CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

They ended up at the boardinghouse because Suzanne hadn’t thought that far ahead—leaving had been her priority. Plus, she’d wanted to say goodbye to Winona. But with snow still being a problem in the eastern states, driving wasn’t that safe, particularly in her Scooby van, which was borderline roadworthy in the best of conditions. And flights out of Denver for her parents were impossible at the moment because of Christmas and the backlog of canceled flights the airlines were still dealing with due to the blizzard. The earliest they could book was for the twenty-ninth.

Winona persuaded them to stay at the boardinghouse. She had a comfy sofa in her room where Suzanne could sleep, and Marley and Molly were happy to move into one room temporarily for Albie and Simone to have a bed. Suzanne went along with the plan because she was too mentally exhausted and heartsick to do anything other than stare into space a lot—and because there was a part of her that felt while she was still in Credence, there was still hope.

Which made her the worst kind of fool.

It took two days for Suzanne to talk to her parents. To confess all. They’d given her space, so had Winona, but she knew they wanted to help, wanted to understand, and she owed them the truth. About everything. So in front of the fire on the second night with a glass of red wine in hand and Winona there, too, she fessed up.

About her muse returning. About the paintings she’d done of Grady and him discovering them. About how she’d lied about Grady because she hadn’t wanted to go home for Christmas.

“I’m sorry,” she said to her parents as her dad frowned and her mom covered her mouth with her hand, obviously surprised at the information. “I just didn’t want to spend another Christmas with a coat hanger tree and one lonely blue bulb.”

Her mother patted her knee, and Suzanne continued, but she still felt bad about the admission. And how the lie had gotten out of hand, apologizing to her parents for not being honest and walking it back. She told them all about bribing Grady, who hated Christmas, to help her. About the Hokiest Christmas Ever plan.

“You just seemed so sad on the phone, Mom. About you and Dad. And your marriage. So I just came up with this ridiculous idea of pushing you together because I was sure you’d fall in love again if you spent time together.”

“Well, you were right about that,” Albie said, smiling at Simone.

Suzanne smiled, too, before continuing, telling her sorry story about the lines blurring and falling in love with Grady. About the blizzard. And the portrait she’d painted. And Bethany. And how she’d decided to move to Credence and become an artist in her own right, but she couldn’t bear to face Grady’s rejection every day, so she was going home.

Everything. She left nothing out.

Well…she didn’t go into any of the intimate details, but everything else, talking almost nonstop for an hour.

“Oh, darling.” Simone put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders and pulled her in until Suzanne’s head was resting in the crook of her neck. “You did that for us?”

“I didn’t mean for it to get so out of hand, but I wanted to help,” Suzanne admitted.

“It’s our fault,” her mother said. “If you hadn’t felt like you needed to escape to eastern Colorado to get the kind of Christmas you wanted, this would never have happened.”

Maybe. But it was pointless making a chicken-or-the-egg argument now. And it was no excuse for letting things get so out of hand. Suzanne wasn’t going to compound her stupidity by trying to excuse it or find a scapegoat. She was an adult who had dug this hole all by herself.

“Have you told Grady how you feel?” Winona asked.

Suzanne shook her head. “No.” She hadn’t been able to utter the words in the face of his determination to push her away. She’d held off from baring all, needing to keep something back, to protect the thing that was most precious to her heart. Telling him she wanted to stay and being rejected had been hard. Having her love similarly rejected would have been devastating.

Having her hand dropped like a hot potato on Christmas Day had been bad enough.

“I kind of wore my heart on my sleeve, though. I don’t think it would have been that difficult for him to read between the lines.”

“Oh, babe. Men can be surprisingly dumb when it comes to reading between the lines.”

There was silence for a beat or two as everyone contemplated the lick of flames in the fireplace. “Are you sure he’s not in love with you?” Simone asked out of the blue.

Suzanne pulled out of her mother’s embrace and looked at her. “What?”

“I honestly thought you shacking up in Colorado with a rancher was some kind of joke until that first day we met him and he kissed you hello. He seemed really into you.”

“That was acting, Mom.”

“Was it? Because there was a definite spark between the two of you. Even your father remarked about it later when we were alone.”

Oh, there’d been sparks all right. From the beginning. But sexual attraction wasn’t love. She could find that in the arms of plenty of men. Love was rare.

Albie nodded. “The man could barely keep his hands off you.”

