Only in Your Dreams (The Mountains are Calling #2)

26. Finley

I drank too much chardonnay on the plane in an attempt to calm my nerves. It didn’t work. Now I’m just anxious and tipsy.

It’s a bad combination.

We fly over the ocean for a moment before landing, and I catch a glimpse of deep blue. It’s stunning, watching the waves crash and foam against the rocks. The only beaches I’ve been to have been on the coast of the Carolinas or in Florida, and none of them looked as wild or rugged as this. Looking at this stretch of ocean evokes the feelings I get when I’m looking out at the mountains in Fontana Ridge, feeling small and insignificant but somehow incredibly lucky to exist in a place like this.

I want to bottle up this feeling and hold on to it as I disembark and find my way to Grey.

My phone vibrates with dozens of messages when I turn it off airplane mode, almost all of them from the book club girls. They’ve apparently been watching my flight on the radar, tracking it up the coast.

And there are several messages from Grey.

Grey: I tried calling, but it went straight to voicemail. Just wanted to hear your voice.

Grey: Man that was sappy.

Grey: I’m sorry.

Grey: Still mean it though.

A smile tugs at my lips and some of the nerves buzzing in my stomach start to settle. For the first time in the last five hours, I think coming here might be a good idea.

My hands are shaking in the cab heading toward Cape Landing when I finally call him. I have no idea where I’m headed or if I’m going to need to use the bed-and-breakfast reservation we made on the way to the airport.

“Hey, Fin,” he says, answering on the second ring like he was holding his phone in his hand, waiting for me to call. “I love you.”

This makes me laugh, something warm and tender and absolutely delighted. “So you’ve said.”

I can hear the smoke in his voice when he says, “It bears repeating. What are you up to?”

I clear my throat, letting my eyes drift out the window to watch the ocean passing by on my left. I was right about how untamed it looks. It crashes against the rocks, beautiful and maybe a little dangerous, mirroring the way my heart beats a wild rhythm against my ribs.

“Driving,” I finally say, the closest thing to the truth that I can manage. I want to see his face when he realizes I’m here. I want to watch every emotion play out and make sure he’s happy to see me. I don’t want to give him time to prepare a response he thinks I’ll like. I want him raw and unfiltered. Grey at his core, not an ounce of anyone or anything else.

It sounds loud on the other end, voices and ocean wind mixing to create a quiet cacophony of noise. “What are you doing? It sounds loud there.”

He must cup his hand over the speaker, because the noise on the other end becomes muted. “We’re at dinner on the wharf. Someplace called Fisherman’s that Charlie hasn’t stopped talking about since I got here. They apparently have the best lobster rolls in all of Maine.”

I make a humming noise in the back of my throat. “Sounds amazing.”

“You’d love it here, Fin,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. It plucks at something in my chest, because he sounds happy . I hope I’m not making a mistake, sitting in this cab, heading down the coast toward him.

“Next time I visit, you’re coming with me.” There are muffled voices in the background, and when he comes back on, he says, “Hey, dinner’s here. I gotta go. Love you, sweetheart.”

The other line clicks off before I can respond, but his words linger. Next time I visit and love you, sweetheart . So simple, but they make everything inside me pull taut. A tether tugging me toward him, wrapped so tightly around my heart I think it might snap in half.

“Can you take me to Fisherman’s?” I ask the cab driver. “On the wharf.”

The chardonnay is still buzzing in my veins when we pull up to the wharf. It makes me feel loose and antsy at the same time. Maybe that’s just Grey. Maybe it’s just me. My liquid courage isn’t turning out to be very helpful at all.

My legs feel wobbly as I heft my backpack onto my shoulders. I packed light, not wanting to have to tote a duffel bag around, and I’m glad for it now. The summer air feels different here. It’s salty with a heavy breeze and almost cool compared to the end of August in North Carolina, but sweat still breaks out along my hairline and in the center of my back, in the palms of my hands.

I stand at the edge of the wharf, gathering my courage, as the taxi pulls away, leaving me here. So close to Grey and yet so far inside my own head that he feels miles away. For a moment, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can walk across the sun-worn wooden planks covered in a thick layer of salt. I don’t think I can walk into the little yellow building wrapped in fishnets in the distance. I don’t think I can look at him and ask him to come home with me to stay. I don’t think I can hand him my heart on a silver platter and tell him it’s his to break. It’s his to regret holding on to.

But I don’t have to.

Because just as I’m thinking I’ll turn around, get back on a plane without facing him, the door to the restaurant opens, and he’s there.

Grey.

Laughing at something Charlie is saying, head tipped back and the dimple in his left cheek on full display. He looks so happy that I want to cry. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make him look like that. Or at least not keep him looking like that. To cause him to wake up every morning beside me in Fontana Ridge and feel just like he does in this moment.

But then his eyes land on me, and he doesn’t even take a second to look confused. Somehow, his smile widens. His joy grows into something all-encompassing. Like a hurricane hitting the shore, his happiness engulfs me.

I hear his feet hitting the wooden planks of the wharf before he gets to me. I feel his hands on me, soft, gentle. I see his brow furrow ever so slightly, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“You’re here” is all he says. Not why are you here? Not how did you get here? Just you’re here , like that’s all that matters.

So I say, “I’m here. I wanted to see you.”

This makes his smile stretch into something so full it has to hurt. His hand brushes against my neck, thumb settling under my chin, tracing a line down to the hollow of my throat.

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.”

