“But you saw how he was hesitating because the other guy’s offer was higher, and you swooped in there with all that talk about carrying on his family’s legacy and naming the rye after Rebecca and asking to see her picture. Your timing was perfect.”
I laughed. “It was a team effort—our first one!”
“And I’d say it was an unqualified success.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “We make a good team.”
My heart raced ahead of my breath for a moment, and heat blossomed in my cheeks. “Should we head to the campsite?”
“Yes. It’s getting dark and the bugs will be even worse pretty soon. I want to get our tent set up.”
The tent. That’s right.
I had to share a tent with Oliver tonight. Sleep next to him. Hear him breathing. Talk to him quietly in the dark.
Earlier today I’d been worried about him keeping to his side of the tent, but now I found myself wondering how I’d react if he didn’t.
We walked the mile to the campground in no particular hurry, holding hands the whole way.
14
Oliver
NOW
The Popple campground was the farthest site from the docks, therefore the least crowded. In my opinion, it was also the most beautiful. Located on a sandy bluff, it had the benefit of the lake breeze to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and the beach at the bottom of the dune was sandy and secluded. I’d camped here a couple times last summer when I was scouting the farms, and it was by far my favorite.
“What do you think?” I asked Chloe when it was clear we’d have our pick of the seven possible sites. There was no one else around. “Base of the dune or up here?”
Chloe slapped at a bug on her arm. “Which will have less mosquitoes?”
I laughed. “Those are everywhere, but these two sites are higher on the bluff, and maybe the elevation will give us a stronger wind.”
“Then let’s stay up here.”
I dropped the pack from my back and attached our permit to the post at site number 7. “Here it is. I’ll get started on the tent.”
She grimaced as she glanced at the outhouse. “I should have used the bathroom at the Feldmann’s. Or not drunk whiskey.”
I grinned as I unzipped my pack. “You’re a tough cookie. You’ll survive.”
As I set up the tent, I thought about the day so far. Everything had gone perfectly—the Feldmanns had given their word they’d accept our offer, Chloe was on board with everything, and the two of us were getting along even better than I’d expected. In fact, I was having a hell of a lot of fun with her.
That hadn’t been part of the plan.
But it hadn’t been bullshit, what I’d said to her about us. I did think of her as someone who’d always be there for me, and I’d always be there for her. We ran hot and cold, but we had history. We’d shared some unforgettable experiences, both painful and pleasurable. But beneath all the surface-level ups and downs was a bond that couldn’t be broken. I felt it in my gut, and I had to believe Chloe did too. Otherwise, after everything that had gone down between us, why would she be here with me?
We made the perfect team. We’d challenge each other to be better, smarter, more creative. We wouldn’t pull punches or cut corners. We each brought unique knowledge and experience to the venture, and we’d known each other so long, we communicated almost in shorthand.
The problem was our physical chemistry.
No matter how much we fought it, it was always there, simmering just below the surface of everything we said, threatening to erupt at any moment. I wasn’t sure I could stop it, even if I wanted to. Even if I knew it would only make things more complicated.
Because it would.
“Want help?” she asked when she got back. How she managed to look so beautiful after a day of hiking in this hot, humid weather was beyond me.
“Sure.”
Together we set up camp, had a snack, and tied the remains of our food up out of reach of the chipmunks. “We need more water,” she said, wiping her forehead. “And I could use a swim. Want to go down to the beach? We can bring some water back for purifying.”
“Good idea,” I said. “And I’ve got a little something besides water in the meantime.” From my pack, I pulled out a flask I’d filled with my favorite bourbon.
She laughed. “Of course you do.”
I offered her the first sip, then I took two before sticking it back into my pack.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll race you.”
Since we still had our suits on, we took off running for the beach and didn’t stop until we hit the sand, where we tore off clothing and dashed into the cool, clear water. I beat her by a full five seconds because one of her bootlaces was tied in a knot.
“I don’t know why you even challenge me,” I teased her. “You’ve never once beaten me.”
“I totally could have won that time,” she insisted. “I had a wardrobe malfunction. I made it down to the beach just as fast as you did.”
“Maybe,” I allowed. “I guess I could call the race to the beach a tie. I’m feeling generous.”
“Well, thank you very much.” She stuck her tongue out at me before ducking beneath the water again. “God, this feels good,” she said when she surfaced. “It was so hot today.”
“It was.” I tried to keep my eyes off her breasts. “But it will cool off soon. The sun is going down fast. Clouds are rolling in.”
We stayed in the water and watched it happen, the sky turning orange and then pink as the sun slid lower on the horizon and disappeared into the lake. Afterward, it was immediately cooler.
Chloe looked up and down the beach. “Guess we have the place to ourselves, huh?”
“We do. So feel free to skinny dip if you’d like.”
“Ha. You wish.” She backstroked by me with perfect form.
“Show-off. You still swim a lot?”
“I belong to a gym. Sometimes I swim before work. It’s good exercise.”
