“Okay. I take it back. Only, as long as this tourist isn’t like the last one you sent me. Kinda got my heartbroken the last time you did that.” I try to come off as jokey and light, but it doesn’t work.

She goes quiet down the line. “Nah, this one is different to the last … I’m sure of it. And she’s not that good-looking. You wouldn’t go for her.”

I let out a laugh. “Okay. Good to know. Should I take it she’s more of Pine room kind of girl?” Pine is our cheapest room.

“Nah, this one is definitely a Lakeview kind of girl. She might be unfortunate looking, but she’s definitely got good taste.”

I swallow down. No one has stayed in there since Mia. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to let anyone sleep in there yet.

Stupid I know.

“Okay. Cool. She on her way now? I’ll go get the room ready.”

“She’s setting off in a few.”

“Thanks, Beth. And I mean that.”

“I know you do. And thank me later.”

I hang up and push out the chair. I grab the keys for Lakeview, and head down the hall.

I switch the light on, avoiding looking anywhere that will remind me of the times I had in here with Mia. I switch the heater on to warm the room for our new guest, turn the bed down, and put fresh towels in the bathroom.

I turn the light off, lock the door up, and go back to the office.

Twenty minutes later I hear a car pulling up the gravel. Dozer jumps to his feet, ears pricked, sniffs the air, and he’s out of the office. Guess he’s smelled something he likes.

I follow to get him back in the office before he scares the living daylights out of our new guest, but I’m too late, and the door opens on the chime. I look up and my heart stops.

It actually fucking stops.

“Mia.”

I’m not sure if I say the word, or just breathe it through my aching lungs.

“Hi,” she says. Her voice sweet and soft … and painful.

I feel a surprising jolt of anger toward her.

Nothing for three fucking months, and she just shows up here unannounced. Screw the fact that I’ve been dreaming about this very thing happening for three months, I’m still fucking pissed. I’m beyond pissed.

I turn and walk away, putting myself behind the reception desk.

I need a barrier between us to stop me from doing something stupid. Like getting down to my knees and begging her to take me back.

She stays by the door, unsure eyes on me. She looks so tiny and fragile. It makes me want to go to her … hold her.

I grip hold of the desk to steady myself.

Dozer is on her, nudging his head at her leg, desperate for her attention.

“Hey buddy.” Her eyes leave me, and she bends down to stroke him. “Look at your leg, all healed.”

Yeah, well it has been THREE FUCKING MONTHS!

She wraps her arms around his neck, hugging him. “I missed you,” she whispers to him.

She missed him! What the fuck about me?

I scrub my hands over my face, exhaling through my feelings. “Why are you here, Mia?”

She looks up at me, slowly rising to stand. The crestfallen look on her face is like a knife to my chest.

Her hands are shaking. She wraps her arms around herself.

“I read your letter, and the song … I listened to the song. All the way here, in fact,” she adds quietly.

I cross my arms over my chest. “You mean the letter I sent two and a half months ago.”

She bites her lip. “I only read it this morning. I was afraid … afraid there would be something in it that would bring me back here. And I couldn’t come back then. I had to figure a way to get past everything I was feeling, complete my treatment. In hindsight, I wish I’d read it straight away. But the moment I did … the moment I heard that song … I checked out and drove straight here.”

“Why?”

She takes a step closer. “Because … I hoped you’d still be waiting.”

I tighten my arms, and my stance. Every muscle in my body locked. “Why?”

She closes her eyes. “So I could tell you the one thing I didn’t when we were at the hospital.”

I stare at her expectedly.

“That I love you … I’m in love with you, Jordan.”

She loves me?

I can’t speak. Or think. Or move.

You know when you’ve been waiting to hear the one thing from the one person who matters most, and then they say it and it freezes you to the spot with fear.

Yeah, I’m about there right now.

The silence between us is blistering with pain and confusion and want.

Then I find my voice. “So you came here to tell me you love me?”

I watch her wipe a tear away with her hand. She nods, tugging on her lower lip, twisting it nervously. “Yes. I needed you to know that. And … also … to see if you have a room … for me?”

And there it is. I should have fucking guessed.

“You’re the tourist … you went to see Beth first?” I don’t know why, but knowing that is really pissing me off.

Her eyes drift from me. “I got here and I was afraid. I thought maybe you might have changed your mind … that your feelings for me might have changed after all this time, maybe … there was someone else…” Her eyes come back to me. “I guess I panicked, so I went to the diner in the hope Beth would be there and I could ask her.”

“And what did she tell you?”

She runs her hands nervously down her clothes. “That you … you haven’t moved on.”