“And look what he did for you,” her mother added. “You tell us that Grady’s supposedly this closed-off kinda guy, yet he helped you. He tolerated his house being wrapped in tinsel and lights and all kinds of Christmas crap that should never see the light of day, and he lied for you and carried on with a charade he didn’t agree with and put up with your parents in his cottage. He didn’t do that for us—he did it for you.”

Suzanne shook her head. “He did it for the paintings.”

“I don’t know,” her father said. “He’s a big guy. Seems to me he could just have taken them from you if he wanted them that badly.”

“It’s against the law to steal, Dad.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he knew how much they meant to you.”

Suzanne thought her parents were reading far too much into the situation. Which was very sweet, but ultimately it didn’t really matter because Grady had gotten them all off her one way or another anyway.

“And then there’s other things as well,” Simone continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you as happy as you have been these past couple of weeks, darling. You can be a little on the serious side, but you’ve been laughing and smiling all the time and just…reveling in the Christmas madness you created all around you. And you’ve been painting again. Original work. Because of him. That’s marvelous. I can’t wait to see it.”

Suzanne snorted, thinking about Grady’s head painted on a cherub. “I’m not sure you’d say that if you saw it.”

“Well, as I’m coming to understand, art is in the eye of the beholder.” Simone reached her hand out to Albie, and he smiled. “I’m also coming to understand that if you love someone, you should tell them. You should tell them and show them every day. And you should definitely fight for it.”

“Speaking as the resident luurve expert,” Winona said, “I concur. You should fight for love.”

“Oh god.” Suzanne shook her head. Were none of them listening to her? “He doesn’t love me.” He loved Bethany.

“Babe…” Winona squeezed Suzanne’s thigh. “Just because he can’t or won’t say the words doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

Suzanne looked into Winona’s earnest eyes. She wanted to believe that so much. But even if it was true, if Grady was determined not to act on his feelings because he was still clinging to his love for Bethany or he was just too broken, then wasn’t it all just moot?

She’d never met a more stubborn man.

“Maybe he just needs some time and space to realize what he’s turning his back on?” Winona suggested.

“Winona’s right,” her father said. “Maybe you should stick around, give him some time to miss you, then turn up on his doorstep and tell him you love him. Going back to New York is like admitting defeat when you haven’t even pulled out your big guns yet.”

The advice made good sense, but they didn’t know Joshua Grady’s resolve like she did. “He’s ex-military, Dad. He can outgun me any day. And the only ammunition I really had is gone. Probably on a bonfire as we speak.”

“You mean the paintings?” Winona clarified.

The thought of them being destroyed was an ache in her chest. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Well…that’s perfect.” She put down her wineglass and sat forward, glancing sideways at Suzanne, a grin on her face. “Paint more.”

“What?”

“If that’s your ammunition, if that’s what it takes to make him take notice, then paint more.”

Suzanne stared at her friend. “What? No.” She couldn’t go down that road again. Could she?

“Yes. And put them up in public somewhere. Knowing how private Grady is, he’ll hate that. Make him come and get them. Make him come to you.”

“Annie’s,” Suzanne said without even thinking. “I threatened to do that once.”

Winona snapped her fingers. “Yes! That’s perfect. She wants paintings for the diner. And you’re looking for somewhere to hang yours.”

Suzanne looked at all three of them. “I couldn’t.” She couldn’t do that to him again—could she?

“Why not?” her mother asked, also sitting forward now.

“It might work,” her father agreed.

“It might not,” Suzanne said.

What if he didn’t even care enough to come and take a look? Although Winona was right. He did hate being the subject of public speculation so it might just work. And damn if the idea wasn’t starting to grow on her.

It would be easy enough. She could paint Joshua Grady drunk, blindfolded, and with one hand tied behind her back. She knew every plane, dip, and freckle on his body.

“I guess I could just…paint more.” It seemed so simple. Too simple. But maybe it would work. Maybe leaving Credence was admitting defeat, and why was she giving up so damn easily without putting everything on the table first?

God knew her muse was already buzzing at the prospect.

“Hell yeah you could,” Winona agreed.

Suzanne stood, her heart rate picking up as the now-familiar flow of creative energy pulsed like a life force from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. “I could even start now.”

Her mother also stood. “I can prep canvases.”

Albie stood. “I’ll grab your stuff out of the van.”

“And I’ll keep your glass and belly full and remind you to shower once a day,” Winona offered.

