Page 42 of Wrecked on the Mountain (Stone River Mountain #2)

I sit up straighter, the heated blanket falling away from my shoulders. The sound of the waterfall that seemed romantic five minutes ago now feels like it's drowning out everything important.

Rebecca's voice echoes in my head like a ghost… "I can't waste my life in this dead-end mountain town." The image of that ring dropped on my kitchen table resurfaces, the feeling of my heart shattering in that moment making my chest feel like it's about to combust all over again.

"Your dream job."

She doesn't look at me, instead just stares down at her hands.

"I guess so. At least, it was."

Was. Past tense. Like maybe it doesn't matter anymore, but we both know that's bullshit.

This is what she's worked her entire life for. Head of Trauma Surgery at one of the most prestigious fucking hospitals in the country.

"So when do you leave?"

My chest feels like someone's wrapped a rope around my ribs and yanked it taut. This can't be happening again. Not after everything I've done to make sure she stays.

"Jamie, I haven't decided—"

"Then I'm coming with you."

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, but I don't want to stop them.

They're the truth. The only truth that matters.

Because right now, I feel like I've been preparing for this moment since I caught her watching me chop wood. Even when she was laughing at the festival before I pulled that leaver, even when she fit so perfectly into Sunday dinner with my family, even when she said she loved me at sunrise…

Some part of me always knew this was coming.

That's why I've been trying so damn hard to make sure it never did.

The ring sits in my truck's glovebox like a loaded weapon. Mom handed it back to me with that smile that suggested she knew this was about to happen. Like she predicted this exact moment and she was trying to protect me.

"Sometimes you just know. Love at first sight exists, Jamie."

But what do I know, really? That I've spent four weeks trying to convince Brooke that Stone River is enough. That I've been showing her spa weekends and fancy dinners like I'm some kind of mountain real estate agent trying to close a deal.

Selfish bastard.

All those romantic gestures, all that talk about our future… I wasn't helping her heal at all. I was just trying to keep her. Building a cage around her just to trap her in my life, a life made of heated blankets and homemade cookies.

She worked for years for this opportunity.

And here I am, asking her to give it all up for what? A guy who's afraid of being abandoned again?

Brooke stares at me like I've lost my mind. "Jamie, no. You can't leave Stone River. This place is you."

I reach for her hands, pulling her closer until our knees are touching on the blanket.

"No. You are me. If you're going to Chicago, I'm going too."

"Jamie—"

"I'm serious. We'll get an apartment. I can do private security, maybe work with the Fire Department or some shit. They have water rescue teams, mountain climbing walls for training..."

I'm already planning it in my head because that's what you do when the most important thing in your world is about to slip away.

You adapt quickly. You improvise. You fucking survive.

"Jamie, you can't be serious. Your family is here. Your team needs you. The community you love so much needs you."

"It would all mean nothing without you now."

The truth of it hits me as I say it.

Stone River Mountain has been my whole world for thirty-five years, but these past few weeks with Brooke have shown me what my world could actually look like.

And it looks like her.

I don't need to give Brooke some shitty second-hand piece of jewelry to prove I love her. I don't need grand gestures or fancy weekends or promises of forever.

I just need to give her me.

"We'll figure it out," I continue, my voice gaining strength.

"I can learn the city life. Hell, maybe I'll like it.

I wouldn't know, I've never tried it. Maybe I'll turn out like you and fall in love with a place I never expected.

Traffic lights, greasy takeout food, neighbors you don't have to wave at. .."

"But I don't want you to sacrifice everything you love."

"It's not a sacrifice if it keeps us together."

I cup her face in my hands, brushing away a tear with my thumb.

"Brooke, listen to me. Seven years ago, Rebecca left me because she said Stone River wasn't enough.

That I wasn't enough. But you know what the real problem was?

I never offered to leave with her. I was so convinced that loving someone meant they had to fit into my world, my life, my town.

I never once considered fitting into theirs. "

Her eyes widen, and I can see her processing this.

"I don't regret letting her go. But I won't make that mistake again. Because I know I would regret letting you go." I pull her closer, needing to feel her heat, her touch, her hands. "If Chicago is where you need to be, sweetheart, then Chicago is where we'll be. Together."

"Your parents, your sisters—"

"Will visit. Chicago has airports, right? And holidays exist. We'll come back for Christmas, summers maybe. Chloe's always wanted to expand the bakery business anyway. I could make those chocolate swirly things, right?"

Brooke looks like she's about to laugh, but the seriousness of it all stops it before it begins.

I'm talking faster now, the plan crystallizing as I speak. It's not perfect, but it's possible. And possible is all we need.

"I'll sell the cabin, help you find a place. Maybe something with a view of the lake? You always said you missed water..."

"Jamie, stop."

But I can't stop.

Because if I stop talking, I'll have to think about what I'm really offering to give up.

The mountain that's been in my family for three generations.

The rescue operation my grandfather built from nothing.

Sunday dinners and Chloe's teasing and the sunrise from Cascade Ridge that I've watched a thousand times just to bring myself back from the ledge that drew me so fucking close after Rebecca left.

"I know it's crazy, but crazy works sometimes. We work. And if this job is what you need—"

"It's not what I need!"

The words explode out of her, sharp enough to cut through my rambling.

"Jamie, it's not what I need." Her hands grip mine so tight it's painful. "It's what I thought I wanted, but that was before..."

She gestures between us, her hands shaking.

"Before this. Before you. Before I realized that everything I've been chasing my whole life was just trying to fill a hole that you've already filled."

I stare at her, afraid to hope.

"I'm confused, sweetheart. You're saying you want to stay?"

"I want to stay. God, I want to stay so much it terrifies me. But Jamie, this is the job I've been working toward since I was nine years old. It's everything I promised my father I'd become."

And there it is, laid out with words that reveal themselves before our very eyes.

The real conflict.

Not Chicago versus Stone River.

Not career versus love.

It's the promise she made to a dying man when she was just a little girl.

"Then we go," I say simply. "It's simple, Brooke. We honor that promise together."

Brooke stares at me in complete disbelief, and I realize I've just created a problem neither of us intended.

Now we're both willing to give up everything…

But neither of us wants to be the reason we make that sacrifice.