“Well, now hold on there,” she said quickly, quietly. “You haven’t heard my offer.”
“And if I still say no, you’ll turn around and leave?”
“Yes...for today, at least.”
Her warning was clear. She’d leave, but tomorrow or the next day or the one after that, she’d pull something else. But those days weren’t today. Nodding, he said, “Go on, then.”
“Okay. Here goes.” She inhaled a deep breath. “If you’ll agree to this weekend, I...I’ll stop with the tricks. I won’t stop by your house. I won’t even email you.” The defeat resurfaced then. It was there, written all over her. In the catch of her voice, in the softening of her stance. Staring out at him from the depths of her soul. “I’ll stop, Gavin. With everything.”
A hard, impenetrable rock appeared in his throat, disrupting his ability to breathe. He’d wanted this, hadn’t he? For her to throw in the towel and leave him alone, so she could get back to life. So he could...live within his barriers, without danger of them being torn down.
Yes. This was what he’d wanted. Or, he supposed, had convinced himself he’d wanted. But he didn’t feel the slightest amount of relief. Couldn’t feel relief. Not when seeing Haley this way—defeated and dejected and sad—tore him to shreds.
Haley Foster did not give up. She did not play by the rules or bend to anyone’s will. This woman was feisty and impulsive and mule-headed and...enjoyed eating peanut butter sandwiches and tomato soup. She lived for the possibilities. Hell, she reveled in them.
Frustration percolated and bubbled in his veins. With her, for the tricks, the belief she insisted she had in him, in whatever she saw between them that made her charge through every stop sign he waved in her face. With himself, too, for whatever part he’d played in lowering her volume. Dimming the sun, regardless of his reasons, wasn’t cool. Period.
“Dammit, Haley,” he muttered, kicking at the ground with the toe of his boot. “I don’t have one blasted idea of what to do with you.”
“Oh, yes, you do. You know exactly what to do.” Lifting her chin in that lovely, beautiful, stubborn-as-the-day-is-long way of hers, she said, “You’re just too afraid to go there with me.”
There it was again, that one-two punch straight to his skull. How did she do that? How did she see into his head—maybe even his heart—so friggin’ easily?
“You win. One weekend.” The words came out before he realized he’d made the decision. “This weekend.”
“Told you I could change your mind,” she said. “And I promise, I’ll live up to my—”
“But your deal is off the table.”
“Wh-what?”
“You heard me. This weekend, sure, but don’t stop being you on anyone’s account.” Red-hot heat, prickly and scratchy, began developing on his neck. He tugged at his shirt collar. “That is the new deal. Take it or leave it.”
“Um, wow.” Pink flooded her cheeks, warming her complexion. “I’ll take it.”
“Good,” he said before logic kicked in. “Get your stuff. We have a campsite to choose.”
She didn’t argue, but she didn’t move, either. Not right off. Rather, she continued to stare at him, her skin rosy and her hair billowing around her face from the wind. The moment didn’t last long, but it felt...profound. Why exactly, Gavin didn’t know. It just did.
“I have a question,” she said, her tone now light and breezy and almost mischievous. A dangerous combination. “A very important question.”
Ah. There she was, the real Haley. Thank God. “What’s that?”
“I realized on the drive here that, in my excitement over seeing you, I accidentally left an item at home. A necessary item, I’m afraid.”
Uh-oh. “What item might that be?”
“Well...I’m curious. Did you bring one tent or two?”
One. He’d brought a solitary tent—a small tent, at that—since Suzette had claimed she was bringing her own. So he could teach her how to raise her tent. God help him.
“You are, in every way imaginable, the most maddening woman I’ve ever met. And if you think—”
“I wouldn’t describe you as calm and relaxing, either,” she retorted. “Or any less maddening. Other than my brothers, no one has ever gotten under my skin the way you do.” She blinked. “But just so I’m clear here—I don’t think of you in a brotherly way.”
Oh, yeah, and that did that nothing to ease his turmoil.
“Get your stuff, Haley,” he said. “Before I call a halt to this entire fiasco.”
She winked, grinned, but did as he asked and went to her trunk to retrieve her belongings.
One small tent and two people. Haley’s body next to his, within reaching distance. Kissing distance. And the myriad other activities two people could do with each other in such a small, secluded space. Gavin raked his fingers through his hair and pushed those images into another hemisphere. Nope, he would not think about that until... Well, until night fell and he was forced to consider the ramifications.
And, he supposed, the possibilities.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Haley said when she’d returned with her duffel weighted against her shoulder. “One tent or two?”
“One,” he said in a more of growl than any form of coherent speech. “We have one tent.”
“Cozy and warm. Sounds perfect.”
Gavin tossed Haley’s bag into the truck, motioned for her to get in. And didn’t say a damn word to either of her comments. Cozy and warm, huh? Those terms worked well enough, but he could think of quite a few others. Likely would think of them, basically nonstop, for the next two days. And while he lay awake at night, unable to sleep.
Nope, no way in hell was he surviving this weekend.
