But selfishly, I’d also come for Josie.
“I think you know better than anyone how complicated the truth can be,” I said, looking up at her from under the brim of my baseball cap.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Come on, Josie,” I said, running my hand along the back of my neck. How did she not understand? “I’m not looking for a fight.”
I wanted to talk but not like this. She was building her wall higher by the minute, and I couldn’t do anything but watch as she shut me out. If I didn’t do something soon, I’d have no chance of breaking through.
She blew out a breath. “I don’t know what to tell you, Lincoln. We knew each other for a short time—the blink of an eye, really. What did you expect? What did I owe you?” I tried to stop her, but she barreled through me. “You knew I’d leave eventually. My life is here. My family is here.”
I stepped closer, crowding her space until her scent hit me. It was faint, hidden after working in the Texas heat all day, but the sweet hint of vanilla was there all the same.
“You didn’t owe me shit. That isn’t what this is about.” She turned her head, refusing to look my way. I could live with that if she listened to me for five seconds. “If you’d talked to me before bolting, I’d have told you I wasn’t looking to take any of that away from you. Hell, I don’t know what could’ve happened between us.Maybe we’d have burned out in half a second, but—” I paused, reaching out and grabbing her hand. She kept her gaze on the far wall but didn’t pull away. “Josie, do something for me. Look me in the eye and tell me you felt nothing. Tell me it was all in my head. There was something between us last year that neither of us could explain.”
“Lincoln,” she began, but I cut her off.
“And I know you felt it, too. I know you felt that familiar tug, the familiarity between two strangers that neither of us could explain.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said, trying to walk past me, but I was faster.
I tightened my hold on her hand, pulling her back to face me. All I could do now was lay it on the line. “Look, if you want nothing to do with me, tell me now. But I want to make one thing clear.” My gaze dropped to her lips, and she tracked the movement. “I may have come here to honor Frank’s wishes, but I also came to remind you of how good we were, of what we could be again if you let me. Is this really over?”
She looked up at me through dark, thick lashes. The barn’s darkness was a protective cocoon, shielding us from the outside world as we shared breath. I let go of her hand, trailing my fingertips up the length of her arm and shoulder until I cupped her face.
We were so close. I could kiss her. I wanted to kiss her.
“Josie,” I said, leaning in until there was only a fraction of space between our lips.
And then her phone rang.
Josie jumped away from me as though I’d shocked her, putting as much space as she could between us. She pulled the phone from her pocket, eyes darting between me and the screen as she pressed the green button and whispered two more words that fucking killed me.
“Hey, babe.”
josie
. . .
When I thoughtthis day couldn’t get worse, I saw Ellis’ name on my phone. I’d been half a second away from kissing Lincoln Carter in my barn—a position I shouldn’t have ever even been in.
I had Ellis.
God, I was a fucking mess.
As if it hadn’t been enough to put myself in such a compromising position, then I went and answered the phone right in front of the only man who’d ever made it his mission to make me come.
And now I was thinking about those toe-curling orgasms as I brought the phone to my ear and whispered, “Hey, babe.”
Lincoln’s face fell as he stared at me, his hand still suspended in the air where he’d just tenderly cupped my jaw. It fell to his side before he tucked it into the pocket of his snug Wrangler jeans.
“How was the first day?” Ellis asked. I could hear the click of a keyboard through the phone, knowing he was likely working late, like always.
I didn’t see the appeal of Ellis’ job; I hated staring at numbers. Just because I was good at math, didn’t mean I enjoyed it. That had only been cemented as we’d been combing through the bank statements together. At this point, I was nearly convinced I’d imagined the mistake entirely.
“It was great,” I said, turning my back on the man staring at me in shock, walking just outside the massive barn doors. I needed air; I needed to breathe, and I couldn’t do that with Lincoln’s crestfallen face in my view. “Dad’s emotional, but our stalls and cabins are full.”
“I looked over the projected totals for Black Spring’s summer income, and it looks great. We’ll be turning a high-end profit that should carry us into the winter.”