And then he kisses me. It’s slow, drugging, the kind of kiss that turns my insides into warm, dripping liquid.

“I’m glad you came,” he says against my lips, his forehead resting against mine, his thumb still pressed against the rapidly beating pulse in my throat.

“Me too.” And I am. Seeing him has dulled the nerves coursing through me, and I feel less like I’ve made a mistake. It’s hard to regret anything that has resulted with me in his arms.

“Why?” It’s all he asks. It could mean a million different things, but I know he’s asking why I’m here, why I decided I could leave the shop and fly a thousand miles up the coast one day before he returns home.

A lump settles in my throat, and my pulse flutters beneath his touch, faster, harder. I don’t think I can say it. I don’t think I can ask him to stay.

But then his eyes soften, that stunning shade of my favorite flower, and it bolsters my courage. He feels made for me in a way no one has before. He’s kind, and he makes everyone feel at ease, and he deserves to feel as lovely and special as he makes everyone else feel. He deserves love he hasn’t experienced before.

“Stay, please.” The words come out as a desperate gasp, like they’ve been clawing their way out of my chest for weeks. “I—” I swallow my nerves, hold his gaze. “I love you too. I don’t want you to leave me. I’m scared I won’t be enough for you, that you’ll regret staying because of me. But I’m more scared of what will happen if you leave. So don’t. Don’t leave, please.”

Everything comes out in shaky spurts, and I watch as his face transforms with each one. I feel as his thumb traces my pulse comfortingly, as if he’s trying to tell me he’s here, he’s listening, he’s holding me up in the only way he knows how.

When I finish, he shakes his head, his eyes never leaving mine. “I fear you’ve wasted a trip.”

My heart plummets, sinking down into my feet and taking all my blood with it. I’m unsteady, knees buckling. He must see, because his arms tighten around me, his expression cast in worry.

“Fin, no.” He shakes his head again, seeming frustrated with himself. “I just meant that you didn’t need to come all this way to ask me. I was always coming home to you.”

The way my body reacts so swiftly is disorienting. The relief is flooding.

“Grey,” I sigh, my voice almost a laugh, and his lips quirk, his smile stunning.

“That was my bad,” he responds with a rueful grin.

“You think?”

He looks stunning in this light, with the sun setting behind him, haloing him in gold, lighting his hair in shades of pink and purple and orange. If I was an artist, I’d want to paint him just like this.

Then, as if he’s just remembered something, he says, “You love me.”

“I’m rethinking that.”

He shakes his head, tousled hair catching in the briny wind. “No, you’re not.”

“No,” I repeat. “I’m not.”

I feel his lips against my ear, and I shiver against the unexpected warmth of his breath. “I love you too.”

He’s said it plenty over the last two weeks, but it feels different now. Less a declaration and more of an exchange. Of pieces of ourselves that we’ve reserved before, held back from others, protected with armor built around our hearts.

This time feels like a promise.

“You really weren’t going to go?” I breathe it into his skin, the space between his neck and shoulder that always smells the most like him, like cheap soap and laundry detergent that somehow smells expensive on him.

I can’t look at him as I ask. I’m still vulnerable, tender in all the places I’ve exposed.

But Grey doesn’t let me hide away. He pulls back, gaze fixed on mine, expression unreadable. “Finley, I know you don’t believe this yet, but I think you’re worth staying for.”

His words lodge in an aching spot in my heart, one that’s held hurt for far too long.

He sighs. “I considered the job at first. I thought about leaving, about starting over. But it never felt right. I thought it would be easier to leave you behind if things between us stayed the same, if you never wanted me like I wanted you. And maybe it would have been, but that’s not what happened. I can’t leave Fontana Ridge, Fin. Not if it’s where you are.”

I want him to say he’s staying for Holden and Wren and June and my mom. I want him to say he considered all of them, and his job and his home. He probably did. But that’s not what he’s saying now. He’s saying he can’t leave Fontana Ridge because he can’t bear to leave me . And that’s terrifying .

“Say something else,” I plead.

He only shakes his head. “No.”

“I don’t want to argue with you.” I sound desperate, on the verge of breaking down.

His mouth tips into a small smile. His eyes are so, so soft, the petals of a poppy blooming in the sun. “Yes, you do. You love to argue with me.”

“No, I don’t,” I can’t help saying, and it only makes his smile broaden.

“Quit arguing, Fin.”

“What if you regret it?”

His gaze settles on mine, soft and steady. His thumb traces a path down my throat. “I could never regret you.”

The words feel like the sun peeking through the clouds after a bad storm, the air still heavy with electricity, but finally glowing with warmth.

I want to believe him. And I realize, finally, that the only thing stopping me is me . One day, I’m going to have to trust someone. And more than anything, I want that person to be Grey.

So I nod. “Okay.”

His smile tips further. “That’s all you have to say?”

I roll my eyes, but can’t help matching his smile, my insides bubbling like champagne. “I love you.”

Now his smile is brighter than the setting sun behind him, blinding and all-consuming. “I know.”

A laugh bubbles out of me, and I shove him back.

He drops his hands from my neck and waist. “You can’t think you were hiding it well,” he says, grinning. “You flew all the way to Maine, Finley.”

“I heard the lobster rolls were better here.”

His eyes twinkle as he closes the distance between us, smiling down at me, fingers twining with mine. He looks at me like he knows I’m full of it, and he doesn’t care. He looks at me like I’ve made all his dreams come true.

“Well, since you came all this way…”