* * *
Restless and sleepy, Haley kept her vision glued to Gavin’s charcoal-colored, flannel-shirt-covered back as they made their way to the lake. To fish. He’d shaken her awake this morning—far too early for any sane person to be forced to open their eyes—and stated she should get moving, so they could eat breakfast before embarking on their fishing expedition.
Why in heaven’s name had she told Suzette to add fishing to the list?
Well, because she’d wanted Suzette’s email to sound legit, and other than raising a tent and building a fire, she hadn’t been able to conceive of another need-to-learn “basic” camping activity. So, fishing it was. But she’d rather be back in that tent, snug and warm and sleeping, than trudging along in the cold, foggy morning air.
It was a hideous way to the start the day.
On the plus side, she was with Gavin. Finally. On the negative, she hadn’t yet made one single step of progress with him. She sniffed in annoyance. He hadn’t so much as breathed in her direction last night, let alone actually touched her. Kissed her. Had his way with her.
Nope. That dratted man had stayed in his sleeping bag, back turned toward her, quiet and still. And she’d stayed in hers, frustrated beyond belief, unable to fall asleep for hours.
Sidestepping a fallen branch, Haley picked up her pace. The gray of his shirt was quickly merging with the gray of the morning, making it difficult to see him all that clearly. And he walked fast. Super-duper fast. Those long legs of his didn’t help.
“Wait up, why don’t you? Jeez,” she called out, exasperated. “We’re not in any rush, are we? And this isn’t a race. And darn it, I could really use more coffee.”
He stopped instantly, and waited for her to catch up. “Grouchy this morning,” he said smoothly, almost humorously. “And you could have had more coffee if you’d gotten up faster.”
“This is supposed to be a relaxing, pleasant weekend. Insisting I be cheerful and awake at the crack of dawn with only one cup of coffee consumed isn’t relaxing or pleasant. Or nice.”
“You didn’
t hire me to be nice.” He started walking again, at a somewhat slower pace. She still had to speed-walk to keep up with him. “You hired me to teach you the basics of camping. Part of that, if I recall correctly, was fishing. Best time to fish is early in the morning.”
So reasonable. So logical. So annoyingly distant.
She might just have to shove him in the lake. The thought amused her, lessened some of her grouchiness. Whatever breakthrough she’d believed they’d gained yesterday morning had faded some by the time they’d set up camp. As the day continued, he’d been the perfect guide and teacher, patiently and systematically explaining the how-tos on every single thing they did.
Which, okay, that was fine. Any talking was better than no talking, and really, for a while she’d been content enough to just be near him. But as afternoon became early evening, his distant behavior grew and he stopped talking pretty much altogether.
The whole point of this weekend—her sexual attraction toward Gavin notwithstanding—was to gain a better understanding of him, to learn what had happened to change their direction so quickly, and hopefully with this understanding, find a way to put them back on course.
He needed to talk to her, open up some, in order for that to happen.
Arriving at the lake, Gavin gestured for her to come nearer and then proceeded to demonstrate how to bait a hook. She watched and listened, because despite Gavin’s guess that she’d grown up fishing, she hadn’t. Her brothers and father fished. She and her mother did other, less disgusting, less smelly activities while the men fished.
And not one of them had involved handling a freaking worm.
“Okay, your turn,” Gavin said, nodding toward the plastic container filled with dirt and squirming worms. “Pick one about twice the length of your hook, and then just do what I did.”
“Right!” Grimacing, Haley pushed at the soil with the tip of her finger, trying to avoid actually touching a worm without making the avoidance obvious. “I prefer fishing with lures. Live bait seems...so cruel. To the worms. I mean, really, would you like to have a hook skewered through you—twice—and then have your body dangled into the water to be eaten?”
“Is that a serious question?” Gavin spoke in a dry, semisarcastic tenor that had Haley thinking, once again, about shoving him into the lake. Face-first.
“Yes, it is a serious question,” she said. “Because I’m trying to demonstrate what these poor worms’ lives are like, but if you’re okay with killing innocent creatures that have done you no harm, all in the name of...of—” Oh. Okay, yeah, that argument wasn’t going to fly.
“Catching innocent fish?” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Who have also done me no harm? And then...eating the fish?”
“Barbaric,” she said, grinning for the first time that day. “But I guess I didn’t totally think that through. My point, however, is that I prefer lures. Did you bring any with you?”
The blue in his eyes deepened as he laughed, and she thought she could stand right where they were, look into those gorgeous eyes of his and listen to him laugh all day. All night.
“Nope. No lures,” he said with a wink and a grin. “You’ll have to use the worm.”
“I really, really don’t want to...kill a worm. They’re so—” she almost choked on the words, but managed to spit them out “—cute and...cuddly? Well, definitely not cute. And cuddly applies more to teddy bears than to anything that squirms. Do they deserve death, though?”
“But see, Haley, you don’t actually kill the worm.” He paused for a beat. “The fish does.”
“Wow, Gavin, that totally helps,” she said brightly. “Thanks for that bit of illuminating information. I feel so much better now about...touching and impaling a worm. So much better.”
Gavin’s gaze held hers steadily. “Dammit, Haley.”
