Page 40 of One Small Spark (Love in Sunshine #4)

TWENTY-EIGHT

WREN

There’s something especially intimate about seeing Shepherd’s bedroom.

We’ve kissed a dozen times, but being in the room where he sleeps is like he’s wrapped all his innermost secrets up with a bow and handed them over.

When we got back from the hot springs, he let me shower and change in his room while he rinsed off using the cabin’s outdoor shower.

Because he’s a self-sacrificing gentleman and all that.

I’m not much of a self-sacrificing lady. I resisted the urge to snoop through his cabinets, but I shamelessly used his body wash and shampoo in the shower. I smell like a bike-repairing lumberjack who lives in the forest, and I have no regrets.

I change into leggings and a long-sleeve shirt, putting my hair into two braids. The hot springs were more relaxing than I expected—minus the nudity—but it doesn’t compare to being freshly washed in a temperature-controlled environment safe from brain-eating amoebas.

Creep that I am, I stand in Shepherd’s bedroom for a minute and just look.

I touch nothing, but I’m pawing through his stuff with my eyes.

The walls are sloped like I thought, with a big window in the middle revealing an expanse of forest. His bed cover is a soft-looking gray that I have the worst urge to cozy up underneath.

He has a couple of books on his nightstand, but I can’t tell from here what they are.

The green stuffy I made sits on one of his pillows, judging me for enjoying this moment so much.

I never perfected cartwheels when I was a kid, but my heart is sure doing them now. It’s not that big of a deal. Just a stuffy on his bed. It doesn’t mean anything. But I snap a picture of it and make it my phone’s lock screen like a lunatic anyway.

Pretending to be a model of self-control, I grab my tote bag and leave Shepherd’s room. Immediately, I almost run into him in the short hallway between the two bedrooms up here.

He’s changed into a hunter green short-sleeve T-shirt and black sweatpants. Weirdly, the sweatpants aren’t even what gets my heart rate kicking up. It’s his socks. They’re a marled gray and are somehow more private than seeing his bare feet.

All I can think about is him padding around the cabin in his cute little socks. Cozying up on the couch while his feet stay toasty. Cooking dinner in the kitchen in his sock feet. I want to witness every single scenario. On repeat.

Do I have a thing for feet? Or am I just really, really weird about Shepherd?

“Everything okay?” he asks.

Because, oh yes, I’m staring at his feet. I am normal sometimes, I swear.

I snap my gaze up to his. “All good. Your shower’s really nice.”

The whole cabin is. Nothing fancy, the way Lila described the guest cabins at the lodge, but not so rustic I expected the water to come out brown. It’s cozy and warm, and I think I’d like to stay forever.

I am a master of restraint and do not say that part out loud .

“Good.” His mouth tips up, and my stomach tumbles right down the stairs. “Are you ready to learn how to make bread?”

I frown at him. “I know how to make bread, Callahan.”

“Sorry, let me rephrase. Are you ready to learn how to make good bread?”

I gasp like a dowager in a historical romance. “Rude.”

I slip past him and down the stairs, telling my heart to knock it off. It’s not normal to get excited when someone’s intentionally being a pain. And yet, here I am. Loving it.

I drop my tote bag by the front door and go to his kitchen, spreading my arms wide. “I’m here. Enlighten me.”

He glances around. “Do you have something for taking down notes? You don’t want to forget anything.”

“Are you going to make this as difficult as possible?”

“Most likely.” He moves closer until we’re toe to toe. Maintaining eye contact, he slowly leans down and presses a quick kiss to my mouth. “But there will be perks.”

I slip on a mask of indifference. “You mean the bread?”

“Oh, Krause. You’re going to learn so much today.”

I snort, but I really do want to know his secrets. Mostly, so I can exploit them for myself. And…okay, I’m looking forward to spending the day baking with him. I have issues, what can I say?

He gets out his mixer, and my veneer of indifference goes to crap. I never would have guessed that a man owning a KitchenAid appliance would get me hot, but apparently my issues run deeper than I thought.

“I’m going to need a minute before we start.”