Suzanne felt excited and jittery and like bursting into tears all at once. She had no idea if any of this was going to make a dent in Grady’s armor whatsoever, but she was fired up enough to give it one more try. “Thank you,” she whispered as she gathered her three coconspirators in for a group hug. “Thank you for the pep talk.”

She just hoped it worked.

…

Reminiscent of her first days in Credence, Suzanne painted for three days solid. The sun shined and the snow melted outside and her parents canceled their flights and moved out to a hotel on the interstate they would never normally be caught dead in, so they could stay on and help. She produced nine portraits of Grady in all his many-splendored forms—the surly rancher, the reluctant nephew, the reclusive loner, the generous lover.

They were less detailed and half the size of the others and also he was dressed because this wasn’t an exercise in trying to embarrass him—it was a proclamation. Suzanne, wearing her heart on her sleeve and proclaiming her love for Joshua Grady to everyone in Credence.

He’d wanted to keep their fake relationship a secret from the town because he hadn’t wanted to be the subject of gossip or pity when she’d gone back to New York and, three weeks ago, that had been fair enough. But things had changed. She’d fallen in love with him, and she didn’t want to keep that quiet. She wanted the whole damn world to know.

And it started with these paintings.

Every expression she’d seen flit across Grady’s face was there. His pain and his anguish. His steely concentration and his frustrating recalcitrance. His amusement. His desire. The gentleness in his eyes when he’d assured her about the portrait, the muted grief she’d seen when he’d talked about his parents, and his torment as he’d admitted his love for his aunt and uncle. The tilt of his mouth when he was relaxed in sleep and his intensity just before he kissed her.

Her love was right there for all to see, just as it was in the nude portrait she’d painted during the blizzard except, this time, she was aware she was doing it and she laid it on thick.

She also painted some landscapes as alive and vital as the portraits.

The outside of Annie’s. The boardinghouse. The old red barn on Harkins Street. The park where they’d had a snowball fight on Christmas Day. Suzanne had caught the play of winter light on cold ground, a sunbeam shining in a bead of liquid hanging from a frozen cobweb and the glisten of frost on anemic grass. She’d captured the peel of paint, the well-worn furrows in a railing, the echo of children’s laughter in snowy footprints.

And she signed all of them.

Annie was throwing a New Year’s Eve event and Suzy was the special guest—her first informal gallery showing and the landscapes were going to be auctioned, the proceeds going to the old folks’ home.

Burl had assured her Grady would come to the event, but she wasn’t so sure. He was probably immune by now to portraits of himself, and while he might cringe at being the center of attention, she didn’t think that trumped his desire to never see her again.

Unless, of course, Winona’s plan worked and the idea of her painting more portraits of him made him mad as hell and he stormed in and ripped them all down. He would have done exactly that four weeks ago, and frankly, she’d prefer that to the way he’d shut her out a week ago.

Spinning around the makeshift gallery, taking in all her paintings, Suzanne felt sick with doubt and worry. God…why had she let her mom and dad and Winona talk her into this?

What if Grady didn’t come? Hell…what if he did?

…

At four o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, Grady was sitting on an Adirondack chair on his front porch amid a mountain of tinsel, garland, and an absolute tangle of Christmas lights no one was ever going to be able to undo. He’d tossed the Christmas tree, complete with all the awful baubles, over the railing of the porch like a fucking great Scottish caber. It leaned drunkenly half on said railing, half across the bottom of the stairs.

He’d been ignoring all Suzy’s Christmas shit in the cabin for days now, but he’d come home in an absolutely foul mood to an empty, screamingly quiet cabin. No terrible chipmunk carols playing, no cooking aromas, no welcoming smile. And the decorations had been like a red flag to a bull. Wasn’t it bad enough that she was in his every waking thought and all his sleeping ones? Did he have to be reminded of her everywhere he looked, too?

He’d torn them all down in a frenzy an hour ago. He felt much better. The bourbon was helping with that, too.

The sound of an engine drifted to him on the chilly afternoon air, and he flicked his gaze to the drive to see Burl’s vehicle approaching. Perfect. Just perfect. His uncle pulled up in front of the porch a minute later and climbed out of the car, his eyebrows raised as he stepped around the tree to mount the stairs, then skirted Mount Christmas to get to the other Adirondack chair.

