He looked different. Haggard. He’d lost weight. There were lines of fatigue etched into his brow and dark shadows rimmed his eyes. He looked…terrible.

“Thank God you’re home.”

“How did you know?” she demanded. “How could you possibly have found me this fast? I only just got into town.”

His lip curled, and a blaze of anger flashed in his eyes.

“Because I’ve waited every goddamn day for the last three months for you to come back. I’ve had the entire goddamn town on alert. Everyone has been watching for you—waiting. I got a phone call as soon as your truck was spotted in Clyde. I came as soon as I got the call. I was only a quarter mile behind you.”

“Why?” she asked helplessly.

“Because you’re mine, Callie, and I’m not letting you go.”

She whirled around so that her back was to him and she stared out over the meadow again. “It’s beautiful,” she managed to grind out.

“I want you to see it,” he said, closer this time as he walked up behind her.

She shook her head. Even Max couldn’t be this cruel.

“Yes, Callie. You’re going to come with me and you’re going to see the house.”

He took her hand and pulled her toward the path leading down the hillside. His fingers were like iron digits around hers. No escape. No choice but to follow him.

She walked stiffly, each step making her want to cry out for him to stop.

“Why are you doing this?”

Max paused only for a moment as he turned back to stare at her. “This is yours, Callie. It’s all for you. Every last piece of wood. Every nail. Every coat of paint. Every flower planted in the boxes out front. It’s all yours. Your dream. Just the way you wanted it.”

Her mouth fell open and she stumbled after him as he continued dragging her closer to the house.

As they neared, she took in the large log cabin. Tears swam in her eyes, making the house go blurry. God, it was exactly what she’d designed in her head. How could he know? She’d told him a little about her house. Odds and ends. But how could he possibly have built something that was straight out of her heart?

They stood in front of the stone steps leading to the front door. He gestured toward the exterior. “This was taken straight from the picture that Lily drew for you. Every inch down to the planters and the species of flowers. Even the cedar porch swing and the welcome sign. Read it, Callie. Tell me what it says.”

Her gaze drifted to the words on the worn piece of wood—just as she’d imagined it—standing on an old post just beside the steps to the front porch.

“Welcome to Callie’s Meadow,” she whispered.

“That’s right, Callie. Your meadow.”

She glanced up at Max, so flabbergasted, so utterly undone, she couldn’t even form the words. “I don’t understand.”

“Come inside,” he said.

He pulled at her hand and they trudged up the steps. He unlocked the door and swung it open into a large living room with a giant stone fireplace that took up the back wall.

Everywhere she looked, she saw her dreams come to life. All the daydreams. Every detail was carefully rendered. It was her dream house.

“It’s yours, Callie. The whole thing. The land. The house. It all belongs to you.”

She swallowed the growing knot in her throat only to choke and cough as emotion swelled and took a stranglehold. How could she be happy with her dream when it wasn’t complete? How could she be happy here without the man she’d imagined at her side, in her bed, holding her in front of that gigantic fireplace on cold nights?

Tears slipped down her cheeks. Tears she hadn’t shed in months. Tears she didn’t think she had to shed anymore.

“Why, Max? Why did you do this?”

He turned to face her, his eyes so tormented that she caught her breath.

“Because I love you, Callie. I love you so damn much I can’t even breathe. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. All I can do is work on this house and hope like hell that you’ll come home and see how much I love you and give me another chance.”

He took her hands and held them so tight her fingers went numb. But she didn’t pull them away. She stared, so afraid to hope, so afraid to believe that her head hurt.

“I never got to tell you everything, Callie. I never got to explain. I told the truth—a truth that forever damned me in your eyes. But I didn’t get to tell you the rest.”

“What’s the rest?” she whispered.

“It’s true that I tracked you down in Europe. Hell, I don’t even know what my plan was. I was frustrated because I was getting nowhere with your fathers, and so I was going to go straight to the source. Meet you, let you put a face to the name, tell you my story and hope to hell you’d agree to sell. It was absolutely my intention to do whatever it took to get you to agree.”

