I practically launched myself at him, and he pulled me onto his lap. Our mouths tangled, wet and insistent. He ran his hands through my hair while his tongue swept past my lips.
With my legs straddling his lap, my dress had hiked up, but—ever the gentleman—Jameson kept his hands in my hair. Kissed me deep and slow. He felt eager, but unhurried. Like every kiss was meant to be enjoyed. Savored.
Rain pattered against the window, a soft serenade. His hands caressed my back and I shifted in his lap. My body was on fire for him, a longing taking hold deep inside. My nipples brushed against his chest, tingling against the thin fabric of my bra. I wanted his hands all over me—his hot skin against mine. I wanted him to forget his gentlemanly manners and rip my clothes off, right here.
He touched my face again, gently, and pulled back so he could look me in the eyes.
“Oh, darlin’,” he said, his voice breathy and low. “I have wanted to kiss you for so damn long.”
“Me too,” I breathed.
His mouth hooked in a grin. I loved it when he smiled.
“I thought you’d be long gone by now,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “I was supposed to be on a plane.”
“What happened?”
“I woke up this morning and I asked myself what I was doing—why I wanted this. I’ve been so focused on where I’m going next, I forgot to ask why I wanted to go there in the first place. I’ve been chasing the dream of a child who didn’t know better—who didn’t know what that dream really looked like. And it’s crazy, because I don’t have a backup plan. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.”
It was true. I’d never felt so adrift. But for the first time in a long time, I felt free.
“Do you mean you’re giving it all up?” he asked. “No more modeling, or acting?”
“Would you think I was crazy if I said yes?”
“Why would I think that?”
“I guess… I know what others would say.” I meant Kelvin, but I didn’t want to say his name. Not here, in this moment. “They’d say I’ve worked too hard to quit now. That this show was just a stepping stone to something bigger and I’d be throwing it all away on a whim.”
Jameson looked deep into my eyes. “Is it a whim?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t think I can be the person I want to be if I have to play their game. I’ve had to compromise too much of myself already. If I went to L.A. today—if I kept traveling down that same road—I’m not sure who I’d be at the end of it. I don’t know what road I’m going to take now. I just know that one isn’t right.”
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, his brilliant blue eyes still holding mine.
“Thank you.” I nibbled on my bottom lip.
“Listen,” he said, brushing my hair back from my face. “I realize things are up in the air, and you’re not sure where you’re going next. But there’s something important I need to ask you.”
“Okay.”
“Leah Mae, I’m wonderin’ if you’ll be my girl.”
My heart melted inside my chest, pooling into a little puddle of mush. “Your girl?”
“I know, it sounds silly,” he said. “We’re not kids anymore. But imagine we’re sixteen again. You’re here for the summer, stayin’ with your daddy. We’re down by the water and you’re wearin’ that pink and yellow swimsuit. Your hair’s all wet ’cause we’ve been swimming since lunchtime, and the sun kissed freckles all over that sweet little nose of yours.”
“I remember those days.”
He nodded. “I should have done this then, but I didn’t. So I’m doin’ it now. What do you say, darlin’? Stay. Stay and be my girl.”
I leaned my forehead against his. “I will gladly be your girl, Jameson Bodine.”
Our lips came together again, so warm and soft. His kisses felt like magic.
“I was coming to see you,” I said when we pulled away. I didn’t want him to think I’d have let him believe I’d left for L.A. “I wanted to surprise you, and I stopped in town to pick up something sweet to bring with me. And then you pulled up, and well… here we are.”
“Here we are.”
Smiling, I nodded and kissed him again. Kissing was good. I wanted more of that. A lot more. I could tell Jameson did too.
We made out in the front seat of his truck like we were teenagers again. Like it really was that summer when we were sixteen, and none of the last twelve years had happened. We weren’t adults dragging the burdens of baggage and heartbreak. With the stresses of families and careers and hard choices. We were just two kids who were a little bit crazy for each other, kissing in the front seat of a pickup truck on a rainy summer afternoon.
I wished it never had to end.
His mouth tangled up with mine felt better than anything I could remember. I’d certainly been kissed before, but never like this. This was warm summer sunshine and sweet tea all wrapped up in a pleasantly scruffy jaw, soft lips, and very capable strong hands. He touched and caressed me. Kissed away all the questions and uncertainties.
And for that brief moment, everything was perfect.
20
Leah Mae
I tilted the picture I’d bought for the kitchen, making sure it hung straight. It was made of wooden planks and said Home Sweet Home in rustic white letters. I’d seen it in the window of Daisy Home Furnishings and it had tugged at my heart so hard, I’d gone in and bought it.
It had been a long time since any place I lived felt like home. In fact, it had been about twelve years, and that house was not a five-minute drive from my little cabin on the lake, here in Bootleg Springs. The house I’d lived in before my parents split up was the last place that had really felt like home to me. My dad had sold that house years ago and bought the little one he lived in now. It was easier for him to maintain, and living there alone, he didn’t need more room.
My mom’s house in Florida had been home of a sort. But in its own way, it had felt temporary. Like I’d been biding my time between summers when I could return here to stay with my dad.
