JJ opened the door wider. “Come in,” he said.
I licked my lips but stayed rooted to the spot. The words flew out of my mouth in the midst of snow and surprise.
“No. First, I just need to say something. I’m in love with you.”
JJ’s expression fell. I rushed into what I had to say, because there was no other way.
Love was, or it wasn’t.
“I’m the Queen of Romance, right? Read all the books. Watched all the movies. Absorbed all the possible scenarios. And I had it all wrong. I thought love was just the good stuff. The happiness. But love is that and so much more. It has a dark side. There are stretches of tough days, of heartbreak, of . . . routine. Those are the things that make the love so strong. So I was wrong. Romance and love don’t exist the way I thought they did. It’s different, but I think the real version is better.”
He leaned against the door. I felt the weight of his whole attention all the way in my soul. My fingers fidgeted with the end of my sleeve as I kept going.
“I really believe that romance and love can change the world. That it makes people and things better. It . . . it got me through a lot, and I’m grateful for it. Mama, she . . . made a lot of mistakes, but the hope of love and romance wasn’t one of them. I see that now. But I thought that if I let myself love you, I’d become like her and then I’d destroy you and whatever happiness we found.”
His expression wrinkled, but he didn’t say anything. His silence allowed me to use up the rest of my courage and finish my very unrehearsed, anticlimactic speech with a little sniffle.
“I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you walk into the Frolicking Moose. You have always been the hero in my dreams. In my books. Then you stepped into my life, and you were the hero there, too.” Tears filled my eyes. “But it wasn’t just saving me from going off the cliff with my car. That wasn’t the most romantic thing you did for me.”
“Then what was?” he asked quietly.
“Listening to me. Taking me to buy books. Putting your arms around me. Convincing Mark to hire me.”
His eyes widened, and I smiled.
“Yeah, I know that this whole thing was your idea,” I said. “Thanks to you, I see the truth now. You rearranged the way I look at the world until I feel almost like a new person. A better one. If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what love is.”
We stood there, cold air whipping into the house from behind me, for a long pause. How would he respond? Was he about to thank me and then say he didn’t feel the same way? Pressure built up in my chest until I thought I’d explode.
Finally, he reached out, grabbed my arm, and tugged me inside. His chest brushed against mine as he reached for the door and pulled it closed.
“C’mere,” he whispered, his fingers braiding into mine. His breath was a warm caress on my cheek. “I want to show you something.”
He led me through the office and out the back door. We sifted through the snow to my cabin. Although I couldn’t tell what was going on, JJ was clearly on a mission. He had a determined expression in his eyes, as if he’d finally decided something. When we stepped inside, he flipped the light on. Nothing had changed except for a dozen books lying on the bed, spaced out evenly. He shut the door behind us but didn’t let go of my hand.
“What is this?” I asked.
“There are twelve romance novels here.” He drew in a deep breath and grabbed the closest one. “Each a different subgenre of romance. Can’t believe there are that many, but that’s a topic for another day.”
“Why are they here?”
I scanned the titles. Most of them were familiar. I’d read almost all of them, but one was new. A thrill pulsed through me at the idea of having a new romance to read. JJ chewed on his bottom lip for a second. A hint of color appeared at the top of his ridiculously perfect cheekbones.
“Because I read them,” he said.
“You read them?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I read them. Not super intensely. Skimmed most of them over the past couple of days. There were others.” He frowned a bit. “But I left them out.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t remind me of you.”
“Oh.”
He grabbed one. “This heroine, Kristyna something, reminded me of you because she had a lot that happened in her past, but she let go of it to become her own person.” He tossed it aside to grab another. “This one? This girl reminded me of you because she stood up for herself and didn’t take any crap.” He ditched that with a flick of his wrist. “I couldn’t put any of these down because all I pictured as I read was you. Your courage. Your tenacity. Your bravery. Then I understood what you meant. These books are hope. When I pictured you in them, I almost felt like you were with me.”
My throat clogged. Was there anything more romantic than the acknowledgment of my beliefs? His validation that none of this was a lie? Love and romance were real. For him, they had been a force for good.
Finally.
He picked up another one. “But this one was my absolute favorite. I read every word.”
My voice trembled when I whispered, “Why?”
“I saw you in this one because she didn’t realize how much he loved her. How much he wanted to be with her. She was frightened that they’d destroy each other, so she left.”
I swallowed. “What happened at the end?”
JJ turned to me, gaze on my lips, then back on my eyes. He yanked me
