Flash opened the back door and stepped out onto the deck.
“You coming?”
“Fine. I’m coming.” Ian closed the door behind them and followed her down the deck steps and onto the snowy path. “But if a bear or a wolf shows up, I’m letting them eat you while I run away since this was your idea.”
“I accept your terms. Now hold my hand, dammit.”
“Okay, dammit,” he said, taking her hand in his. They trudged through the crunching snow, stumbling over twigs and rocks buried under the white powder. They passed under tree branches thick with snow and ice and scrambled over fallen tree trunks festooned with deep green moss. They worked their way up the hill toward a clearing in the woods. It was slow going in the snow and the cold and walking uphill. Although they’d walked half an hour, they hadn’t traveled far enough to even lose sight of the chalet roof half a mile behind them. They reached the clearing where the tree line thinned and met the edge of a heavy snowpack. His nose was red and running, his eyes were lined with tears and his lungs burned from the thin air and the uphill walk.
And yet...
Above them the full moon glowed bright as the daytime sun and the snow all around them shimmered like white marble and quartz. Away from the city the stars came out—millions of stars, billions of stars, more stars than God could count. Flash was smiling and Ian forgot all about the stars.
“Damn, it’s beautiful out here,” Ian said, squeezing Flash’s gloved hand in his. “I’m glad we came out.”
“I said something mean to you,” she said.
“I probably deserved it.”
“You didn’t deserve it when I said I only wanted to use you for sex. And you didn’t deserve it when I said I didn’t want to hold your hand and go walking in a winter wonderland with you.”
“Is that why we’re out here?”
“I thought it would be a better way to say ‘I’m sorry’ than just saying ‘I’m sorry.’ I do want to hold your hand. I do want to go walking in the snow with you. I want us to have a real relationship. I love having sex with you but I do want more than that.”
“I want that, too,” Ian said. “I’m ten years older than you are so it’s only right that I warn you that I’ll want to get married sooner rather than later. I think I even want a kid—one at least, two at the most. Those things are important to me. And if you can’t see that happening with me—”
“I can,” she said.
“You can?”
“Yeah. With you I can see that happening. It scares me but in the good way, the way I get scared when I get a good idea for a sculpture and I don’t know if I can pull it off or not but I have to try.”
“This feels real, what you and I are doing,” he said. “I need it to be real. I don’t want to dick around. I don’t want to screw this up. I want the real thing with you and I want it now. We’ve waited long enough to get serious with each other.”
“I feel the same way,” she said. “It’s a relief to hear you say it.”
“How would you feel about me giving you the key to my place?” he asked. “That way it won’t be breaking and entering when you wait outside the bathroom while I’m in the shower.”
“I think I like that idea.”
“What do you think about moving in with me up here?” Ian tensed. He knew he was pushing things with her but right now with the snow under their feet and the stars over their heads like an umbrella, he felt like he could say anything to her.
“Are you in love with me?” she asked.
“You know I am.”
“Say it.”
“I’m in love with you, Veronica Redding. I am deeply in love with you. I spent the last six months trying not to be in love with you, and there were days when it was physically painful to be around you and not tell you what I feel. It felt like I had a vise clamped on my heart and now it’s finally off. All the pain in my chest is gone. I know it’s kind of soon to mention all this, but I’ve spent six months not being able to take a full breath because of you and now I can breathe again and all I want to breathe in or out is you.”
There was that smile again, that smile as rare and lovely as a rose blooming in winter.
“I can’t move in with you,” she said. “I want to. I do. But I can’t afford it.”
He laughed. “You think I’d charge you rent? I don’t want or need your money.”
“Yes, but I want and need my dignity. I’m not going to mooch off you just because you can afford it.”