She closed her eyes and tried to look away, but Max’s hands tightened around hers and he pulled so she’d look back at him.

“But then I met you, Callie. I met you and fell so hard for you that I never knew what hit me. I only knew I wanted to make you mine. I forgot all about the meadow. About my promise to my stepfather that I’d keep it in our family and hand it down to my children so they could hand it down to theirs. I forgot all about my honor or what I felt like my obligation was to my family.”

He paused and then took a deep breath before continuing.

“Then I got that call from my sister that my mom was dying. I was so conflicted. How could I have allowed myself to become so distracted, so utterly involved with you that I’d ignored everything else in my life? I pulled back. I pulled way back. I didn’t call you. I didn’t return. My mom died and her last words were an apology to me and my sister for selling our legacy. She begged me to get it back, and I felt so guilty because I made her a promise I never had any intention of keeping.

“And then I knew I had to find you again. For me there was no other option. I was going to do whatever I had to in order to get you back, and I’ll be honest, I never wanted you to know the real reason we’d met. I would have never told you because I never wanted to hurt you so badly.”

He lifted her hands and looked deep into her eyes, his own blazing with sincerity.

“I never intended to coerce you or even ask you to sell the land. I had to make a choice between having you or keeping a promise I’d made to my family. I chose you, Callie. I chose you.”

She stared back at him, her mind in such turmoil that she didn’t even know what to say. How to respond. How could she tell him that she wanted to believe him? Oh God, she wanted to believe him with everything she had. But how could she? How could she risk everything…again?

Max watched the obvious conflict cross her face. How could he be blind to it? He sucked in his breath and then he lowered her hands, gently letting them go.

Then he backed away, just a few steps, enough that there was space between them. And then he slowly sank to his knees on the polished wood floor.

She stared in shock—in absolute horror—as he went to his knees in front of her, his hands turned up, resting on the tops of his thighs. He bowed his head in front of her and simply waited.

Then he spoke. His voice trembled. There was such emotion clogging his throat that she could barely hear him.

“I’m begging you, Callie. Give me another chance. I’ll never ask for more than you’re willing to give. I’ll take whatever you’re capable of giving me.”

“Oh Max. No. Oh no, no, no,” she whispered.

She fell to her knees in front of him, pushing at him with her hands, trying to force him back to his feet. Max was never a man to kneel, to submit, to beg. Not this man. Not her Max.

Tears streamed down her cheeks and sobs tore from her throat, the sound so anguished that it made her wince.

“Don’t do this, Max. Stand up. Please. Not on your knees. I don’t want this. Don’t do this to yourself. To us.”

He lifted his haunted gaze to meet hers. Then he reached for her shoulders and pulled her to him.

“Don’t you understand, Callie? I belong to you. Only you. You gave yourself to me before, but now I’m giving you myself. I just want you to say you can love me again. Maybe not today. Or even tomorrow. But one day. Until then, I’ll love you enough for both of us.”

She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him to the floor. She sobbed noisily against his neck. She probably got snot and God knows what else all over his shirt. She didn’t care.

“I love you today, Max. Today. And tomorrow. And the next day. A year from now. A decade from now. When we’re both old and gray and toothless, I’ll still love you.”

He crushed her to him. His arms held her so tightly that she couldn’t move—she didn’t want to. His entire body shook, and he just held on to her as she cried.

“Thank God,” he whispered. “Thank God. I love you so damn much, Callie. I’m nothing without you. Please tell me that we’ll live together in your dream house. It was yours before but somehow in the building of this, of making all your daydreams a reality, it became my dream too. I want to live it with you.”

She squeezed him for a long moment because she couldn’t speak around the sobs knotting her throat. He rubbed his hands up and down her back and rocked her back and forth.

“I just want to be with you,” she whispered. “That’s my dream, Max. Not this house. Not this land. Just you.”

He pulled her away and smoothed the ragged strands of hair from her face. “And you’re my dream, Callie. Always. You loving me. Me loving you. That’s enough. It’s all I want. It’s all I’ll ever want.”