Chapter 6

Sly Little Fox

Jem hasn’t been to a book signing in ages. For at least six months. And she definitely doesn’t go to events without telling me. She’d have been raving about it for weeks before going, giving me a million and one useless facts about the author, how fantastic their books are, why she’s excited about going. But she didn’t. At all. Not one word.

Which means, she was over that way for a reason. A six-foot-five reason, I’ll bet.

“What exactly did Jem say when you bumped into her?” I ask.

James thinks for a second. “Not much. Just the usual hello and good to see you, that kind of thing. She was a bit shocked by the beard, asked what happened to me, what I’d been up to. I joked that I was in my wilderness guy phase, was planning on heading off for a couple of weeks in nature.”

Hmm.

“Jem’s the reason I’m out here,” I tell him. “It was all her idea. Or so I thought.”

“You think running into me put the idea in her head?”

“Oh, I think she got more than just the idea from you.”

A frown settles on his face. “How so?”

“Did you tell her about this place? Where you were going for those weeks away?”

He laughs, shakes his head. “Yeah, actually, I think I did. That sly little fox set us up, didn’t she?”

Jem always adored James and said he was the best thing that ever happened to me, even though it did mean she lost her flatmate when I moved in with him. For months after James and I broke up, she tried to convince me to speak to him, to go him. I can be stubborn, though. Especially when I’m hurting and shut down, close myself off. And a few weeks ago, it was two years since I lost our baby. It hit me hard.

“I’m thinking so,” I say as everything pieces together in my mind. “I’ve not been right since we broke up, since I walked away. I threw myself into work, even more hours than you used to do if you can believe that. I’d be up at half four, laptop on, work all day and then home late, grab some takeout on the way and be back at it in the evenings. I was working weekends too. Anything to take my mind off everything.”

“Sweetheart, that’s understandable, you were grieving.”

“Yeah. I was a lot of things. But Jem sat me down, told me it had to stop or I’d burn out. She bet me I couldn’t take a week off, couldn’t hack it out here.”

James stands then, pulls me up too. “And your competitive lawyer nature sent you straight to the nearest camping store, am I right?”

The man knows me too well. “Yep. Within the hour, I had a tent, sleeping bag, and all manner of things I didn’t have a clue how to use.”

“Sounds like you,” James says as he leads us back towards the tent.

“The only conditions were that I had to last the entire week, and she got to pick the place.”

“Which just so happened to put you and me right on a collision course.”

I can’t help but smile. Jem has been my best friend since high school, has only ever wanted the best for me, and bless her romance book-loving heart, she had to try and fix my heartbreak. She always said all James and I needed to do was talk.

“It’s a big place, her plan could have failed. We might never have connected.”

It’s true, the odds weren’t totally stacked in our favour, but Jem’s a believer, a romantic, would have bet it all on us finding each other just because we were destined.

The truth is it probably had more to do with Bear’s strong nose, his ability to pick up a scent, the fact that intelligent brain of his still remembered me.

“Jem is one of a kind, all fate and kismet to my logic and facts. But this time, maybe she was right.”

“Did the cynical Katie Feldman just admit to the existence of things she can’t see, can’t explain?”

I push him playfully on the chest, which does nothing except make him grab my hand and pull me into him once more. Being in his arms feels like coming home. And maybe I haven’t ever believed in things being written in the stars, but out here in this place, with him, even with Jem’s meddling ways, believing we’re meant to be together isn’t hard at all. I just needed to talk to him, and now maybe I can start to heal, we can start to heal.

“Now, where did you say this place was that you managed to get a signal?”

“Up on the ridge overlooking the lake. Not the one you nearly fell off, one a little further along, a little higher.”

“Can we go? I need to make a call.”

“Sure. You’re going to call Jem, aren’t you, tell her off for meddling?” he asks, calling Bear over and attaching his leash.

“Yeah,” I reply as I dance away from him, “but I also need to make sure she’ll be my Maid of Honour,”

He falters for a second, almost knocked over into the sandy grass at the edge of the lake as Bear lumbers into the back of his legs.

“Wait … What? Does that mean…”

Bear leaps and bounds around us, looking between me and James, his big doggy smile excited as realisation dawns on James’ face.

I grin at him. “If you’re still asking, then…”

Three steps and he catches me easily, picks me up, and spins me around, Bear now barking wildly in our playful moment. “I am. I very definitely still am.”

“Then yes, James Knight. Yes.”