Steal My Magnolia (Love at First Sight Book 3)

by Smartypants Romance

  My head lifted, and it was my turn to pin her in place with my gaze. "I know that."

  "Do you?" Her chin jutted out, stubborn and proud. "Because I know why I looked for you at midnight on New Year’s Eve."

  I held up my hand to stop her, my heart thrashing wildly behind my ribs. "Stop."

  "Why? If you don't want this, then tell me, because—"

  The slightest push. Explosive action. "Want has nothing to do with it," I interrupted hotly. I towered over her, and my hand cupped the back of her neck. "If I didn't want this, I wouldn't have been trapped in this hell the past two months."

  Her eyes widened. "What?"

  My hand dropped. I backed away. The words that had been crowding my mouth were gone now, and I couldn't take them back.

  Magnolia watched me carefully, her mouth hanging open in shock. "Oh, Grady."

  I had to get out. If I stayed here, I'd say or do something irreversible. And I couldn't ... wouldn't ... let this turn into a situation where she had no idea what she was stepping into.

  The phone rang, and we both jumped.

  When her gaze left mine, I didn't think. I just swooped down, grabbed one of the tents, and opened the door.

  "I'm just ... I'll be back in tomorrow."

  "What?"

  "I need to test this." I held her incredulous gaze. "I'm sorry. I can't do this here. Not here, please."

  And I left.

  Chapter 19

  Magnolia

  By the time I pulled my car into a dense grove of trees just down from Grady's campsite and climbed out, I felt like Katniss freakin' Everdeen.

  On my back was a real live camping backpack, full of real live camping gear that Google told me I needed.

  On my feet were hiking boots, tucked into real live blue jeans, which I tried not to wear out in public as a general rule. They had their role in life, but so did beets and spiders and algebra. Didn't mean I had to like them.

  On my head was a headband meant to keep my ears warm, because who in God's green earth thought it was a good idea to sleep outside when it was forty-seven degrees?

  Grady Buchanan. That’s who.

  The man who looked like he was going to rip Tucker's head off for calling me Maggie.

  The man who looked like he was going to grind his teeth to dust when I knew Tucker's shirt size.

  The man who looked at me like he wanted nothing more out of his life than to kiss my past away.

  The man who told me he'd been in hell from wanting me.

  The man who ran.

  Those were only a part of the list I'd compiled as to why I decided to run right after him to a place where he couldn't get away from me so quickly. Which is why I googled. Why I refused to give myself even one moment to reconsider this idea.

  Following my gut when I saw him unloading boxes out of his car was what got us here, me and him. To almost kisses and whispered words that made me clench my thighs together to ease the unsettled, empty feeling he'd unleashed.

  That feeling had me wearing a backpack, and I could almost die from the shame of it. My etiquette teacher would be horrified if she saw me now.

  The backpack was my momma's, commandeered from their garage while she and Daddy worked. As was the lantern, the water bottles, and the bug spray. Everything else came from the shelves of Valley Adventures.

  Finding that stuff was pretty easy.

  Finding him was a different story.

  He and Tucker had mentioned two campsites, and by the time I drove up to the first, I realized that I just might have to—Oh Lord, I could hardly think it—hike around to try to find it. But thank the heavens above, we'd decided to enable tracking on his phone so that I'd know where he was in case of an emergency if he was out with a group.

  I'd approached slowly, my car bumping on the uneven road, and I recognized the tent right away, though I didn't see Grady. It was a tidy little spot, a nice flat opening on grass and dirt, the creek flowing alongside where he'd set up, and the pine trees towering clear overhead. You couldn't see much of the mountains, but the sky was clear and blue, and the air was clean and quiet.

  That grove of trees behind his tent was exactly what I needed, so I pulled through an opening wide enough and turned my car off. For a moment, I stared in the rearview mirror, hardly able to recognize the bright-eyed woman staring back at me.

