Read Winning Back His Wife (Camp Firefly Falls Book 1) for Free Online Page A

Michael, but that wasn’t it at all. She’d been losing herself. She blamed him—his parents, his career, his serious nature—but the truth of it was, she was just as much at fault. Michael loved her. His love had never wavered, not once. She may have lost his attention from time to time, but never his heart.
    At the center of it all, she’d tried to be someone she wasn’t in order to please the man who already loved her just as she was. And then she blamed him for letting her do it. He might have liked it when she played along at the corporate wife game—but it was never a prerequisite to his love.
    But now was not the time for that discussion. He looked raw and on edge, so she pulled him along the trail behind her until they reached the shed near her cabin. Inside, she handed him a paint can while she grabbed the rollers, brushes, and paint trays.
    “We’re painting I take it?” The wry tone was back.
    “Yep. Follow me.”
    She took him back to the cabin. “I already prepped and scraped the flaking paint off the porch. I want to paint the floor and railings yellow because the cabin doesn’t get much sun exposure and I need a little cheery shock of color here.”
    Michael set the paint down. “Of all the things that need work on this property, you want to start with porch railings?” He took a deep breath, the kind that gave him time to measure his words more carefully. “Sweetheart, the cabin that you’re staying in shouldn’t be your top priority right now. If we want to get this place off the ground, we need to focus first on big picture items. Major repairs need to come before decorating. And the first impression—the part your clients, and maybe investors, see when they arrive—that's where you need to concentrate your efforts.”
    Well, she’d give him points for saying “we” anyway.
    “Michael, I appreciate your business acumen more than I can say. I realize that your talents in that realm are going to be necessary to, as you say, getting this place off the ground. But you need my talents too, right?”
    “Of course. It’s just that—”
    “It’s just that sometimes you need to live in the moment. Sometimes you need to think about what makes you happy right now. What you need right now. I have the paint. I have the time. And now I have the helper. What I need, right now, is a little cheer in the place where I live, where I come back to after a long day of focusing on the big picture.”
    He didn’t argue. He didn’t say anything. He nodded and began getting the paint ready. He didn’t seem mad, in fact, he seemed extra focused even though painting was sort of a monotonous action. Maybe he was thinking about his shocking confession earlier. That he didn’t want to go back.
    She thought about it, too. It would be a dream come true to work side-by-side with him. To rebuild the place where they fell in love. To have a co-dream. But she didn’t want him to make the same mistakes she had. She didn’t want him to change to please her, to make things smoother for her. She wanted him to do what made him happy.
    But she wouldn’t deny that she hoped in the long run, Firefly Falls made him happier than corporate America.
    They worked for almost an hour before he finally broke the silence. “You’re my yellow porch.”
    Heather paused her brush over the railing. “I’m what?”
    “You are where I live in the moment. You are where I come back to after a long day of focusing on the big picture. My cheery shock of color.”
    “Oh.” She felt the flush as heat probably painted her cheeks. It wasn’t like her to blush, but the compliment was so raw, so unpolished and perfect. It was, in fact, being told that the one thing she valued over all other things, the thing she worked hardest at, hadn’t gone unnoticed. “That's actually the sweetest thing you could say to me."
    "It is?"
    She nodded. "When you asked me to marry you, I vowed to myself that I would be the one place you could count on