Picking up the mostly deflated giant Santa Claus slumped in the seat, he tossed it on top of the pile, where it promptly slid down and face-planted on the floorboards. “We have a tornado I don’t know about?”

Assuming the question was rhetorical, Grady didn’t bother to answer.

“What’s going on, son?”

Grady took a mouthful of his drink, staring straight ahead out over the field. “Nuthin’.”

“Sure is quiet out here without Suzanne flitting around.”

Gripping his tumbler, Grady said, “Just the way I like it.”

“Uh-huh.” Burl looked at the mess on the porch. “I can see that.” He stood. “Mind if I fix myself a drink?”

Grady shrugged. “Be my guest.”

Burl was gone for less than a minute. He returned with the bottle and a tumbler. And the portrait that had been propped against the kitchen bench after he’d removed it from her room, the note still attached. Grady groaned internally as Burl placed it against the balustrades and studied it for a while.

“That’s you?”

Grady didn’t look. “Uh-huh.”

“She paint it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s a little…too much information for me.”

“Me too,” Grady said. Having his uncle staring at his junk was not one of the more comfortable moments they’d shared.

“Note says it’s a gift.”

Grady knew exactly what the note said. He’d read it about a hundred times.

Dear Grady,

Please accept this as a gift.

It belongs here with you. I hope one day you see what I see when I look at it.

Suzy.

The fact that she’d left early and while he was gone hadn’t been terribly surprising. He’d welcomed it. The fact that she hadn’t taken the portrait had been shocking. He knew how much it meant to her—or at least he’d thought he’d known. Her first original artwork.

But she’d just…left it behind. So how much had it really meant?

A part of him had reconciled when he’d come home to the empty cabin that at least she’d have something of him with her in New York. And then he’d found the portrait in her room, and it had felt like a kick to the nuts.

“You want to talk about it?”

Grady would rather redecorate the cabin for Easter than talk with Burl about this ache in his chest as wide and desolate as the field he was staring at. “Nope.”

“Son, you know from old, bottling things up doesn’t work.”

“Answer’s still no.”

“Okay,” Burl said cheerfully, making his way to the top step and sitting down. “I’ll go first.”

“Burl.”

“I think you’re in love with Suzanne St. Michelle.”

Grady shut his eyes as Burl dragged the giant fucking elephant in the room right into the light. No shit, Sherlock. But he didn’t want to love Suzy. He didn’t want to love anybody. And when she’d left, he told himself he was relieved. That he could get on with his life. That it was for the best.

It was just that…everything was so fucking quiet.

“You want me to go again?” Burl asked, breaking into Grady’s silence. “Okay. I think you’re running scared because you’re in love with her. Because in seventeen years you’ve not let a single person get too close to you—including Cora and me—and you don’t know what to do because despite your best efforts to keep her out, she’s snuck in anyway. How am I doin’?”

“Bite me, Burl,” Grady growled.

His uncle laughed, and Grady remembered how it had always been Burl, not Cora, who’d been able to distill Grady’s emotions. He was really fucking irritating like that.

“It doesn’t matter,” Grady finally said, his heart weighing a ton in his chest.

“What doesn’t?”

“Loving her.” Although this knot of feelings inside him didn’t feel like love. Like the fresh, first love he’d felt for Bethany. It was twisted and messy. And so fucking deep, he doubted he’d ever find the bottom of it.

“Oh yeah. How you figure that?”

“She’s not cut out for this kind of life. She’s a New Yorker. It was one of the first damn things she said to me. She’s used to art galleries and a pizza place on every corner. She doesn’t understand ranch life. She sleeps late and paints all night. She waits up for me and gets mad if I don’t answer a text. She doesn’t realize a ranch is twenty-four-seven, including Christmas. That it takes over your life.”

“Well, sure.” Burl shrugged. “It’d be a learning curve. But that should be her decision, don’t you think? Cora worked in a lab in Denver when I first met her. You think she knew anything about ranching?”

Grady blinked. “She did?” He knew his aunt was from near Denver, but he’d always assumed she’d come off the land.

“Yup.” Burl nodded. “And you and I both know, son, you could put on more hands or hire a foreman to cut your workload significantly. The ranch taking over your life is your choice, Grady, and a dumb one at that.”

Burl had been beating this drum for the last three years, but it really needled today. “I’ve known her for less than a month,” Grady said, irritation making him short.

“I proposed to Cora after three days.”

Grady rolled his eyes. “She said no.”