  There was an excitement all over my face, one that I hadn't seen in years. That was how I knew that showing up here, a very un-Magnolia thing to do, was the right thing. Because I knew now that Grady wanted me, possibly for even longer than I'd wanted him.

  Here we would have privacy, and here, he couldn't leave so easily.

  The closing of my door echoed through the campsite, and I cringed. But there was no immediate sign of him. I walked through the grass and took a deep breath of that sweet mountain air, something I didn't do nearly enough.

  On my shoulders, the unfamiliar weight of the backpack had me moving slowly as I came around the side of the tent. He had one chair set up in front of a small circle of rocks, no doubt to be used later for a fire. Next to that was a small blue cooler.

  The camp chair I'd borrowed from my parents was clutched in my hand, and I carefully unfolded it so that it was sitting next to his.

  A branch snapped loudly, and my breath caught in my throat. If that wasn't Grady, then I was probably about to get eaten by a bear, and I glanced at the flimsy shelter of the tent, trying to decide if that would help me at all, in case it was the latter about to emerge from the trees.

  But it wasn't.

  Grady appeared on the opposite side of the clearing, where a path disappeared into another grove of trees running parallel to the creek. He hadn't seen me yet because he was jotting down something into a spiral-bound notebook. He wandered over to the creek’s edge and knelt, notebook tucked under his arm, so he could splash some water onto his face.

  He was close enough that I heard him exhale sharply at the feel of that water.

  I shifted in place, and he went still as a statue.

  His head turned to me and he stared.

  And stared.

  "Hi," I said quietly.

  Grady stood slowly and stared some more. "Magnolia?"

  Under my breath, I laughed. He shook his head, exhaling his own sound of amusement.

  As he moved toward me, his eyes tracked down the length of my body, landing on the hiking boots with a quick grin.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked.

  I'd practiced my speech in the car, and before I started it, I took off my backpack and set it on the ground by our feet. Clasping my hands in front of me, I locked my gaze onto his, practically daring him to argue with a single thing I was about to say.

  "I know what it's like to be stuck somewhere that doesn't fit, Grady. And I know what it's like to take your first deep breath of freedom when you leave that place." I wanted to take his hand and slide myself into the space between his strong arms, but I could be patient. I could respect his struggle to keep boundaries in place because he'd done it for a reason. "I know that to you, that's what Green Valley is, what this company is. And the thought of you trapped in hell—in the midst of all that freedom—because of me ..." I sucked in a breath. "I can't stand it."

  Grady had such a pained look on his face as he watched me talk. And all his feelings were stamped there, plain as day.

  I saw a man who wanted to touch me.

  I saw a man holding himself in check, no matter what it was costing him.

  "I shouldn't have told you that," he murmured. "It's not fair to put that on you."

  "Nothing about this is fair or unfair. It's just what you feel and what I feel, too." I glanced over his shoulder at the sheer splendor of our surroundings. "I came here because maybe what we need is to just ... spend some time together. Don't we do our best when it's just you and me? No interruptions. No watching eyes. No should or shouldn't."

  A muscle in his jaw popped as he thought. Before he answered, he gave
the slightest shake of his head. "I don't know how to say no to you," he said wryly.

  "Then don't." I shrugged one shoulder. "I hate it when people say no to me anyway."

  His smile lit every part of me that had gone cold and shadowed when Tucker broke up with me, and I had to face a town of people who judged me for someone else's decision.

  "And you're going to sleep in a tent?" he asked, one eyebrow lifted.

  Had someone shoved a watermelon down my throat? Because it felt like I was trying to swallow one at the thought of sleeping in a tent. My teeth clenched tight so that I didn't sound like a prima donna, I hummed in the affirmative.

  "I didn't bring an air mattress."

  A whimper escaped from my tightly closed lips. His smile spread even wider. "Th-That's fine," I managed. "I have a sleeping bag."

  "You gonna go for a hike with me before we cook up some dinner over the fire?"

  "Oh Lord," I groaned.