He plugs it in, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Okay there, Krause?”

“No. Why is everything I learn about you some kind of shock to my system?”

“How am I blowing your mind now? ”

I frown at his phrasing. Also his smirk. “You must be more serious about baking than I thought.”

“Is that a problem?” He’s still teasing, but a hint of sincerity lurks beneath his question.

“No. I just never knew.”

He pulls ingredients from his pantry and sets them on the counter. Bread basics I already know: flour, salt, yeast. This recipe isn’t revolutionary.

But Shepherd is.

“I told you I worked at the lodge for years, but I struggled to find my place. Front desk was a misery, and anything dealing with special events was right out the window. Housekeeping was fine, and I helped with maintenance when I could.” He pulls measuring cups and spoons from a drawer and lays them out next to the ingredients.

“More often than not, I wound up in the kitchen with my grandma. Whatever she baked for our guests, I baked, too.”

The more I learn, the more my tiny, ice-cold heart melts for this man. Maybe it’s melted already. Nothing but a puddle of goo and admiration. Possibly even more contents I can’t centrifuge out right now.

“I’m not skilled enough to come up with new recipes like some people.” He takes one of my braids between his fingers and smooths over the twists, lightly tugging at the end. “But I learned enough from her to feed myself well.”

“That’s really sweet.”

He runs his hand back up the braid. “Always so surprised.”

Enamored is probably the better word. But actually saying that? Impossible.

“As a woman who’s not sweet myself, maybe it’s always a surprise to experience it in someone else.”

His eyebrows tug together, his gaze intense. “You’re sweet, Wren. ”

Of all the things he’s said to me, this one feels like the biggest lie.

At the hot spring when he told me I was perfect, the down-deep part of my soul wanted to believe it, but I’m not that delusional.

I don’t want him to tell me things just to make me feel better.

And maybe that involves both of us accepting the truth.

“I’m really not, though. You know better than anyone. I was a jerk to you for actual years. As opposed to, say, your ex-girlfriend, who is the literal embodiment of sweetness to everyone.”

Oh, wow. I’m just laying it all out there, huh? Blurting things out is way more fun when it’s snarky commentary and not my deepest insecurities.

It’s impossible to get that toothpaste back in the tube, so why not smear it around a little?

I slip away from him, moving down the counter toward the array of ingredients. “I’m not anything like Rose.” A name I already wish I didn’t actually say out loud. “And I’m not jealous.”

A comment that doesn’t help my case at all.

“But I’m not sweet and kind and good like her. I don’t think I can be. Just so that’s out in the open.”

The pause that comes after that emotional vomit feels like the longest of my life.

Seconds click audibly in my head like there’s nothing in there but a giant grandfather clock.

I stare at his bag of flour as if my life depends on whatever’s written on it.

Is this the part where Shepherd remembers he’s dating a jaded, bitter woman and decides to cut his losses?

“Do you want to know why I ended things with Rose?” he asks.

Not really, no. But I basically asked for this by throwing his ex in his face. “If you were looking for someone with a sweeter disposition or softer-looking hair, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I ended things with her for two reasons. First, no matter what I asked her, she never had a preference for anything. ‘Do you want pizza or pasta?’ She’d say, ‘You choose.’ ‘Do you want to watch a romcom or an action movie?’ She’d say, ‘Oh, I don’t care.

’ ‘Do you want to go on a bike ride with me?’ She’d say, ‘Anything you want.’”

I go on staring at the flour. I can imagine very limited scenarios where I would tell Shepherd, “Anything you want.”

“I don’t know if she was doing it because she thought I wanted her to or if she really didn’t have opinions on anything. More than just being generally annoying, I knew I could never truly be with her long-term. She had no strong opinions, no deep interests, no preferences. No challenge.”

He says the last word as if he’s talking about a whole lot more than just choosing what to eat for dinner. I finally look up, and his gaze is locked on mine. Blazing hot. Demanding I hear him.

“There was no spark between us.” He takes a slow step closer. “But you…you would never tell me you had no preference or opinion. You would never let me decide everything.”

