The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

I only have one thing I regret more than never showing you these psycho scribblings—I never told you when I could.

I never told you I love you so much, so hard, so secretly it ripped me open years ago. And now, I never will.

You can’t see the stranger, the mess, the fucked up wreck I’ve become.

I’ll tell Marty that if you ever come home to Dallas, don’t try to find me.

Consider me missing and gone. Lost to the violence.

Too dead to be your friend, much less the hero you deserve.

Have a nice life.

“West!” His name tears up my throat with a strangled sob.

He’s dumping his entire heart.

He’s quoting Dostoyevsky.

He’s killing me one visceral confession at a time.

My hands are shaking—shaking—as I press the paper to my thigh, looking up at blue eyes so hot they’re pure plasma. Ball lightning.

“Here I am. Good news, I’m not lost anymore,” he says quietly, his voice so raw. “I love you, Shel. And you’re holding the proof that I always have. If D.C. is where I’ll find you—where I can keep loving you like I should’ve years ago—then that’s where I want to stay. With you.”

I’m so taken aback the air locks in my lungs, and when it hisses out, I cough, tugging at this blasted turtleneck sweater again that’s way too tight.

He’s instantly at my side, inching closer on the sofa. “Hold on, woman. I’m gonna get you that water.”

“No!” I stammer. “You, sit.” I wrap both hands around his arm, quivering, blinking through my tears at his handsome face. “You just had a flipping bullet pulled out of your leg and I need to calm down.”

Once we’re settled in this warm silence, I look at him again and say, “You took my breath away. Literally. Did you really love me all those years ago?”

He grins, his face heating red behind his ears, and he cups my cheek with one hand.

“Hell yeah, I did. I loved you so much I had to let you go, and make sure I never found my way back.” He pauses, drawing a ragged breath. “That’s what I thought then, anyway. I thought I was doing what was right, protecting you, mostly from me. Turns out, I was wrong about a lot of things.”

“Oh, yeah?” I whisper. “Like what?”

His eyes flash, total heat lightning again as he gazes through me.

“Like how my night got so damn dark I forgot how to look up. I couldn’t see what was always right in front of me. You were always my stars, Shel. All of them. You still are. And if you can ever forgive me for the foot-in-mouth bullshit I pulled before that freak snatched you away...I want you to shine down on me just like you did then. I want your light, your love, forever—but only if you think I’m worthy.”

Holy hell.

So. So, I expected a lot of things when I saw him on my doorstep...

A fraught talk. A disastrous fight. A whole lot of groveling if he grew a heart bigger than a peanut.

But this? Weston damn McKnight calling me his stars after he handed me his still-beating heart in those letters, those promises, he kept after all?

I might not make it out of this room.

Not without passing out and spending a good, long spell lifeless on the floor.

But as always, his arms hold me up, gently cradling me like I’m a treasure he’s spent his whole life looking for.

Tears melt my eyes, rolling down my cheeks in seething rivulets.