“Yeah.” Burl chuckled. “She made me sweat it out for a few more months.”

Having heard the Cora and Burl courting story more times than he cared to remember, another retelling was about more than he could stand right now.

“She’s in love with you, you know.”

Grady’s heart thumped hard in his chest. “Did she tell you that?” Because she’d left the portrait, and if she loved him, she wouldn’t have left the portrait. He knew that as surely as he knew all this Christmas crap around him was going to cause a helluva toxic cloud over Credence when he set it all on fire.

Burl pointed two fingers at his head. “I have eyes.”

There was so much certainty in his uncle’s voice, it gave Grady pause. But even if it was true, it didn’t change the facts. Loving someone left you vulnerable. “I can’t… I just…”

“What, Grady?” Burl said, searching his nephew’s face in earnest. “What? Talk to me.”

“Don’t you ever think about Aunt Cora dying? About how gutting”—Grady blinked back the hot burn of tears and cleared the tightness in his throat—“that’s going to be?”

“Oh…Grady.” His uncle shook his head. “Of course. But if she’d been taken from me after just one day of loving her, it would have been worth every second.” Burl put his glass down on the step. “Look, son, the damage is already done. You’re already in love with her. It’s not going to stop or go away just because you don’t want to be. The decision now is whether you get to be happy for as long as it lasts or be miserable forever because you’re too scared to take a risk. And, son…surely it’s time to stop being miserable?”

Grady knew his uncle was speaking sense. He did love Suzanne. It was there right alongside his love for Cora and Burl. And the ranch. Glowing and hopeful.

But terrifying also.

Burl pushed to his feet and tipped his chin at the painting. “You going to hang that?”

“Nope.” It was too damn painful to look at.

“Well, if you’re just going to shut it away somewhere, you might as well donate it for other people to appreciate.”

Grady snorted. “Thanks. I think I’ll keep my junk to myself. Besides, where in the hell would I donate it around here?”

“To Annie’s. She’s got quite the collection of you now. At least two on every wall. You’re clothed in all of them, so a nude might raise an eyebrow or two, but—”

“Wait.” Grady frowned. “What do you mean she’s got quite the collection of me?”

“Didn’t you know? Suzanne’s been painting up a storm. They’re not all of you; there’s some landscapes as well.”

Grady’s brain felt like it had been switched to slow mo. Suzanne was still in town? “Why?” he asked, his head in a spin.

“Annie wanted art for her walls, and they thought they could turn the diner into a gallery of sorts for a fund-raiser tonight for the old folks’ home. They’re going to auction off the landscapes. Reckon most of the town will be there. Annie’s even got one of those sparkly confetti canon thingies for midnight.”

“No.” Grady shook his head. “I mean, why did she stay?” And why hadn’t his uncle said so earlier?

Burl shrugged. “I don’t think she was ready to leave yet.” He looked at his nephew pointedly. “You should come tonight. Cora and I will be there.”

“Ah…nope.” Go to Annie’s, where his face was on every wall? Where everyone would be staring at him in stereo? And talking about why? Only his worst nightmare.

He may be in love with Suzanne, but he wasn’t going to put that on display in front of the whole damn town. Not when he wasn’t sure she loved him back. Burl might think she did, but the portrait against the balustrades—the one that meant so much to her and she’d left behind—said otherwise.

“Well…” Burl walked down to the next step. “If you change your mind, you know where we’ll be.”

Grady nodded. “Night, Burl.”

His uncle made a detour around the tree at the bottom of the steps and was in his pickup and gone in less than a minute, leaving Grady alone with dozens of clashing thoughts and his portrait staring back at him.

…

Grady managed to distract himself for a few hours with office work before heading to his bedroom to take a shower. Flicking the light on, it spotlighted the portrait he’d placed on his bed earlier. Despite himself, he wandered over to it, gazing down at it again. Reading the note for what felt like the hundredth time.

I hope one day you see what I see when I look at it.

What did she see that he didn’t? What?

And then, suddenly, as if a portal had opened to another world—he saw it. Maybe it was the way the light was shining directly down, or maybe he was looking at it through a different lens now than when he’d first laid eyes on the portrait.

But he saw it. All of it.

She’d depicted so much that he’d missed. His pain. His suffering. His healing. Sure, he looked well laid, but that was just part of it. She’d captured his love for her, right there in his face. Love he hadn’t even been aware of at that point. And even more than that, there was her love for him, so obvious in every brushstroke, every nuance of his expression. She’d endowed the portrait with her feelings for him, and now that he could see it, the painting practically glowed with love.

