Harper startled slightly, but offered him a smile. “There are three grown-ass shifters sleeping on the floor of your little house, and one of them is snoring like a freight train. I couldn’t sleep. You?”
Wyatt shook his head and leaned against the logs of the cabin wall. He wore a pair of black, low-slung sweats, but no shirt. The blue moonlight illuminated his taut torso in alluring shadows and highlights, and his abs flexed with each shallow breath he took. With a sigh, he padded over to her and sat next to her on the top porch stair. “I needed to Change.”
“And think. By yourself.”
Wyatt smiled and rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands in front of him. “Yeah. I had a lot of thinking to do.”
“You’re used to being alone.”
“That I am. I forgot how it was, you know? I forgot how everyone talks about everything, and calls everyone out on their shit. I got used to just me beating myself up.” The corners of his eyes tightened as he stared at the full moon above the tree line. “Weston’s right, you know.”
“Wyatt—”
“No, just let me say this. I made so many mistakes with you. With myself. With everything. Growing up, my dad was always telling me how to be a good alpha and a good man, but somewhere along the way, I got so caught up in my own head I messed up. I veered off this easy path I had laid out for my future and went hiking in the damn brambles. And you…you paid for my mistakes.” Wyatt arced that bright blue gaze to her, held her trapped there as he whispered, “I’m sorry, Harper. For all of it, I’m so sorry.” He pulled a glossy, folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.
With a frown, Harper unfolded it. When she realized what it was, she clasped her hand over her mouth to keep the heartache inside.
“I know you think I didn’t think about Janey, or that I left you alone to deal with her loss.” Wyatt pointed to the little ultrasound, to the tiny baby, no more than twelve weeks gestation, with little paddle hands and a round belly and knees tucked to her chest. “When you started bleeding, I had this awful, horrible thought that maybe if you lost her, it would be a good thing, because then you could live. I didn’t really think you were losing her. I just had that thought. And when the doctors told me you were delivering, and that Janey was going to be stillborn, I couldn’t go in there with you. I just paced outside the door. They said I needed to look at her for closure, but…” Wyatt scrubbed his hand down his face. “I couldn’t go in there and look at our girl and watch your heartbreak, knowing I had wished that loss on us.”
“You can’t think it was your fault.”
“I know it wasn’t. I forgave myself. I was a stupid kid, just dealing with it the only way that made sense to me at the time, but this is what I have of her now. The cemetery, the hospital, that isn’t my closure.” He pointed to the ultrasound. “That is. That picture of my baby girl is my way of dealing with it.”
Harper hugged the little picture to her chest and let off a long breath. “It feels like a million years ago now, doesn’t it? Like another lifetime. So much has happened since then.”
Wyatt nudged her arm, leaned over, and kissed the tip of her shoulder, then gave his attention to the moon again. “What did she look like?”
Harper traced the little baby and said, “She was a dragon.”
“How do you know?”
“Two blue eyes, long pupils. Oh, she would’ve been a beasty like you. A strong girl. Maybe even a fire-breather like me. She was so tiny. Just…” Harper cupped her hands. “I held her in my palms, all wrapped up in a little pink blanket. “She was beautiful.”
Wyatt wiped his cheek on his shoulder and wouldn’t look at her anymore. But when she wrapped her arms around his waist, he hugged her against his side and let his lips linger on top of her head.
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
“About wanting to bang in the parking lot of Drat’s?”
Wyatt chuckled thickly and sniffed. “You know what I mean.”
“I love you still, yes.”
“As a friend or more?”
Her dragon let off a long, low growl in her chest. She didn’t like giving too much for nothing.
Wyatt hugged her tighter against him and lowered his lips to her ear. “Because I love you, too. Always have. Always will.”
He eased away just enough that his lips were inches away from hers. His gaze locked with Harper’s, he froze and waited.
The choice was hers. Wyatt was giving her an out by hesitating, but she’d meant what she said in the truck. She loved him, and her soul had felt torn in two until she’d come here. Wyatt wasn’t the boy who’d left all those years ago. He was different now. Mature. That much was clear from him taking Weston’s blame in the truck and apologizing for all of it. He was a man who owned his mistakes, who wasn’t too proud to say he was sorry.
He hadn’t just left because he didn’t love her. He’d left to punish himself, but it was enough that he was here, asking her to trust him and the man he’d become. Tonight, Wyatt had come out of that smoke ready to bring hell to earth and war to the supernaturals of Bryson City and Asheville to protect her.
And now this wild, quiet, loner of a man was admitting he loved her still? After all this time, he had pined for her, too?
Harper eased forward and pressed her lips to his.