“Um, dammit? What—”
Before she could finish her sentence, before she even realized what was happening, Gavin dropped his fishing pole, tugged hers out of her grasp and dropped that, too. Pulled her to him and, for another beat, simply held her. And suddenly, she was very, very happy he’d insisted they wake up at the crack of dawn. Happy and optimistic and relieved.
So very relieved.
He tipped her chin up and looked into her eyes for a second, closed his for twice that and let out a long, deliberate sigh. His hands, rough and warm and delicious against her skin, came to her cheeks. Slowly—so freaking slowly she thought she might die from the wait—he brought his lips to hers and began kissing her. Her blood fizzed and popped, warmth and desire curled tight in her belly before saturating the rest of her in delectable heat.
She heard herself moan. Heard him moan in return.
Deepening the kiss, his mouth became hard and insistent, thorough and intense, begging—demanding, really—for her complete and undivided attention. All of this, the passion and desire and the feel of his mouth upon hers, melted her concerns and fears into nothingness, as if they’d never existed. Until all that remained was the same as what she’d started with, from almost the moment Gavin Daugherty had entered her life.
Hope. Belief. Absolute certainty that this man was an essential piece of her soul. And that she had to do whatever she could, whatever was in her power, to make him hers. Because she knew, more than she had before, that she’d been his all along.
Would always be his.
Gavin sighed a ragged, breathless sound. Kissed her along her chin, the curve of her cheekbones, and finally, her forehead. He rested his forehead against hers, kept her body tight to his, and...held her. As if she were the most precious cargo in the world.
“Dammit, Haley,” he repeated, his voice gruff. “You had to go and do this, didn’t you?”
“Do what?” she whispered, still lost in the moment. Still tingling and hyperaware and...a good bit more centered. Whole. “And why do you keep saying ‘dammit’?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Not anymore.”
Well, she thought it likely did matter. Probably a heck of a lot. Arguing with him now, though, seemed counterproductive. He’d kissed her. They had the entire day and night before them. “Okay,” she said easily, her body still pressed tight against his. “I like kissing you, Gavin.”
“I like kissing you, too.” Then, as if the admittance weighed too heavy to bear, he dropped his hold and stepped away. She missed him instantly. Picking up their fishing poles, he handed hers over and grinned. “Still need to bait your hook, Haley.”
“Um. I... Well, that is, how about if I just watch you fish? A person can learn a lot by watching, you know. Sometimes more than doing, because—”
“Nah,” he said, his grin wider. “I’ve found that doing is always the best way to learn.” With that, Gavin reached into the plastic tub and pulled out a long, wiggly worm and held it in front of her. “It’s just a worm, Haley. And this is easy. I know you can do it.”
Those words, his belief in her—even over something as simple as this—propelled her forward. She sucked in a breath, took the worm and baited the hook as quickly as possible. And no, it wasn’t that bad. But she wasn’t in any hurry to do it again. “There, done. Now what?”
“Now, my dear, we fish.”
Chapter Eleven
Shivering, Haley scooted closer to the snapping, spitting campfire while waiting for Gavin to return from his pickup, which was parked just out and down a bit from their campsite. He’d decided, after they’d eaten, to get an early start on loading the truck. Of course, this only included those items they wouldn’t need before they left, but she supposed it made sense.
She just wasn’t yet ready to think about morning, about leaving.
Between the kiss and the fishing—which, surprisingly, hadn’t been awful—the rest of the day had progressed in an easier, more relaxed fashion than yesterday. After fishing for several
hours, they’d packed a lunch and spent the afternoon hiking a few of the trails. They hadn’t kissed again, which was a downright shame for many, many reasons, but they had held hands here and there, and their conversation hadn’t fallen into the overly awkward or stilted range.
All positive signs.
Except they hadn’t discussed anything to do with them, or what would happen once they returned to Steamboat Springs tomorrow. So Haley was caught between wanting to believe they had turned a corner and an uncomfortable sense of surety that they really hadn’t. They needed to talk, she knew. Needed to find a place of balance that would hopefully work for both of them.
Sighing, she pulled her long green sweater over her knees and considered how to begin this particular conversation. She feared Gavin would just walk away again if she pushed too hard. And she knew darn well that she often pushed too hard.
Sometimes due to her heart-on-sleeve tendencies. Other times, due to her desire to find solutions. And, of course, there were those times—fortunately, few and far between—where she wanted something the other person absolutely did not. In those cases, it really didn’t matter how often or hard she smacked her head against that metaphorical brick wall. Because those were the times that stupid brick wall truly was immovable.
Making another person do, or be, or feel anything he did not want, or wasn’t prepared to do, or be, or feel was, in pretty much all ways, an impossible feat.
She trusted her instincts, and they told her in no uncertain terms that this connection with Gavin was true. Real. Solid. She even believed that Gavin recognized their connection, as well. But that didn’t mean they viewed the connection in the same manner, or even that their hopes―wants―were lined up with each other. They might not be.
And...well, that possibility sucked all of the wind right out of her sails. Scared her, too. She’d wait for one year, ten years, twenty...more if necessary, as long as they were on the same path, headed in the same direction. But if they weren’t, if Gavin’s wants didn’t line up with hers in this regard, then she wouldn’t—couldn’t—spend her life hoping that would change.
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