  "Just a short one." His eyes traced the features of my face, and I couldn't remember the last time someone had looked at me like that, like each individual part of me was precious and wonderful.

  "How short?"

  "If I tell you, you won't come with me." He took a step closer, and that one step knocked the breath from my lungs. In the way he stood over me, I didn't feel threatened or small. I felt protected. Like he alone could be a barrier against whatever harsh elements came our way.

  When he stood over me like that, I wanted a whole lot of things from Grady.

  Touch me.

  Hold me.

  Kiss me.

  Could he see those thoughts written on my face? Because I was thinking them. Grady closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath through his nose. When he opened them again, I saw his decision. He leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss on my forehead, brushing his nose against the top of my head when he pulled away.

  Lightheaded from that touch of his lips, I swayed toward him.

  "Come on, Miss MacIntyre," he murmured, holding out his hand as he stepped back. "Show me what you've got."

  He might as well have been asking me to jump off a mountain with him.

  With another hard swallow, I looked back at the campsite. "Do we need more supplies?"

  "Nope. We won't be going that far, I promise."

  I nodded. "And you have bear spray?"

  "Nope."

  "Grady Buchanan," I admonished. "Now I'm going to be sitting at that office every time you go hiking, wondering if some grizzly is eating you alive."

  With a laugh, Grady snatched my hand and weaved his strong fingers between mine. For a moment, we both stared at our intertwined fingers.

  It felt good.

  It felt right.

  I still didn't want to go on a hike.

  "Can't we just ... sit in this lovely spot and look at the trees and listen to the water?" I asked hopefully.

  He tipped his head back, frame shaking with the booming laughter he emitted. Grady wiped underneath his eyes as he looked back down at me.

  "Yeah," he murmured. "We can do that today."

  So, we did.

  He built us a fire—not with his bare hands but with a starter log and a lighter—and we sat in our chairs and talked for hours.

  Not about Tucker or Grace, or any of the million complications there might be between us.

  But the normal things you'd talk about when you wanted to get to know the person sitting across from you.

  "Cake or pie?" he asked.

  "Pie. As long as it's made with fruit and has a nice glaze on top." I held up my hand. "And the crust is flaky. If the crust isn't flaky, then I want nothing to do with it."

  He nodded seriously. "Noted."

  "You?"

  "Both."

  I clucked my tongue. "You can't say both. That's against the rules."

  "I'll have you know, there's a bakery in Los Angeles that was known for a piecaken."

  My eyebrows lifted slowly. "I beg your pardon?"

  He leaned forward in his chair, taking a minute to rotate the sandwich irons he had in the fire, currently holding our dinner. "It's a pie that's on top of a cake, all decorated as one giant dessert, and it was wonderful. It was also about ninety bucks if you wanted one, but it might've been the best thing I've ever had in my life."

  I shook my head. "That is an abomination, and we will never speak of it again."

  He chuckled. "So, you're not going to make one for my birthday?"

  "Absolutely not."

  What I found over our simple, fire-cooked meal and our sweet, sticky dessert of roasted marshmallows was that Grady never seemed to trouble himself over the things that made us so different. Even when I couldn't mask my horrified reactions, it only served to intrigue him more.

  As darkness crept in around us, I hardly noticed. I was too busy noticing everything else. How the warm light of the fire played off his face in a way that made him even more handsome. When he unzipped his sleeping bag and let me use it as a blanket, I couldn't shake the feeling that every moment we'd spent together, leading up to our night under the stars, was just the tiniest glimpse of how good we could be with each other.

  He made me laugh. He didn't shame me for the fact that I jumped every time I heard something in the woods, just patiently explained what it might be and why I didn't need to be afraid.

  When I yawned, he smiled like he'd just seen something secret about me. I liked that. That he even wanted to.

  "Tired?"

  I hummed. "At home, I'd still be wide-awake, but there's something about the fresh air."

