The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(90)

He didn’t look, just kept walking.

Dammit. She’d taken off her shoes with Kinsey, and the roadway was hot. “Ouch, ouch, ouch . . .” she muttered as she jogged to catch up with him.

At that, Eli turned to look at her. He wasn’t smiling. He looked cool and calm and distant. Very distant. She drew a deep breath, knowing that this could go only one of two ways. Easy. Or hard. And given the look on his face, she figured she knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But she had to try. “Can we give you a lift?”

“No.”

“So you’re just going to walk the one hundred and thirty-five miles home?” she asked.

“I’m not in a hurry.”

Okay, the hard way it was, then. She came closer, wincing at the hot asphalt, thinking ouch, ouch, ouch with every step.

Eli shook his head. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Stepping into the ring.”

He just looked at her.

“Look,” she said. “I warned you I was bad at this. But I’m working on it. Do you know why I came to Wildstone?”

“To turn me upside down and inside out?”

She let out a wry smile. “That was an unintended side effect, for the both of us. It started out as just me needing a safe place to lick my wounds, a place to get a fresh start to prove I wasn’t a total loser. Because that’s always been my biggest fear, that I’d fail, or that I’ll disappoint the people I care about.”

His eyes softened. “Brynn—”

“I needed to figure out who I was.”

He nodded. “Did you?”

“More than.” She reached for his hand. “Turned out I also needed people to believe in me before I could believe in myself. Steady, reliable, loyal connections who made me feel safe, and I found that, thanks to you.”

“You and Kinsey made up.”

“More than. She’s important to me. So is Max, and Deck. But you . . .” She took his hand in hers and brought it to her chest. “You’re everything, Eli. I’m sorry. I screwed up. You’re angry, and I get it. Past Brynn wouldn’t have, but I think Present Brynn’s gotten smarter and learned a whole lot. And hopefully Future Brynn will get even smarter, quicker.” She put her hands on his arms, shifting her weight from foot to burning foot.

Taking a deep breath, he said, “Put your feet on mine.”

Grateful, she stepped onto the tops of his shoes. “I’ll never throw you out, Eli. I’ll never get tired of you. And I’ll never send you away.”

He looked at her then; the intensity of her words had obviously reached him, as his arms came around her to help her keep her balance. “Better?”

“Getting there.”

With a shake of his head, like he couldn’t quite believe what a pain in the ass she was, he lifted her up and twisted, nudging her behind him so that he was carrying her piggyback as if she weighed nothing. He carried her that way to a small wild-grass patch under a tree for shade.

She slid down his back onto the grass, dug her toes into the coolness for a minute, and then lifted her face to his. “You’re not my biggest mistake. I’m so sorry I said that. I was angry and hurt, but coming home wasn’t the biggest mistake of my life. Hurting you was. Finding you again, having you in my life has been the very best thing to ever happen to me. I choose you, Eli, and I always will. Even when I’m being a dumbass.”

He looked at her for a long minute, his thoughts veiled from her thanks in part to his dark sunglasses. “How do I know you won’t run off again?”

“Honestly? You should be the one running from me.” She pulled those glasses off his face and looked into his stormy eyes. “But I’m not budging. Not ever again. I realized something when I was trying to spin my dad into something I needed him to be . . . You can’t make someone be your person. You can’t make them love you. You can’t hurry love up, or even set it aside. I know, because I’ve spent too much of my life trying to do just that. And standing there in my dad’s apartment, I finally understood that. I got it.” She drew a deep breath. “I love you, Eli.”

Whoa. That last part had just slipped out, and, startled to the core, she staggered back a step, and bent over, hands on her knees, before lifting her head to send him an apologetic grimace. “Sorry. I’ve never said that to a man before. But I mean it, even if I’m scared.” She straightened. “Terrified, actually, and I think that’s been evident,” she said wryly. “But I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. So if you’re going to run, you should do it now.”

He cupped her face, his thumbs gently rubbing her jaw, his fingers sinking into her hair as he stared into her eyes. “I don’t run from love. And I do love you, Brynn. I think I always have. I knew I was in trouble that day we ran into each other at the vending machine, from the moment you pretended not to remember me. So be sure. Because I’m playing for keeps.”

“Me too.”

He let out a breath. “Then there’s something you need to know.”

She stopped breathing. “Okay,” she said with what she thought was great bravery.

“I was going to come after you and figure out a way to get you back.”

Relief had her sagging, but he had a good grip on her. “Yeah?”