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His eyes widened slightly.

There. I’d said it.

I smiled. “I love you, Barrett.”

He didn’t move.

I could feel his pulse beneath my palms. “I know that’s probably inconvenient because you’ve apparently spent the last twenty-four hours planning my evacuation.”

Nothing.

“Barrett?”

“You turned it down.”

“Yes.”

“For here.”

“For me. For the forest. For the work I want to do the way I want to do it.” I took a shaky breath. “I'm not throwing my career away, Barrett. I’m deciding what it’s going to look like.”

His gaze searched mine. “And that’s here? With me?”

That nearly broke me. I slid my hands up to his face. “With you.”

Barrett closed his eyes. For one terrible second, I thought he might pull away. Instead, his forehead came down against mine, and a rough breath left him as his arms closed around me. He gathered me against him with enough force to lift my heels from the ground, burying his face in my hair.

He held me for another long moment. Then he set me down carefully, the way he set down things he cared about. His gaze went past me toward the porch, toward the cool bag by the door, the field crate, the boots lined up beside it—everything he’d arranged for a leaving that wasn’t going to happen.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s put your things back.”

He was done with letting me go.

Chapter 13

Barrett

“I’m staying,” she said again as we stood in the kitchen, softer, in case I’d missed it.

Not staying through the weekend or staying until I’ve processed the samples or staying, but only in the sense that I need a few more days to figure out logistics.

“Barrett. Look at me.”

Hazel crossed the kitchen and stopped close enough that I could smell her hair. Sleep. Pine. Honey toast. She lifted both hands to my face. “Barrett.” Her voice was quiet and deliberate. “I’m staying. For as long as you’ll have me.”

My bear had been quiet since dawn, curled inside me, waiting to be told what it was allowed to want. This was different. A slow warm shift, like the moment the ground thaws at the end of a long freeze. You feel the give before you see it.

My bear went very still. Then it burned.

“Say it once more,” I said. “Slower, if you can. I need to hear it.”

“I’m staying,” she said, enunciating each word. “With you.”

My body heard the words before my brain could make sense of them. Warm where her hands were on mine. Hollow, then filling.

She laughed and pressed her forehead into my sternum. My arms circled her, bringing her closer. Her hair smelled like my shampoo.

I could feel every place she was touching me and every place she wasn’t. My bear was standing proud now, an eternal part of me that I could now claim in wholeness.