“Yeah. Well, Beth was wrong. I have moved on. Moved on majorly, in fact. And I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here.”

I don’t mean it. But I’m hurt and I’m not thinking clearly. And I’m an asshole.

The pain on her face lances straight through me. Her shoulders pull in as she wraps her arms around her stomach. “Oh. Right. Okay. I’m sorry…” A tear runs down her cheek. She swipes it away with her finger. “… I shouldn’t have come.” Then she’s gone, out the door.

Dozer growls at me, giving me a ‘you fucking idiot’ look, then he starts pawing and butting his head against the door, trying to get to our girl.

“I know, I’m a fuckin’ idiot!” I grip my hair, angry with myself. “Shit! Motherfucking shit!” I kick the desk. Then without another thought, I’m burning out of the hotel, chasing after her. “Mia! Wait!”

She stops by her car, face away from me, but I don’t stop. I stride right over to her, standing before her, I take her tear streaked face in my hands.

It hurts so much to know I put those tears there. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that … I was angry, like three fuckin’ months worth of angry. But I don’t want you to go … fuck! … Mia, I just … I just want you.”

Her eyes flash up to me with surprise. “You want me?”

“I’ll always want you.”

Then I kiss her. I kiss her with three months worth of pain and hurt and want and need.

“I love you,” she breathes over my mouth.

It makes me kiss her harder. My feelings for her consuming me.

“I love you…” I say, holding her to me. “So fuckin’ much.”

She stands on her tiptoes, wraps her arms around my neck, and buries her face in my shoulder. I hold her tight. Afraid to let her go. Afraid to ever let her go again.

“Does this mean you have room for me?” she whispers.

I tilt my head back staring in her eyes. “I think I could make space for you.”

“For how long?”

I shrug. “How does forever sound?”

She puts her hand to my face, the smile on her own real, but tentative. “It sounds too good to be real,” she whispers.

“Oh, it’s real, babe.” I squeeze her ass, lifting her off her feet, loving the feel of her legs as they go around my waist. I turn, walking back to the hotel with her. “And it’s gonna be as good as I’m about to make you feel – this is me we’re talking about here.” I lift an eyebrow.

Her laughter fills me. Her kiss soothes me.

And I feel a peace I haven’t felt in months.

Epilogue

Mia

“So what happened to us going out for dinner?” I trace patterns on Jordan’s bare chest.

“You happened. I was just innocently coming out of the bathroom after my shower, all clean and ready to get dressed, and there you were standing by our bed, wearing your new sexy underwear, looking smoking hot, and of course I got hard because … well, it was you. In underwear. Then we had some seriously fuckin’ awesome sex, babe, and now I’m in post coital bliss with my girl, and moving just isn’t an option.”

Laughing, I tilt my head up to him, offering my mouth.

He captures it in a delicious kiss which send shivers right down to my toes.

“See, and that’s why moving isn’t an option because I intend on doing this with you for the rest of the night.”

“Works for me.” I smile, stretching my arms up.

Jordan slides his fingers around my neck, playing with the locket around it.

The locket was Anna’s. Jordan gave it to me a few months ago.

After I came back, Jordan and I spent time getting reacquainted with one another. Then we spent a lot of time talking through the issues that were sitting between us.

I was no longer in the place where I saw the betrayal of my mother when I looked at him.

But the fact was still there.

She had left me behind and raised him.

When Jordan told me everything about her situation with Oliver, it didn’t make things better, but it gave me a semblance of understanding.

It’s taken me a long time to process my feelings about my mother, but I’m almost there.

Pain of the past never goes away, you just find a way to deal with it. And the future … all the promise it holds … that’s what keeps you moving forward, and out of the darkness.

Jordan. He’s my future. My promise. My light.

He keeps me sane. He keeps me safe.

When I struggle to breathe, he gives me the air I need.

Some days are hard. Some days when my mind blackens and all I want to do is hide away and eat and purge. He’s right there with me.

I’ll always be recovering from bulimia.

But now those days when I feel the urge for control and the need to hurt my body are few and far between. I can’t even remember the last time I felt that way.

I’m still seeing a therapist. When I left the center, my doctor there referred me to a therapist here in Durango – Dr. Peterson. She has been really great and has helped me work on all my issues.

I still have a long way to go when it comes to dealing with the life I lived with Oliver and Forbes, and the mental scars it left me with, but I’m getting there.

And I still have Danni. We talk regularly on the phone, and she came to visit a few months ago. She stayed for a week, which was awesome. It was great to have some time with her as I’d really missed her. Jordan took us out on a Jeep tour to the canyon. Beth and Toni came along as well. It was a really great day.