She loved him. Suzanne St. Michelle loved him. And that’s why she’d left the portrait. She was telling him through her art what she hadn’t been able to tell him to his face because he’d been so fucking implacable.

Grady sat on the bed as a rush of emotion almost took his knees out from under him. Burl was right; loving Suzanne wasn’t going to stop or go away because it hurt him too much to contemplate. And ignoring it, choosing to have nothing to do with her, wasn’t going to shield him from the deep abyss of grief if, god forbid, something terrible did happen to her. He was in love with her, and it was going to hurt to lose her whether he was with her or not.

So he had a choice to make. Be happy with her, make a life with her for however long they might have together. Or be alone and miserable.

And fucking word it was time to stop being miserable.

Grady stood, his lungs suddenly too big for his chest. He had to go to Annie’s and hope like hell he hadn’t ruined any chance he had with Suzanne. Yes, even if that meant doing it in front of the whole damn town. In fact, it was probably better if he did. Public spectacles weren’t his thing, but the town was going to know soon enough, so they might as well hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Although horse’s ass was probably a more apt description.

Grady’s brain scrambled as he headed for his bedroom door and briskly walked through the cabin, grabbing the keys off the hook, his heart pumping in anticipation and terror. He stalled as he reached the back door, a sudden thought stopping him in his tracks.

He’d screwed up big-time—pushing her away like that. So he had to make it up to her big-time. Prove that he meant what he said, and for that he needed the portrait. And a dumb Christmas sweater.

…

By nine o’clock, Suzanne had given up hope of Grady walking through the diner door. She’d gone through all the emotions, from nervous, to relieved, to really freaking pissed. And now she was just sad that he hadn’t even cared enough to come and see her first-ever exhibition. Burl was still optimistic, but Suzanne wasn’t. Grady was an early to bed, early to rise kinda guy.

Even on New Year’s Eve.

So she put her disappointment and her what the hell next planning aside to think about another time. She was wearing a dress and heels and the diner was packed—standing room only—and everybody wanted to talk to her. They loved her work. And not just the Grady paintings, although she did get a lot of questions about her choice of subject. They loved the landscapes, too, and so many people had asked her if she took commissions. Suzanne knew she could set up in Credence as an artist tomorrow and not starve.

Sure, she wouldn’t be able to charge anywhere near the prices she could charge for her forgeries, but she could work on both, and the more she chatted and mingled with the locals, the more convinced she was to make the move Grady had talked her out of.

And he could just deal with it.

“What do you say about Ray and me here, posing for a portrait?” Bob Downey said as he and Ray sidled up to Suzanne. He put his arm around Ray’s shoulder, and they both adopted blank, distant expressions worthy of Mt. Rushmore.

“Very distinguished,” Suzanne said with a laugh.

“Suzy!”

Suzanne startled as a deep, familiar voice cut through the chatter of the diner. Grady? Her pulse spiked.

“Suzy!”

She turned in the direction his voice seemed to be coming from, although she couldn’t see him through the bodies. But suddenly, as if by magic, the crowd parted, and he was striding toward her in jeans and that elf sweater he’d sworn he’d never wear in public. Not even for a blow job. His long legs ate up the space between them, his gaze intense, his face as implacable as ever. She had no idea if he was angry or not, but even in that ridiculous elf sweater, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

He was carrying a large canvas in his hands. The portrait?

“Grady?”

Her pulse was hammering at her temples as her eyes darted all around at the spectators agog with the unfolding drama. For a guy who hated gossip and being the center of attention, he was attracting an awful lot. Was he going to yell at her in front of everyone? These people who already knew how much she loved him because it was in every single damn painting of him on Annie’s walls.

And why did he have the portrait?

He addressed Annie, who was standing on Suzanne’s right. “Annie. I’d like to make a donation to the gallery, please.”

And then he turned the canvas around to reveal his reclined naked form, as breathtakingly alive with her love today as it had been the day she’d painted it. Hot tears pricked at the backs of Suzanne’s eyes and needled her nose. A well of emotion in her throat threatened to choke off her air supply.

No one in the diner reacted at first. It took a beat or two for them to realize what they were seeing. Then everyone talked at once.