  He leaned his head back and stared up at the stars with his long legs stretched out in front of him. "I think I'd sleep out here like this every night if I could."

  "Well, I appreciate you bringing a tent, if that's the case."

  Grady dropped his chin and stared at me over the fire, still licking quietly over the burned logs. "Tent can be yours tonight," he said. "I'll sleep out here."

  I held his gaze steadily. "Grady Buchanan, I will lay inside that tent and imagine finding your half-eaten carcass in the morning and worry about how I'll be stranded here alone with a murderous pack of wolves trying to get me too. You will do no such thing."

  "I'm very glad I didn't know about this bloodthirsty imagination when I hired you." He smiled slowly. "Everything might have turned out differently."

  I rolled my eyes, which also made him laugh.

  We stood from our chairs at the same time, and a sudden, bright burst of nerves lit in the pit of my stomach. Which was silly, honestly. We both had our own sleeping bags with zippers that practically wrapped us up like mummies. And the tent was big.

  For a tent. Which apparently did not hold an air mattress. I thought of my parents', sitting nicely on the bottom shelf in their garage. I didn't grab it because the thought of someone coming without one absolutely boggled my mind.

  He unzipped the tent and held his arm out. "Why don't you go ahead, and I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm going to put the fire out and store the food."

  While he did that, I breathed slow and steady, unrolling my sleeping bag in the main chamber of the tent. He had some blankets, at least, and I made sure to spread my sleeping bag on top of them. Sitting down, I took off my hiking boots and set them neatly against the side of the tent. Then I shimmied out of my jeans and pulled on some soft leggings that I'd rolled up in my backpack. The T-shirt stayed on, and I quickly tucked my legs into the sleeping bag because it was cold.

  I'd just started wrapping my hair with my favorite green silk scarf when Grady stood for a moment outside of the tent's entrance, silhouetted by the dying fire. I saw his broad shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath, which I mimicked.

  The zipper moved slowly, and he ducked to come inside. His smile was small when he looked at me.

  For a moment, we stared silently at each other.

  "That green looks good on you," he said, voice low and rough.

  I touched the scarf. "It was my Mawmaw Boo
ne's."

  Grady nodded, quickly unrolling his sleeping bag on the blankets next to mine. He yanked off his fleece, leaving him in a simple white undershirt that strained against his rounded biceps.

  When his hands moved to his jeans, he hesitated.

  "I'll give you some privacy," I muttered, sliding down in my bag and rolling to my side.

  My eyes pinched shut as I listened to the zipper lower on his pants, and then the sound of him shucking them down his long legs. Next to me, the warmth from his body was immediate when he slid into his own bag.

  I turned on my side and studied him in the dark. It was almost impossible to see his facial features.

  "There's a flashlight by the door if you need to ... go in the middle of the night."

  I exhaled a laugh. "I will wait until morning, even if it kills me."

  The gleam of his white teeth shone in the dark when he smiled, and my eyes slowly adjusted.

  It was almost unbearably intimate to lie with him like this. We were side by side but not touching. I could smell his skin and count the freckles across his nose. Neither of us said a word as we studied each other like that.

  "You're so beautiful," he whispered.

  My eyelids fluttered shut, and I pressed my face into the side of my pillow.

  Grady exhaled slowly, and I wondered if his fists were rolled up tight like mine, a physical manifestation of restraint. The only one I could manage at the moment.

  "Good night, Magnolia."

  I opened my eyes and stared at him. He had so much more willpower than I did, but his ability to treat this as carefully as it deserved only seemed to make me want him more.

  What I wanted to do was unzip my bag and do the same to his. I wanted to slide myself over his lap and see what his muscles looked like under that white shirt. I wanted to know the strength of his body as he flipped me on my back and used his hands on my body until I saw a different sort of stars.

  The kind that brought a curl into my toes and a helpless arching of my back off the ground, where my whole body bent with the force of pleasure.

  And I wanted to bury my face into his chest, sleep against him where he was the warmest.