“You look good doing it.”
“Thanks.” She turned around and stroked back toward me. When she got close, she ducked under and then stood up, tilting her head back to get her hair off her face, water streaming down her body.
“You look good, period,” I told her, unable to stop staring at her curves, her skin, her taut little nipples poking through the fabric of her bikini top. My dick started to get hard.
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Oliver, what did you mean earlier, when you said I cross your mind?”
“I meant that I’ve thought about you.” I moved closer to her, drawn by some invisible force. “I still think about you.”
She backed up. “Did you think about me when you left for Europe without even saying goodbye? When you ignored my texts and phone calls? When you came home and started a distillery without me?”
“Yes. I know you don’t believe me, but I did.”
“All you had to do was text me back. ‘Decided to move to Europe and party for two years instead of go into business with you. Peace out.’”
“I’m sorry. I should have.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t.”
“I was young and stupid, Chloe. I wasn’t ready to handle what I felt for you after that weekend. I panicked.”
“You said things. I thought you meant them.”
“I did. I just …” Seeing how hurt she was even after all this time cinched my heart. “Freaked out. I’m sorry.” I got close enough to her to take her by the shoulders. “I meant every word I said that weekend. And I mean what I’m saying to you now—you’re special to me.”
She looked away from me, toward the horizon. “We can’t keep doing this every time we see each other. It … messes with me. Every time I think I know what we are, what this is, how we feel, it blows up in my face.”
“It messes with me too. I left Chicago—fuck, I left the country, so I could try to forget you.” I squeezed her arms. “But I never did.”
“We�
�re going into business together, Oliver. We can’t be more than friends.”
I took her chin in my hand, forcing her to look at me. “We’ve always been more than friends.”
She didn’t argue.
Unable to resist, I pressed my lips to her forehead, her cheek, her jaw.
“This is a terrible, terrible idea,” she said weakly.
“I know.” I moved my mouth down her throat.
“One of us needs to be rational and stop this before it starts.”
“Definitely.” I pulled her body tighter against mine, and she shivered. “Are you cold?”
“No. I just … felt you, and I got excited.” Then she pushed me back. “But that’s enough.”
Inwardly groaning, I held up my hands and backed up. “Sorry.”
We looked at each other under the darkening sky, our skin blanketed with goosebumps. “We’re not kids anymore,” she said softly. “We have to be mature and think about the bigger picture. The long-term success of Brown Eyed Girl is more important than short-term gratification, right?”
“Right,” I said. “But in the future, we should definitely not hold business meetings in our bathing suits. Your body is killing me.”
She folded her arms over her chest and gave me a sly grin, her eyes half-shut. “Good.”
We each collected some water, purified it, and cleaned up. I gave Chloe the privacy of the tent while I took advantage of the empty woods to strip naked and give myself a quick, frigid bath. I dressed in shorts and a clean T-shirt as fast as I could, trying not to become a mosquito feast, and used a little more clean water to brush my teeth. From the west, I heard the distant roll of thunder, which surprised me. I hadn’t seen any storms on the radar.
I called out to Chloe. “Can I come in?”
“Yes.” She unzipped the tent. “I just want to brush my teeth, but I’ll do it out there. Was that thunder?”
“Yeah. A summer storm must have popped up.” I saw the worried look on her face. “But probably just a small one.”
We switched places, and she was gone for only a minute or two before hustling back inside. “I saw some lightning. You’re sure we’ll be okay in here if it storms?”
“Positive,” I told her, trying not to dwell on the fact that she didn’t appear to be wearing shorts beneath her large T-shirt. “But let’s move all our stuff inside. We’ll have a little less room for sleeping, but we don’t want wet gear.” We gathered everything up and got it inside the tent just as the first fat raindrops began to fall. The thunder grew louder.
“It’s so dark all of a sudden,” she said nervously. “Did you pack a light?”
I pulled a small LED lantern from my pack and switched it on, setting it in one corner of the tent. “There. Better?”
“Yes.”
“I’d forgotten you were afraid of the dark,” I teased, tossing my flip-flops aside.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, tucking hers behind her pack. “I just don’t like it. Same way you don’t like ketchup.”
“Ketchup is disgusting. The dark is fun.”
“I just like knowing there’s light if I need it. Especially out here in the middle of the woods. And with a storm coming.”
“Don’t worry, Dimples. I’ll protect you from anything threatening.” I dug out my flask from my bag and handed it to her.
“And who’s going to protect me from you?” she asked, raising her eyebrows as she uncapped the flask and lifted it to her lips.
“Does that mean you didn’t pack the frying pan?”
“I must have forgotten.” She narrowed her eyes and handed the flask back to me. “But don’t think that means you can mess with me tonight. You promised.”
“That’s true. I did.”
“And you said I could trust you.”
“You can.” After another sip, I gave the bourbon back to her. “So tell me all your secrets.”
She giggled and took another sip. “No way. You forget, I know you.”
