Jack wanted to tell her that he had been withering away there, bit by bit. So infinitesimally that he hadn’t realized how faded he was until he returned to Cadence and found that he could set down roots in a place, roots deep and entwined.

Instead, he whispered, “Yes, but I once thought home was simply a place. Four walls to hold you at night while you slept. But I was wrong. It’s people. It’s being with the ones that you love, and maybe even the ones that you hate.” He couldn’t help but smile, watching how his words raced across her skin, making her flush.

Adaira set aside her glass. Her eyes were keen when she looked at him and said, “Do you know that I once hated you?”

He laughed, and the sound spread through his chest, warm and rich as the wine. “I thought we were telling each other things we did not know.”

“I was glad to see you leave that evening ten years ago,” she confessed. “I stood on the hill at dusk and watched you board the boat. I watched until I could no longer see you, and I counted it a triumph, for my old menace would no longer haunt the isle. I had defeated and banished you, and you would no longer steal my thistles, or feed me pimpleberries, or yank the ribbons from my braids. You can imagine my shock when I saw you weeks ago. After all this time when I had convinced myself that you were my nemesis, that I was destined to hate you even ten years later . . . I felt a portion of gladness again, but it had nothing to do with your leaving.”

Jack set his glass down and shifted closer to her. The wound in his arm was beginning to itch; it was healing swiftly, and soon this moment would be lost to them. He gently traced the golden light that danced on her cheek.

“Are you telling me that you were glad to see me, Adaira?”

“I was,” she said, and her breath caught beneath his caress. “I was glad to feel something stir within me after years of being cold and empty. I just never imagined I would find it in you.”

It was like she had stolen the very words from his mouth. And he wanted them back.