“Yes, I know. I saw it. It’s lovely.”
“There was part of me thought if I built it, if I kept you in mind, you’d come. But you didn’t.”
So clear now that she let herself see, the house was what they’d dreamed of making together.
“I’m here now.”
“You’re here now. What does that mean for us?”
God, her heart was too full of him, here in this room he’d conjured out of dreams.
“I tell myself what it can’t be. That’s so clear, so rational. I can’t see what it can or might.”
“Can you say what you want?”
“What I want is what can’t be, and that’s harder than it was, as I’ve come to believe that’s through no fault of yours or my own. It was easier when I could blame you or myself. I could build a wall with the blame, and keep it shored up with the distance when you spent only a few days or few weeks here before you went off again.”
“I want you. Everything else comes behind that.”
“I know.” She let out a breath. “I know. We should go back. You shouldn’t be so long away from your guests.”
But neither of them moved.
She heard the shouting, the rise of voices, the countdown. Behind her, the mantel clock began to strike.
“It’s going onto midnight.”
Only seconds, she thought, between what was and what is. And from there what would be. She took a step toward him. Then took another.
Would she have walked by him? she asked herself when he pulled her to him. No. No, not this time. At least this one time.
Instead she linked her arms around his neck, looked into his eyes. And on the stroke of midnight met his lips with hers.
Light snapped between them, an electric jolt that shocked the blood, slammed into the heart. Then shimmered into an endlessly longed-for warmth.
Oh, to feel like this, to finally feel like this again. To finally have her body, her heart, her spirit united in that longing, that warmth, that singular wild joy.
His lips on her lips, his breath with her breath, his heart on her heart. And all the sorrow blown away as if it never was.
He’d thought once what he felt for her was all, was beyond what anyone could feel. But he’d been wrong. This, after all the years without her, was more.
The scent of her filling him, the taste of her undoing him. She gave as she once had, everything in a simple kiss. Sweetness and strength, power and surrender, demand and generosity.
He wanted to hold on to her, hold on to that moment until the end of his days.
But she pulled back, stayed a moment, brushed a hand over his cheek, then stepped back from him.
“It’s a new year.”
“Stay with me, Branna.”
Now she laid a hand on his heart. Before she could speak, Connor and Meara turned into the room.
“We were just—”
“Going,” Meara finished Connor’s sentence. “Going back right now.”
“Right. Sure, we weren’t even here.”