“Don’t get near the water until I get there,” Dane warns them.
“Okay,” they shout in unison.
“To be young again.” I laugh, falling in step with Dane. We head down the slope toward the trees. Dandelions create little pops of yellow against the green, the sky a vivid blue with billowy white clouds overhead. “It’s so beautiful out here.”
“You look beautiful today.”
“Thanks.” My cheeks flush, and it has nothing to do with the sun. “You clean up pretty nice yourself.”
“I don’t love shirts like this. I feel like I’m getting strangled.” He picks at his collar.
“I don’t love dresses either. I wear them to work when I have to, but it’s much easier navigating New York in pants, I think.”
“What’s it like there? If you were walking around on a Sunday afternoon, what would it be like?”
I take in the lush green foliage in front of us, the high grass sprinkled with beautiful flowers, and laugh. “I’m not used to seeing pretty things when I walk outside. I usually get a bunch of buildings, a couple of rats, and a man telling me I have to get a new route because a movie is filming in front of me.”
He makes a face. “I don’t know how you live like that.”
“You get used to it.”
We get to the tree line. Dane goes first down the path to the creek. It doesn’t look as worn as it did when I was little, but it’s still clearly marked. The girls’ laughter echoes through the valley.
Birds call overhead and gnats buzz my face. It’s weirdly refreshing.
“Watch your step,” he says. “There’s a big hole up here, and I know you don’t look where you’re stepping.” He hops over a trench.
“That’s not a hole.” I laugh. “A hole is a dip. That’s a . . . cut.”
“Give me your hand.”
“I can make it.”
“Give me your hand,” he says again. His hand stretches toward me. Instinctively, my hand falls into his. “Oh, you got your bracelet.”
“I did.” I think I beam, but I don’t care. “I love it.”
“She worked on that for three nights.” He squeezes my hand. “Now jump.”
“You realize three little girls just did this without help, right?” I ask, enjoying the warmth of his palm.
“Country girls. You’re a city slicker now.”
“I am not.”
He wrinkles his face at the defiance in my tone. It takes me aback too. I don’t know why I took that as an almost-insult, but I did.
“Jump,” Dane says.
Determined to show him I’m not a city slicker, I leap across the trench with gusto. My toe catches on a tree root, and I crash into Dane’s arms.
We both gasp as his arms wrap around my waist and my chest hits his. It takes a second to get my head together. I can feel his heart beat against my cheek. His cologne hangs in the air, but being so close, I can smell him—the oils on his skin. The sweetness of his breath. The scent that’s strongest in the crook of his neck.
He grins as I look up, trying to catch my breath.
“Good thing I warned you,” he teases.
“Yeah,” I pant. “Good thing.”
His palms lie flat against the small of my back. His fingers flex against my shirt. Our eyes stay locked together, a grin tickling the corner of his lips.
Whether it’s too much contact or the sweet summer air, all my sense of reality is lost. I fall happily into his gaze. My lungs fill, my heart skips as he begins to lower his head to mine.
He pulls me closer to him. I lock my hands around his waist. We fit together like a puzzle in the middle of this little forest.
Just as his lips dip toward mine, his eyes sparkling like a million stars in the sky, Mia shouts, “Dad! Are you coming or what?”
I sag, unable to catch myself from laughing. A deflated balloon, I blow out the rest of the air I’ve been holding.
“Damn kid.” He chuckles, flexing his fingers against me. “Coming, Mia, darling.”
“Hurry up. We want to play in the water,” she calls back.
He holds me for a moment longer. I soak up the sturdiness of his body and the way his arms feel around me. I breathe him in one final time before planting my hands on his chest and pressing gently away.
His head bows as he turns toward the creek.
The rest of the walk is quiet. The logical part of my brain chastises me for caving. The human side declares it’s only that—human. How was I to resist being in his arms when it feels like I was just there? Like, somehow, being nestled against him is as natural as being on a balance beam?
The girls see us coming and waste no time getting closer to the water. They toss in rocks and limbs and find a frog on the other bank, but Dane won’t let them that far out to grab it.
I pick out a spot of grass beneath a tree and plop down. Dane teaches the girls how to skip rocks across the water. He doesn’t get frustrated when they ask the same questions over and over, nor does he become irritated when they do exactly the opposite of what he tells them. He just smiles and repeats himself or shows them again.
They play at the water’s edge for a long time. I join them as they attempt to build a dam. When it washes out, so does their excitement.
“Can we head back to the church now?” Keyarah asks. “I’m thirsty.”
“Me too,” Madison agrees.
“Yeah. Go on,” Dane says. “Stay on the path. We’ll be behind you shortly.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Keyarah giggles. “Are you boyfriend and girlfriend?”
My eyes whip to Mia. She’s biting her bottom lip just like her dad does when he’s nervous. She looks at me for an answer.
“No,” I say as cheerily as I can. “Dane and I are friends. We grew up together.”
“My mom said you two used to be boyfriend and girlfriend,” Keyarah says. “We were looking through her old yearbooks, and I saw a picture of you together.”
“Like I said, we grew up together.” I look at Dane for support. “That’s all it is.”
