Page 118 of Second Alarm
My face doesn't have the small set around the eyes it had when I got here in March. My face is the face of a woman who sleeps. My face is the face of a woman who doesn't deflect. My face is the face of a woman who, twenty-nine years ago, came outof a mother who saved a speech for ten years, and, fourteen years ago, lost a father I've finally stopped trying to not-remember, and, only weeks ago, came home to a town where everyone knew about Ty and me and nobody said a word, and stood in a linen closet kissing a man I've loved since I was nineteen.
My face is okay.
My face is the face I came home for.
"Hanna." I hear from the bedroom.
"Yeah, Ty."
"Are you coming to bed?"
"Yeah."
"Bring your coffee."
"You want coffee?"
"No, I want to watch you drink it."
"You're so weird."
"Bring it."
I bring it and I get in bed. He pulls me against his shoulder. My coffee sits on the nightstand.
"Hey, you." He leans down and kisses my forehead. The lamp is on. The book is face down on his chest.
Outside, somewhere in the dark of July Copper Ridge, Cal is home. Laurel Finch, the kayak lady, is icing the scraped knee of a billionaire. My mother is asleep with the kitchen light on, the way she sleeps every night, and she isn't going to wake up at three a.m. to check the doors, because she's stopped doing that, because she's started sleeping all the way through. Finally.
I'm staying.
I'm staying in a town where I know everyone and everyone knows me, and the man I love is reading a book against my shoulder with my coffee on the nightstand, and the basil plant is on the windowsill, and the ceiling duck is, for the record, still on this ceiling, and now the duck is ours.
"Hanna."
"Yeah?"
"Read."
"I don't have a book."
"Take mine."
"You're reading it."
"Take it."
I take his book. He kisses the top of my head. I read two pages of Le Carré and don't absorb any of it. I set it down. I lean against his shoulder. The lamp is on.
I fall asleep, under my own roof in my own town with the man I was always going to love.
I stay.
Ready for more Copper Ridge heat?
Colton Wilder built an empire from nothing.
Now he’s hiding out in Copper Ridge while the media tears his life apart.
The last thing he needs is a distraction.
Unfortunately, distraction comes in the form of a sunshiney local woman who gets under his skin faster than he can shut her out.
Forced proximity.
Explosive chemistry.
One grumpy billionaire who never expected to fall.
