. Maybe you’re perfectly content right here in Maine. Maybe your mother can’t move. Maybe you don’t want to go back to Montana. I know all of those possibilities are staring me in the face, too.” He paused. “I’m not looking for any answers, or any commitments. I’m really not. I just wanted to see you, Lexi. I wanted to tell you how much I’ve missed you.”
He took her hands again. “And I wanted to tell you I love you.”
Chapter 25
Later that evening, Lexi sat on the rocks on Long Sands beach, watching the last of the sun’s rays touch the water from behind her. The sky was pink, giving the waves a surreal, romantic glow as they slowly pushed their way up the sandy beach.
After Gunnar had dropped her back at school, she’d gone through the rest of the day in a complete fog. He’d headed right back to Boston to catch his flight home, but he’d promised to call as soon as he landed. He’d promised to call her every day until she made a decision.
What he hadn’t done is promise to keep loving her if she couldn’t leave, and that was the one thing that kept gnawing at her as she sat watching the waves.
She hadn’t told Katie, or Steph, or—God forbid—Mom about his visit, or his plans and exhibits yet. She didn’t even know how to.
She loved him so much it physically hurt. That much was painfully clear right now as she sat with her arms tightly around her waist, afraid if she let go, she might literally fall apart. If Mom didn’t have to factor into the decision-making here, Lexi would have gone to the airport with him. She would have. To live out at Whisper Creek, surrounded by the beauty, the horses, the whole family would be a dream come true—a dream she didn’t know she’d even had.
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