“Tessa Rose, I knew you’d be in the Rockies. Did you think I’d forget?”

So, he just came to Colorado, asked around, and somehow found her? Presumably without the assistance of a cellular phone? Impossible. Her pulse thudded faster than the timer ticking on the kitchen counter. “But Colorado is a really big state.”

“I didn’t want to cash your check, but I had to if I wanted to find you. Since September, I’ve worked my way from county to county. Mostly carpentry and odd jobs. I was even a cowboy for a week or two.” He inclined his head toward the fallen hat and grinned. “At a newsstand in Aspen yesterday, I finally got lucky.” He slung a duffel from his shoulder, unzipped it, and pulled out a copy of the local paper.

She laughed. “It’s not the Times.”

“No. It’s much better.”

When he smiled, and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and his cheek creased the way it always did, it was so heartbreakingly familiar she thought she might weep. But she didn’t. She flushed a deep, hot flush stored up over a year in his absence, a year without the kind of blush he summoned straight from her hammering heart to every inch of supersensitive skin. She grinned like grinning was going out of style. “You left Green Ridge.”

He nodded. “So did you.”

“And Rebecca? Nora?” She spoke their names with ease. Any animosity she felt for his sister couldn’t survive the high-altitude. That kind of fire needed oxygen. And Rebecca? Her love for the girl was old as the mountains and twice as big. Jonas’s expression didn’t falter. He seemed at peace, too.

“In Ohio. They’re well cared for. I’ll tell you everything later.”

She bounced on her toes, and her bare knees grazed denim. “Tell me now. Tell me everything.”

He shook his head. “Later. I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re really staying?” She couldn’t repress a tremor in her voice.

“As long as you’ll have me.”

Forever.

Stories and promises could all come later—that night by the fire pit or curled up on her couch. Jonas found her. He left on his own accord, searched, and, somehow, miraculously found her. Nothing else mattered. “Thanks for the flowers.”

“Thanks for the muffin.”

“Oh gosh!” She glanced at the mangled pastry and let muffin crumbs rain among petals. “I have two dozen more in the kitchen.”

He embraced her again. “I’ve missed you.”

Her lips found his, and like an alpine primrose, she opened. She was rooted in confidence earned through a Rocky Mountain winter. She bloomed with desire that lay dormant since the spring.

With his hands still firm on the small of her back, he pulled away.

Crisply outlined against a cloudless sky, he met her gaze with unfettered passion—nothing held back.

“I love you, mei wildi ros.”