Once I started modeling, I’d mostly lived in hotels, or cheap apartments with roommates I barely knew. I’d moved in with Kelvin, but it had always felt like his place, not ours. Certainly not mine.
I glanced over at the stack of boxes that had arrived at my dad’s place yesterday. Kelvin’s assistant had helped me out, having them shipped here. I hadn’t been sure where I would be, so she’d shipped them to Dad’s, and I’d brought them here. They were still boxed up from our last move. Kelvin hadn’t opened any of them.
This cabin wasn’t exactly mine, but I’d arranged to lease it from Scarlett long term, rather than as vacation rental. She’d been thrilled to hear I wanted to stay in Bootleg for a while. I wasn’t sure what she knew about me and Jameson, exactly, but she’d been all smiles when she’d come by yesterday with the paperwork.
I was in a strange place in my life, not knowing what the future held for me. I’d spent so many years chasing a dream. But that dream had been tarnished beyond repair. I didn’t have doubts that I was doing the right thing. I just needed to figure out what I was supposed to do next.
The prospect of starting over—of finding a new path for my life—was both exciting and scary. I had enough savings to live on for a while, but it wouldn’t last forever. And I wanted to make sure my dad would be okay. I had a lot to think about.
But I was grateful that I could afford to take a little break and just be. Live here, in a place that was far removed from all the craziness of the outside world. Where I could ignore the gossip, and people didn’t see me as a disgraced reality TV star.
Where I was Jameson Bodine’s girl.
My heart fluttered, and my stomach did a little flip, just thinking about him. It had only been a few days since he’d kissed me on the street—and in his truck, and at my door. When he’d asked me to be his girl, I’d nearly died. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me.
And being Jam
eson’s girl? Yes, please. I’d take all that and more, thank you very much.
I’d fallen a little bit in love with Jameson Bodine when I was a girl. When he’d been my best friend—the quiet boy who loved to draw and build things. Who took apart his toys and glued them back together to make something new. Who quietly observed the world around him, noticing things no one else did.
I was falling a little more in love with him now. With the man who saw beauty in the broken and discarded. Whose quiet stubbornness had built a career out of his passion. Jameson had grown up to be a man who was loyal and kind. Who loved his family and protected the people he loved.
The idea that Jameson—this man with such a soft heart and strong spirit—could possibly love me was enough to make me giddy.
To the outside world, my life probably looked like a mess. People blasted me on every social media platform I’d ever heard of—and probably all the ones I hadn’t. Stills from the show had been turned into memes—none of them flattering—and the gossip all pointed to me as the bad guy in the Roughing It cabin.
For now, I ignored it all. I took everything but Instagram off my phone, and I only used that to post pictures of things like the giant slice of chocolate cake I’d indulged in last night. Or the flannel shirt I’d turned into a dress that looked perfect with my cowboy boots.
The online gossip and comments only made me feel terrible and small. So I pretended none of it existed. I knew I’d have to deal with it all at some point. I still had contractual obligations to the studio to finish out the season of Roughing It. But until then, I’d live for a while in Bootleg bliss.
My phone rang, and I wrinkled my nose at the very unwanted intrusion from the outside world. It was Kelvin. He’d texted and called several times since I’d broken off our engagement. Mostly he harped on the fact that I didn’t have representation, or tried to talk me into doing another reality show.
“Hello?”
“Leah,” he said, “I’m so glad you answered.”
“What do you want?”
“We need to talk,” he said. “I’m going crazy out here.”
“I’ve already told you, I’m not staying with your agency, and I’m not doing that show.”
“Right, fine,” he said. “That’s not what we need to talk about. We need to talk about us.”
I rolled my eyes. Now he wanted to talk about us? “I think I’ve been pretty clear about that, too.”
“Leah, I miss you,” he said. “Nothing is the same without you here.”
I took a deep breath and leaned against the counter. “I don’t know what to say about that. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you want, but I already told you it’s over.”
“But why, babe?” he asked. “We were great together.”
“Were we, really?” I asked. “I think we were more convenient together than great.”
“That’s not true.”
“Kelvin, you didn’t love me,” I said. “Maybe you loved things about me, or you loved my career. But you hated my hometown, you talked down to people I care about, and you had no interest in getting to know my family.”
“Babe, you should come home so we can talk about this in person.”
“That’s not my home,” I said. “And stop calling me babe.”
“Leah—”
“I have to go,” I said, and ended the call.
A few seconds later, my phone rang—Kelvin again. I declined the call just as Jameson knocked on my front door. I turned off my phone and left it on the counter. Kelvin could leave as many messages as he wanted. He was not ruining my day with Jameson.
“Hey, darlin’,” Jameson said when I opened the door. Without hesitation, he stepped in and slipped his hands around my waist. Pulled me close and kissed me.
“Hi,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“I think I need to do that again, just to be sure it’s real.” He gently brushed my hair back from my face and rubbed his nose against mine before leaning in to kiss me.
“What are we doing today?” I asked.
“Going to the rusty reef,” he said.
“What’s that?”
He grinned. “You’ll see. Are you wearing your swimsuit?”