I can’t help my eye roll because no, I would not. I would probably fight him even on things I wanted to do just for the principle of it.

A low rumble works through his chest as he reaches me. He lifts a hand to trace his fingertips along my jaw, making me shiver. He rests his thumb on my lower lip, and I might be internally combusting right now.

“I heard you, though.” Apparently, I’m not done with the big, embarrassing revelations. “You were talking about me in the shop, and you said I’m loud and obnoxious. Too much.”

I hate how repeating it even all this time later makes me want to run. Fight. Anything but face it.

He slides his thumb over my lip. “I don’t remember saying that, but I’m sure I did.

After Rose, who felt like she was intentionally trying to be too little, I wanted your ‘too much.’ I like that you take up space when you walk into a room.

That you voice your opinions even when people disagree.

That you’re unapologetically yourself. I’m sorry you heard what I said and thought I was insulting you.

It was never a slight, Wren. It was admiration. ”

My understanding of us tilts on its axis, sharpening this new perspective like I’m sitting in an optometrist’s chair. “Wren Krause is too much in every category that matters.” And he likes that?

His thumb keeps making its slow arc over my lower lip, making it difficult to fully process this confession.

“What—” I have to swallow because the words are stuck in my throat. “What’s the other reason you ended things with her?”

He tilts his head closer to mine, and I lift my chin automatically. “The feelings I was having for the firecracker blonde who worked next door.”

When his mouth meets mine, every touch is a soft reassurance.

A silent promise backing up the words he spoke out loud.

As unlikely as it sounds, Shepherd sees me, even at my worst, and still wants me.

Still values me and likes me and cares for me.

His tender kiss is a reminder that I don’t have to be somebody else. I just have to be me.

In the most mortifying betrayal by my own body, a tear leaks out of one eye. Then the other. I hold him tighter, begging him not to notice my ridiculous tear duct malfunction. But my tears must reach his hand where he still holds my face because he pulls back.

He swipes his thumbs over my cheekbones.

“Wren.” So soft, it’s like a heartfelt vow.

Ugh. What a mess am I? I run my hands over his arms, searching the images tattooed there .

He must see right through me because he chuckles. “You won’t find it.”

“You don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“There’s no rose there. Only Wren.”

How did we get here? I used to think this man was my nemesis, whose only goal in life was to make me miserable. Now, I’m crying in his arms, and he’s telling me I’m the only one for him. It should have been impossible.

I run my thumb over the cute, fat little bird on the inside of his arm. “Why did you get this? I wasn’t very nice to you by then.”

The idea of someone getting a tattoo in my honor is crazy enough when I’m at my best. But at my worst? I don’t get it.

“You know why.”

I shake my head. He can’t make me say everything.

This man has the audacity to smile. “I got it because verbally sparring with you made me feel more alive than anything else ever has. Because the window you gave me into your heart was enough to make me crave more. Because every time you walked into my shop to argue, my soul said, ‘That’s her. She’s ours. ’”

I should tell him I feel the same. That even when I thought I hated him, I needed to see him. That the days he didn’t come into the bakery left me hollow, like I’d missed out on something important. That I looked forward to our banter with an almost religious devotion.

I should tell him that these last several weeks have been the best of my life.

I want to talk to him every day and see him every night.

I want to share myself with him, even when it’s terrifying to give someone that much of me.

And I love how much he shares back as if he’s not afraid of anything.

I want to tell him there will never be enough Shepherd Callahan in my life.

Staring into his deep brown eyes I used to think I couldn’t stand the sight of, my heart swells up with love for this man.

It presses on my ribcage and shifts my organs, demanding more space.

It strains and grows until it should burst, but it just adapts and takes over.

My heart is filled with Shepherd, and all I want is more.

But. It’s terrifying enough to experience—I can’t add saying the words out loud, too. Not yet. Instead, I fake a scowl, pretending my eyes aren’t still streaming silent tears.

“Ugh. I’ll never be able to go back to men who don’t read romance novels.”

He levels me a serious look that sends fireflies dancing around in my chest.

“No. You won’t.”