“That’s all it is.” He casts a somber look at me before turning back to the girls. “Stay together and go straight to the church. Got it?”
“Got it,” Mia says. She flashes us a peace sign before they trample off the way we came.
Dane sits next to me. He stretches out, propping up on his elbows. He joins me in glancing across the water.
We don’t say anything for a long time. I wonder if he’s replaying the trip down here like I am. Just as I get to the part where he almost kisses me, he chuckles.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t remember being their age and knowing what a girlfriend and boyfriend even were. Girls were gross.”
“I wasn’t a fan of boys until a green-eyed brother of a little punk in my class showed up at my front door,” I say. “That sort of changed things for me.”
He laughs, looking up at the clouds. “I remember going home that night and trying to get all the information I could about you from Matt. Of course, being the idiot he is, he knew nothing. He was like, ‘Uh, I think she brings her lunch and doesn’t get a tray in the cafeteria.’”
“Well, that was true.” I laugh. “You were the first boy I ever had a crush on. My first kiss. My first . . . everything.”
The clouds shift overhead, allowing the sun to break free. It glimmers off the trickling water below us.
“I don’t regret dating you anymore,” I say softly.
“You mean you used to?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve spent a lot of nights in a shitty apartment in the city wondering what your little family life was like down here. I felt shafted, to be honest.”
“And I spent a lot of nights home alone with a baby, wondering what you were doing in the big city. I felt, like, jealous sometimes, to be honest.” He moves his neck back and forth. “This shirt is killing me.”
My fingers dig into the grass in a futile attempt to keep from reaching over to h
im. But the longer I look at the way the sun kisses his skin, noticing the way my heart feels full as he looks at me and smiles, the more the resistance wanes.
“Here. Let me help you,” I say. Stretching across the space between us, I unfasten a button. My fingers tremble as they brush against his skin, freeing the top two spots.
He watches me closely, the warmth of his body washing over me. I wonder if he’s thinking about the possibilities of undoing all the buttons, of shedding his shirt. Of removing my dress.
Before I pull away, he sits up. We’re inches apart. My heart races as my mouth goes dry.
His eyes shine, the gold flecks brighter than even the greens. “For the record,” he whispers, “I haven’t regretted kissing you once.”
“For the record,” I say, forcing a swallow, “if I lived around here, I’d have a hard time not kissing you more.”
That’s all it takes. My stomach whirls like a banshee as he leans up and touches his lips to mine. I don’t close my eyes; I want to see and feel everything.
His lips are soft, his breath hot against my mouth. His lashes full as they lie splayed against his cheeks. Just as we pull apart, a flurry of giggles rings out from behind a shrub above us.
I cover my face with my hands and try to quiet the racket in my body. I want to shriek, to fist pump, to call Grace and tell her right freaking now like a juvenile that Dane kissed me. But none of those options are appropriate for a woman nearing thirty—especially a woman nearing thirty who will most likely be regretting this decision shortly.
“Get back to the church,” he shouts, although it’s laced with a laugh. He gets to his feet, offering me a hand. “We better get back before those three start telling people all kinds of stories.”
He helps me up, and I follow him along the trail toward the church. We stop at the trench and he turns to me. “For the record, I don’t regret that kiss either.” He then flashes me the widest smile and hops to the other side.
I take his hand and make it across more gracefully this time. “For the record,” I say, looking at his handsome face, “I don’t either.”
I leave him standing behind me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DANE
A drill rips through the air behind me. Close. Too close. I jump a mile.
“Damn it, Penn,” I say. The set of plans in my hand ripple as I wipe my brow. “It’s too early for your bullshit.”
“It’s almost noon,” he cracks. “Besides, when did you get so jumpy?”
I ignore his question, mostly because I don’t have an answer, and lay the plans out on the floor instead. “Come here,” I say, motioning for him to crouch with me. “We can’t finish this trim until the concrete guy comes in and works his magic on the floors.”
Penn lowers himself. “Yeah, but that’s the general contractor’s problem. Not ours.”
“We’re ahead of schedule. I called the contractor, and they’re going to see if the concrete guy can get up here in the next week or so. In the meantime, let’s jump to the pergola in the back tomorrow and see if we can wrap up what we can.”
“Sounds good.”
The rumble of tires on gravel catches our attention. We stand and wait for the car to appear. Penn’s face lights up when he sees it’s Haley.
“Can you not hump her leg?” I mutter.
“Her leg isn’t what I want to hump.”
Sighing in exasperation, I head across the grass. Haley is out of the car, and Mia’s right behind her.
“Hey, Dad!” My daughter heads toward me with a book tucked under her arm. She beams. “We’ve been to the library today. I know you’re over the whole bedtime story thing—”
“Because you’re old enough to read to me at this point.”
“You’ll miss it one day.” She shrugs as if she’s challenging me to argue that. I can’t. “Anyway, I got a couple of new books. I think you’re going to love them.”
I look at Haley. “Did you have her get something about baseball? Grilling? Camping?”
“No,” Mia says. “But I did have to check out one about a boy that gets lost in the woods. He lives in a tree or something. That’s right up your alley. Not really mine, but . . .”