“Sure am.” I was wearing my pink and blue bikini under a loose-fitting shirt I’d modified to hang off one shoulder, with a pair of cut-off jeans and pink sandals.
Jameson’s eyes swept up and down, taking me in. The hungry look in his eyes made my tummy tingle.
“I reckon we should go,” he said.
“Do I need anything else?”
“Just your pretty self,” he said. “And maybe a towel. I took care of the rest.”
I grabbed a beach towel and went out to Jameson’s truck. We drove along the lake, away from town, and he pulled over to park on the side of the road. There were a number of other cars and trucks parked nearby. He took a cooler bag out of the back, and I got our towels, then followed him down an old dirt road.
We emerged on a wide beach. The land sloped upward on our left, flattening as it came toward the water. To the right was an expanse of sand bordered along the far side by trees and rocks that went almost to the edge of the lake. It made for a secluded section of lakefront.
People had blankets and towels spread out on the sand and a small fire sent a tendril of smoke into the air. Scarlett and Cassidy were laid out on a blanket, sunning themselves in bikinis. June sat beneath the shade of a wide umbrella, thumbing through a magazine.
Devlin and Bowie sat on a log next to the fire, poking at it with sticks. A few others sat nearby, with lunch or drinks. Heads bobbed in the water out from the shore, and the sound of their voices carried faintly over the water.
Jameson veered to the right and set our stuff down.
“There’s more room over there,” he said, nodding in the opposite direction. “But we don’t want to be in the way.”
“In the way of what?” I asked. There didn’t seem to be anything over there.
The noise of a motor made me turn, and I watched as Gibson came tearing down the dirt road on a four-wheeler. He skidded to a stop just short of the water’s edge. For half a second, I wondered what he was doing, until a shout came from higher up the slope. A rope was tied to the four-wheeler, and it led to a zip line. Someone—it looked like Jonah—was holding onto the handle and sliding toward the water at terrifying speed.
He flew out over the lake, let go, and fell in the water with a splash.
“That was a good one,” Jameson said.
The girls clapped, then held up their fingers—rating his jump, apparently. Cassidy and Scarlett gave him a seven, June held up a distracted-looking eight.
“Did Gibson just pull Jonah on a zip line with that four-wheeler?” I asked.
“Sure did.”
“That looks dangerous.”
Jameson shrugged. “I reckon it is a bit. You just have to make sure to let go in time so you don’t hit the rusty reef.”
“What’s the rusty reef?”
Jonah swam along the shoreline, then climbed onto something and stood tall, the water sparkling in the sun around him. It looked like he was standing on the water.
“That there is the rusty reef,” Jameson said, nodding toward Jonah. “We used to tow the zip line with a truck, until Nash drove his old Ford into the lake and couldn’t get it out. That’s when we switched to a four-wheeler. Jonah’s standing on the truck now.”
“There’s a truck out there?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We moved the zip line a bit so we’re less likely to crash into the truck—Buck learned that the hard way, but we appreciated him figuring out the physics for us.”
“Oh my god, was he okay?”
Jameson waved his hand. “Broke a leg, is all. He healed up just fine.”
I felt bad for laughing, but Jameson was so nonchalant about it.
“Are you going to do the zip line?” I asked.
“Course,” he said. “It’s a hell of a lot of
fun.”
“Hey Jame, I’m up,” Gibson called. “You driving?”
“Yeah, I got you,” Jameson said, then looked at me. “What do you think?”
I looked over at the zip line. It started up the slope and went out over the water. “I think I’ll just watch.”
One corner of Jameson’s mouth hooked in a subtle grin. “You won’t be sayin’ that later.”
I blinked, gaping at him. I wasn’t sure if we were still talking about the zip line.
“Make yourself comfortable, darlin’.” He winked and pulled off his shirt, letting it drop to the sand, then stepped out of his shoes. “I need to go take Gibs for a ride. It’ll be your turn in a while.”
He backed away a few steps, still facing me, in nothing but a pair of shorts, his fantastic torso on full display. I couldn’t stop staring. He was lean and muscular without being bulky, and he had a tattoo across his chest and left shoulder that I’d never seen before.
I’d spent the last dozen years around models—male and female—and none of them had anything on Jameson Bodine. His appeal wasn’t in being photogenic, although I was sure he was. It was in his slightly messy hair, his stubbly jaw, and his body that looked like it was built to be used, not just to look pretty. In his rough hands and the scars on his forearms. In that boyish smile and the little trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath the waist of his shorts.
He winked again before jogging over to the four-wheeler. I swallowed hard and had to resist the urge to fan myself. But god, he was sexy.
“He’s really not bad, is he?” Cassidy asked. She was propped up on her elbows, looking over at Jameson from beneath her sunglasses.
“He’s a Bodine; of course he’s good-lookin’,” Scarlett said without looking over.
“I mean no disrespect, Leah Mae,” Cassidy said. “I’m just saying, objectively speaking, he’s a fine-looking man.”
I noticed Bowie scowling over by the fire, glancing back and forth between Jameson and Cassidy.
“My brothers are a right pain in the ass,” Scarlett said. “Each and every one of ’em. But they’re a good sort.”
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