? ? ? ? ?
It was after midnight when Isaac finally knocked on Sanna’s door. Bass had been so excited that he’d had difficulty falling asleep—so Isaac had lain next to him until he dozed off. By that time, the rest of the house had gone to sleep, and he prayed that Sanna hadn’t drifted off without him. But his fears were unfounded. She opened her door wearing a silky blue nightgown that made her blue eyes electric. On a woman of average height, the gown would have hit midthigh—on Sanna it was scandalous and delicious. A single candle flickered behind her. Without a word, she grabbed him by his collar, shutting the door behind him and crushing his lips to hers. He gave into the whirlwind of kisses and caresses, knowing this would be their final night. He pulled her tight against him, walking her back to the bed, running his hands down the short length of her gown before slowly pulling it over her, like he was unwrapping the one present under the Christmas tree he’d put on his list. Right now, no words were adequate. He’d have to show her how he felt.
? ? ? ? ?
Sanna lazily traced a path with her fingers from his throat to where the sheet lay across his stomach, her naked body stretched out next to his. Isaac lifted her chin so he could look squarely into her eyes. Time was running out.
“I love you, Sanna Lund. When I came here, I didn’t recognize myself anymore. Everything in my life had been put on pause for so many years. I came here to hide, but I was found. You found me. Thank you for sharing this place—for sharing yourself—with me.”
His heart thudded. There was so much he wanted to say, but he struggled to find the words. She waited, seeming to know he had more to say.
“I need you to promise me something, will you? You were so guarded when we first met. Don’t go back to that. You have so much to offer someone. Promise me you’ll keep your heart open. I need to know that I didn’t make your life worse, because you have made mine immeasurably better.”
While it crushed him to think of his darling Sanna in someone else’s arms, he needed to know she would move on—knowing she could find the happiness she deserved meant he could move on, too.
She looked into his eyes, then responded, her lips wavering as she spoke.
“I promise. Someone very wise once told me that happiness is always worth remembering, even when it was temporary.” She took a deep breath, her chest pressing into his. “At dawn, please just kiss me one last time and go.”
He made the promise. But when the first hint of light seeped through the window, his heart cracked in half. Leaving her behind would leave his heart broken forever—he would never find love like this again. But he wasn’t free to follow his heart. Bass always came first, so he kept his promise and ignored the tears glinting in Sanna’s eyes. He kissed her one last time, both of them savoring this last moment, and walked out her bedroom door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Sanna searched the refrigerator for the extra butter she knew her dad had bought and opened the crisper drawer to a surprise—a bag full of twigs from the Dancing Tree. She’d stashed one in the house, hoping one of her storage options would make a difference in the success of the grafts. She pulled a stick out of the bag and smiled when she realized it was still viable. It hadn’t dried and shriveled like all her previous attempts had—in fact, each baggie that she and Isaac and Bass and Einars and Anders had packed that horrible night had been viable. Somehow, grafting the Looms had become possible. Was she crazy to think it was the kiss that did it?
She set aside the bag with the stick on top of the counter. She’d deal with it after she found the butter.
“Pa, where’d you put the butter?”
Einars sat in front of the fireplace with Anders. Gabby and Sarah played hide-and-seek in the bedrooms with the Dibble boys, their occasional giggles and racing footsteps eliciting laughter and reprimands from the adults. Mrs. Dibble had promptly taken over the kitchen and bossed Sanna and Julie around like the miniature general she was. She’d even put Eva to work creating a centerpiece for the table from a box of table decorations. Mrs. Dibble had been horrified that Sanna had been letting Einars cook, what with his injuries and all. Sanna tried to point out that the injury was almost five months ago, and he cooked every night, but Mrs. Dibble put a peeler in her hand and pointed to the potatoes. She’d been assigned to the safe mashed-potato duty while Julie got the much more complicated gravy assignment.
It had been over a month and a half since Bass and Isaac had left, and Sanna still felt the hole in her chest where they belonged. She missed Bass’s unending questions and silly fart jokes. She missed Isaac’s brightness—especially now that the days were getting shorter and she’d be spending so much more time indoors. They’d connected online now that she had to take charge of the orchard’s site—so she saw the occasional picture of them, but it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t smell him through a picture or run her fingers through his hair.
She thought back to their last night. She didn’t regret one second of their time together—the memories had held her together when their absence almost pulled her apart. She’d tried to keep her heart open, like she’d promised. She even went on a horrible date. She’d spent the entire evening comparing the poor guy to Isaac, and the unsuspecting fellow came up short in every category. He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t funny, he wasn’t dark-haired. He wasn’t Isaac.
“Pa, where is the butter? How many times do I have to ask?”
As she spoke, Mrs. Dibble ducked under Sanna’s arm that held the door wide open and grabbed it off the top shelf.
“Here, honey.” She handed the blue box of butter to Sanna. “Sometimes it’s hard to see things in front of you when what you want to see is so far away.”
Then she returned to buzzing around the kitchen.
Mrs. Dibble was right. Sanna wasn’t heartbroken, but she wasn’t whole either. She peeled the butter out of its wrapper and slowly chopped it into sad, misshapen slices.
“Can’t you ever cut things even?”
Sanna set down the knife and turned, a part of her worried her fantasies had now progressed to hearing his voice aloud, because she wanted to so badly.