Page 127 of Wildflowers & Whiskey

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes. Wade Carter has left me speechless.

He drags a hand through his hair briefly, the only crack in his composure, and exhales.

“I never wanted you to leave, Maeve.” His voice is low, steady, meant only for me. “I was making a plan for you to stay with the hope you would want to.” He holds my gaze. “I finally filed for the divorce because the moment I knew I was falling for you, I had to clean the slate and do it right. In hopes that we'd get the chance to see what this is, beyond temporary.”

My mind is going a mile a minute, not quite settling on one thing long enough to think of the possible answers.

“Excuse me—.” The customer to my right raps her knuckles on the counter. “My coffee?”

Right. The coffee I literally just made. I grab it and slide it across to her. She takes it with a dramatic sweep before I turn back to Wade, who has not moved an inch. There is now a queue forming behind him. Five people deep.

“Wade.” I lower my voice. “You know we can't. It's not fair on Colt. It was never fair on—.”

“About that.” He smiles, which is not the reaction I was expecting from a man I just essentially turned down. And then he tells me. About him and Colt. How they’ve patched things up. About the conversation they had recently and how things have finally started to get better between them.

My chest tightens because this whole time I hoped that stepping out of the picture would help them fix things. And somehow, it worked.

“So, you two are good?” I ask quietly, already feeling my eyes sting.

His smile softens. “We’re getting there, angel. But yeah… We’re good.”

“And what does Colt think about you being here?” I ask.

Wade's expression shifts to a quiet amusement, something fond at the edges. “Why don't you ask him yourself?” He nods past me, toward the window.

I turn. Through the glass, past the queue of mildly inconvenienced Londoners, I see him. Hands in his pockets, easy as anything, already pushing through the door.

Colt walks in and finds my eyes immediately, giving me that smile I’ve missed.

My body moves before I finish the thought, coming out from behind the counter at an alarming pace and barrelling straight into him, arms around his waist, face into his shoulder. I don't care how it looks.

“I've missed you,” I say, slightly muffled.

His arms come around me, pulling me in properly. “Missed you too, Maeve.” He says, low and quiet, just for me.

I pull away from him and look over my shoulder where Wade is watching us.

Colt follows my look. “Ha,” he says, loud enough to carry. “I got a bigger reaction than you, old man.”

Wade just shakes his head at us but stays put in the spot. Giving me and Colt a moment.

“I'm sorry,” I say, turning back to Colt. I need him to hear this. “For everything. I never meant to—.”

“It’s fine, Maeve.” He says it easily, like I haven’t been carrying an emotional backpack of guilt for the last three months. “I get it. Most of it, anyway.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Still got some processing to do.”

He steps back slightly, glancing between me and Wade with the expression of someone who has accepted an unexpected truth and is doing a genuinely admirable job of making peace with it.

“There’s definitely stuff I’m gonna have to get used to.” He gestures vaguely between us. “This being one of them.”

A laugh escapes me through the tears threatening my eyes.

“But…” He glances at Wade briefly before looking back at me. “He loves you.” His shoulders lift in a small shrug. “And I think we all deserve to be happy. So yeah… I can try.”

“Appreciate that,” Wade says from somewhere behind me.

I turn back to him, and he’s right there when I do.

I look up at him; everything else blurs into the background; the only thing in focus is this man standing in front of me, hat in his hands, eyes on me, nowhere else.