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He grinned, watching her battle back sleep. “I like you.”

Now she smiled, sleepy and sweet. “I like you too. If I could write myself into any life, it would be this.”

He stilled, watching her. She was awake now, he felt her heart begin to race against his chest.

“You’d choose a ghost?” he murmured in disbelief.

“No, Wolfe.” She squeezed his hand. “I’d choose you.”

Chapter 27

I spent the next week writing.

The moment our walk along the cliffs was done, I found myself back in the sitting room buried in my laptop. Writing hadn’t felt this easy or effortless in almost a year. The dialogue flowed freely and quickly—so quickly I could barely keep up with it. The tension and chemistry was there and god, the heart of it.

Wolfe was right. Writing it felt cathartic, a way to release my inner demons into the world and process them all.

I named her Juliet for her unshakeable will and presence, but I saw myself in her—perhaps more than any other character I’d ever written. The hours of research I did of Spain took up a bulk of my time and Wolfe listened, helping me sort through the mess of notes I gathered.

He greeted me every morning with a thistle and a long, slow hand running down the length of my cheek.

Nearly a week since that night in the pub and he hadn’t touched me since. Even though I was desperate for it, he restrained himself. It didn’t stop him from looking, from running his tongue along his lower lip like he wanted to devour me whole.

Samhain was approaching and with it, the start of November.

I tried not to think about how little time I had left or just how quickly it was moving. I focused instead on the nights we spent reading by the fire. We started The Rake That Loved Me last night and I’d been blushing and unable to even look at Wolfe as we traded off chapters reading. I felt the silken tone of his voice against my skin like a physical caress. He could barely look at me, hands clenched into fists on his knees.

The only true reprieve from the weight between us was Moira’s book club.

I went back again this week, barely able to finish the book in time. We talked about the plot, the characters, their choices, how we felt about the sex scenes—Bianca said they were too tame for the tension in the book and the rest of us agreed—and of course, the ending.

A round of sighs went up. At our core, we were all dreamers. All romantics. All hopeful and wide-eyed. Wolfe leaned against the counter and watched, all the longing in the world hovering in the lines of him.

We drove home in silence, each of us casting shy glances at the other.

I ate breakfast with him in the kitchen. We talked about our lives. The details we were still missing about each other. Every detail he shared was another puzzle piece coming together about who he was.

And who he was was wonderful.

Someone who was so devoted to his family, his brother, his friends. The town. Who ached with loneliness even when he was alive. The more he described his days, the weariness that accompanied him to bed, I saw it all. Staring at the horizon, listening to laughter he couldn’t join in with because the boats had come back with no fish. Plans to go out for a drink that he missed because the farmer up the road broke his leg and couldn’t tend to his family.

“I don’t regret it. I was lucky to care for them. It’s an honor,” he said, staring out somewhere over my shoulder.

“It can still be an honor and a burden,” I said softly. “It can still give and take.”

“Just like this,” he whispered thickly.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “Just like this.”

He didn’t sleep beside me again. I’d asked, but he declined, walking me to my door instead and breathing into me in a way that made my head spin. He always tore himself away, disappearing wherever it was he went to rest. When the sun rose, he was back again, light in his eyes and a smile on his face.

Three days before Samhain, I finally filled Marissa in on my progress. I sent her the first fifty pages and a brief summary and listened to her cry and laugh on the other side of the phone.

“This is beautiful work,” she gushed. “I think it’s the best thing you’ve written yet.”

Her praise suffused me with sunshine and Wolfe placed a kiss on the back of my hand, face lit up with pride. I felt good. I was sleeping. I was energized and motivated. The words were pouring out of me. I belonged to a book club with some of the funniest and kindest women I’d ever met. Everyone in town knew me now and stopped to say hello.

Belonging to them was beautiful. Learning their names, hearing their stories, syncing my heart to the waves crashing into the rocks below. I felt transformed, like someone had scraped me up from the depths and finally placed me back on my feet.