“Then let’s play a game. Truth or dare.”
Pausing with the flask halfway to her lips, she gave me a disapproving look. “Not doing that either. You’ll dare me to take off my clothes or something.”
“I swear to God, I will be a perfect gentleman.” As rain began to pelt the outside of the tent, I lay down on my side atop my sleeping bag, propped on one elbow. “But we can take out the dare part of it, and just ask each other questions. You can start.”
She took another sip of bourbon. “Shouldn’t we talk about business?”
“I’m giving us the night off.” Outside, the thunder rumbled loudly. “Go ahead.”
“Hmm.” She stared at the flask and swirled it around. “If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?”
I thought for a moment. “I wish I could see the future.”
She gave me an exasperated look. “Oliver. That’s not how you’re supposed to answer that question.”
“Okay, fine.” I exhaled and gave it ten more seconds. “I’m working on being more responsible. More mature.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I think a lot of the mistakes I’ve made in my life are because I’ve never really thought long-term about anything. I made every decision based on how I felt in the moment.” I frowned. “Unlike Hughie, who did everything right from the start.”
She handed the flask back to me. “I get that. I used to feel that way about my older sisters. Like the three of them had all been these perfect angels, and I was born with horns on my head. My parents never knew what to make of me.” She gathered her damp hair over one shoulder. “After a while, I think I just acted out because it was expected of me. It was what set me apart.”
I nodded. “Okay, my turn. Let me think. What do you want most in life?”
“What do I want most? Hmm.” She played with the frayed hem of her T-shirt. “I want to prove myself. I don’t just want to take over the family business and run it like he would. I want to make my own mark. Like with our distillery.”
I loved that she called it our distillery. “I have no doubt you can do all those things. Do you doubt yourself?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted.
“Well, it never shows.”
Her cheeks grew a little pink in the soft light. “Thanks.”
“So those are your professional goals. What about personal goals? Do you want a family?”
She inhaled and exhaled. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. I guess I’ve just never come to any conclusions, and I’ve never met anyone I was dying to have kids with, so …” She shrugged. “It’s never really been at the top of my list. What about you?”
We traded the flask again. “I’ve always assumed I would get married and have kids. In my family, it’s just what you do when you get to be a certain age. It’s tradition.”
She nodded. “Tradition seems really important in your family.”
“It is. Especially to my grandmother, and she’s got a lot of influence.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she still controls the money.”
“Really? I thought you inherited your money when you turned twenty-five. I saw you in Chicago right after that, and I remember you saying you’d just gotten access to it.”
I tipped back some bourbon. “I did inherit a portion of my trust after grad school, but the Pemberton family fortune is still controlled by Gran. And our trusts were set up in a way that they sort of trickle into our names as we get older and hit certain milestones.”
“So what are the milestones?”
“Turning twenty-five. Getting married. Buying a home. Having kids. She wants to see that we’re settled before we inherit. I mean, she’s ninety. She has pretty traditional, old-fashioned values.” Fuck—I hadn’t meant to get into this with Chloe yet. The bourbon was loosening my tongue. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine, I think.” She took the flask from me and tipped it up. “God, this is good. I better stop drinking it though
. I really don’t want to visit that outhouse again tonight, especially in the rain. Here, take it. I’m done.”
I took one last drink from it and screwed the top back on before setting it aside.
She stretched out on her side atop her sleeping bag, propping her head in her hand. “What’s your greatest fear?”
“Failure. I hate being called a fuckup.”
“What’s your proudest accomplishment?”
“So far? Brown Eyed Girl. But I think what we do together will top it.”
“Same.” She smiled. “Okay, last question. You go.”
“What’s your biggest regret?” I asked her quietly.
“I’m not sure I have one, as an adult. I suppose I regret being such a terrible teenager to my parents, but we have a good relationship now. They’ll probably make me pay for it someday by moving in with me and making me take care of them when they’re old and cranky all the time.”
I laughed. “Probably.”
“What about you?” She met my eyes. “What’s your biggest regret?”
Raindrops thrummed steadily on the tent, and thunder continued to roll softly overhead. I inhaled and caught the scent of something she must have put on her skin—it was summery and sweet, and it mingled with the smell of the rain, which I’d always loved. I tucked her hair behind her ear. “Running away from you.”
“Oliver.” She closed her eyes. “Don’t. You said you wouldn’t.”
“I might have lied.”
She sighed. “This is why I can’t trust you.”
“Okay, it wasn’t a lie exactly, but I might have … overestimated my ability to resist you. And I meant what I said.” I brushed a thumb across her cheek. “I was a complete idiot to leave when I did, the way I did. And I’ve always regretted it.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her lower lip trembled.
“Give me another chance, Chloe. I’m not that guy anymore.”
She lifted her chin. “Prove it.”
15
Chloe
NOW
Oliver looked confused. “Huh?”
Undeniable: A Cloverleigh Farms Standalone Page 11