“It’s called expanding your horizons,” Haley insists, coming up next to us. “I’m all for princesses, but it’s time for a change.”
“Uncle Matt!” Mia abandons us in favor of my brother. Once she’s out of earshot, I know I’m in trouble. Haley’s shit-eating grin is legendary.
“So . . . ,” she says.
“So, what?”
“So a little birdie told me you were caught kissing a certain someone at church yesterday.”
“A little birdie, huh?” I look at the sky. “That’s interesting.”
“I think it’s very interesting. And exciting,” she almost squeals. “And I’m kind of annoyed I’m getting information from a child. I thought we were better friends than that.”
“Do you call me every time you kiss a guy? Wait. Don’t answer that.”
She laughs. “Yes, I do. Or I at least tell you the next time I see you.”
“And this is the next time I’m seeing you,” I point out.
“You were going to tell me?”
“No.”
She goes on a mini rant about how I should’ve told her, how she feels like she basically wished us together, and how I’m now holding out. I head to my truck, hoping she’ll get distracted by Penn.
Things never happen when you want them to.
She chases me down the slope and continues to rail me.
I’ve fought this very topic for the last almost twenty-four hours. There’s no way to deny the excitement in my stomach or how perfectly Neely still fits in my arms. Forgetting the sweetness of her breath, the softness of her lips, is impossible, and I’ve replayed the moments with her since Mia and I pulled away from the church.
My initial worry was Mia. She seems to be taking it better than I am.
“What does this mean?” Haley asks.
I open the driver’s-side door of my truck and sit in the cab. She leans against the door, basically blocking me in.
“This means you’re trying to trap me in here and shake me down for information,” I say.
“Of course that’s what this means. I meant, what does the kiss mean?”
“You look into things too much.”
“I won’t deny that. But when you slip up and kiss a woman in front of Mia, a woman I know you have feelings for, that means something.”
I could argue this. Tell her Mia got it wrong or that it was a friendly sort of thing. I could lie to her until I’m blue in the face, and it wouldn’t matter. She’ll press on until she gets what she wants. The trouble is—what do I want?
I lay in bed all night and mulled over that question. What do I want? What can I want? I’ve been with a few women since Sara, but those relationships have been a hookup here and there. Nothing that had a stickiness to last more than a few months. They were flings, moments in time, and the women knew it.
It’s not that way with Neely. I don’t think of her and wonder where I can meet her for a quickie. I don’t forget about her while I’m hanging trim and remember her only when she calls my phone. I sure as hell don’t think of other women since she came back.
She fit right back into that spot—her spot—in my life. I think of her when I’m brushing my teeth. I wonder what it would be like to wake up with her in the morning and how it would feel to have her sitting with Mia and me at the dinner table. All the things that will only set me up for pain later because she has no interest in sticking around.
I’m eaten up with this shit. I’m no better than the teenage version of myself who overthought everything. Neely isn’t someone I can gamble with. There’s no kissing and forgetting. There’s only wanting more. Needing more. Desiring more.
And not being able to have it.
I don’t know what to do with that.
“You ignoring me?” Penn
comes up to the truck, his gaze set on Haley. “My feelings are hurt.”
“How are you, Penn?” She gives him a quick once-over. “You look hot.”
Penn’s jaw drops. “I’ve waited for this moment for years.”
“No, really. Make sure you drink enough so you don’t dehydrate.”
He bites back a smile as I laugh. Haley laughs, too, but I can see she feels a little bad about teasing him.
“Seriously,” she says. “How are you, Penn?”
“You’re here. I’d say I’m more than decent right about now.”
“I’d say you were more than decent a few hours ago.” She points at his neck. “Was she blonde?”
“Was who blonde?”
“Whoever left that lipstick on your neck. It’s a bluish red, so I figured she’s probably fair headed.”
I burst out laughing as Penn clamps a hand on his neck. Haley holds her hands up by her sides and shrugs.
“You’re so predictable,” she says.
“That wasn’t lipstick. It was paint.”
“It wasn’t Claire’s night off last night, was it?” I ask. “She wears a lot of red lipstick.”
Penn plays it off like the playboy he is. “Don’t listen to him, Haley. I’m all about you right now.”
“I know you are. And in a few minutes, when you realize this is going nowhere, you’ll be about someone else. That’s the beauty of you, Penn.”
Penn looks at me. “Was that a compliment? Should I take it like one?”
“No.” I laugh. “No to both.”
“Fine, but the option is there. You need someone to keep you warm at night, I’m your man.”
Haley takes a step toward me, wagging her finger in the air. “About that . . .”
Penn’s head sweeps from her to me, to her, back to me. “You aren’t sleeping with Haley, are you? Damn it. I called dibs on her.”
“First of all—” I start before Haley chimes in.
“You can’t call dibs on a person. I’m not something you can put a stake in.”
“Wrong choice of words,” I mutter.
Penn smirks. “Oh, baby. I could put a stake in it all right.”
Haley’s eye roll is long and deliberate. “You’re disgusting.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Penn heads back up to the house. “I’m taking lunch in twenty.”
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