A guy at the back called out, “Hey, Grady, how much did you pay her to embellish that?” And someone else, a woman, said, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks.” Another woman said, “I’ll give you two.”

Suzanne stepped forward, ignoring the impromptu auction going on around them—this painting was not for sale. “What are you doing?” she hissed, keeping her voice low, not that there was much worry they’d be overheard with all the noise.

“I saw it,” he said, his hand slipping onto her arm and pulling her closer. “What you saw. In the portrait.”

A pulse tap-danced at Suzanne’s temple, her heart thudding the fandango. He had? “What did you see?”

“You love me.”

Suzanne’s legs went wobbly as a surge of relief washed through them, making her feel lighter than she had in weeks.

“I see it in all these other paintings, too,” he said as he looked around the walls.

“Yeah. Sorry about that,” she said, depressingly aware of how inconvenient it was for him. “I know that’s not what you want.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m absolutely terrified to admit that I’m in love with you, too.”

Suzanne’s pulse skipped a beat. He loved her? But he was still in love with Bethany. She looked around; the spectators had started to quiet and pretty soon would be hanging on their every word. “How about we go into the kitchen or something? For some privacy?”

“No.” He looked around at all the faces watching him and shook his head. “I want everyone to hear this.”

“You do?” Suzanne’s gaze darted to Burl, who shrugged but seemed pretty damn happy anyway. So did Cora.

“Yes.” He grabbed both her hands and held them clasped between their bodies. “I’ve been too caught up in my pride and my desire not to be pitied to realize that these people”—he gestured around him—“love me and would do anything for me. That they’ve been rooting for me to be healed and happy since I came to Credence seventeen years ago, and this declaration is as much for them as for you.” He took a breath. “If that’s okay?”

Suzanne nodded, also catching a breath as the crowd all seemed to lean in simultaneously.

“I screwed up. I told you to go, that there was no hope for me. I pushed you away, and I shouldn’t have. I screwed up. I love you, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it. I thought I was too damaged to love again when what I’ve actually been terrified of is living again. But not anymore. I want to live. I want to live and laugh and be happy again, and I want to do it with you.”

He took a breath, and Suzanne let out the one she’d been holding. He loved her? Her foolish heart leaped at those three little words from a man who wasn’t used to saying them. But she didn’t dare let it fly.

“I thought you were still in love with Bethany?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I will always love Bethany. She’s part of the story of my life, and she will always have a place in my heart. Just as my mom and dad will always have a place there, too. But I’m not in love with her, and I haven’t been for a very long time. It was just easier to hold on to what was to stop myself from reaching for what could be.”

Suzanne heard a couple of female sighs from the crowd and, if it had been happening to someone else, she might have even laughed at their melodrama. But it was happening to her.

“And that’s you,” he continued, giving her hands a gentle squeeze. “I’m in love with you. You crashed into my life and turned it upside down and inside out and my cabin, hell, my life is so damn quiet without you. Nothing’s the same, and I don’t want it to be, either.”

Suzanne drew in a shaky breath. Grady loved her. He loved her. It was there in his words and shining in those pale-green eyes she’d come to know so well. She smiled. “For a man who doesn’t say much, you sure know how to put words together.”

The crowd laughed, and Grady finally cracked a smile. “I practiced all the way over.”

There was more laughter, and Suzanne eased up on the tight reins holding her heart in check.

“Suzy.” Grady’s face went all serious again. “Will you come and live with me on the ranch? I know it’s a huge ask to take you away from the city and all your friends and your colleagues and it might not be an easy transition, but I promise—”

Suzanne threw herself into Grady’s arms, cutting him off abruptly. She’d heard enough. “Yes,” she said. “I love you, Joshua Grady. A thousand times yes.”

And she kissed him, twining her arms around his neck and going up on her tiptoes, much to the delight of the cheering crowd. Kissed him until someone called, “Get a room, you two,” and they reluctantly parted.

“How soon can you move in?” he murmured when they finally pulled apart. “Do you need some time to be sure?”

Suzanne looked at the clock above the entrance. Two and a half hours till midnight. “How about next year?” she said with a smile.

He laughed. “I think I can wait that long.”

Then, out of nowhere, people started to gasp and look up, and Suzanne and Grady looked up, too, as a blizzard of metallic confetti drifted down all around them. The kind of blizzard it was okay to be standing in and the perfect sparkly way to be starting the first day of the rest of their lives.