There it is. The foreigner encroaching upon local land. “That’s an awful big house for just…you,” she adds, looking at me square on.
Telling her I had plans to tear it down and build a single-family home seems like a bad idea, so I go with the truth. “Well, I’m just going to fix it up first, ma’am. It needs a lot of work. I haven’t really thought much past that. The time I spend with it will give me some indication of what I want to do with it.”
“That’s a big purchase to not have firm plans,” she exclaims.
I swallow hard. “It was a shame it was sitting there empty, don’t you agree? Someone had to buy it. Why not me?”
“Are you going to flip it? Fix it up and sell it?” Now her question makes even more sense.
Clearing my throat, I say, “I’m sticking around here.” I tell her that I put the offer on the property when I first arrived—that I knew I could make it brighter and more beautiful than it has been in the past. “The house is just a house. Bronze Bay is my home now. This is just my secondhand slice of paradise.”
Her smile seems genuine. “She’s plum crazy about you, son. I hope that you will stick around. The men around here don’t understand her. I’ve always been a little proud about that. Thinking maybe she would move away one day and find her match elsewhere. Being tied to a small town has both its ups and downs.” She places the plate into the drying rack and starts washing another. “I don’t want to frighten you off or anything. Don’t think that.”
I run my hands through my hair. “It takes a lot to scare me off,” I reply. “Do you have any photo albums of Caroline as a teenager?” I joke.
She laughs, and Caroline clears her throat from behind me. I spin to meet her harried gaze. “What are you guys talking about? Only good things hopefully,” she says, grabbing me around the waist. “Daddy thinks it’s going to be a bad season this year,” she adds.
“Don’t change the subject. We were talking about scaring me off,” I tell her, setting my big hands over hers.
Caroline’s mother looks on fondly, and I try to keep my dick in check. It has no clue we’re in her parent’s house. “I wasn’t awful-looking as a teenager,” she cries. “Let me show you something cooler.” She pulls on myarm, and I follow her to a window next to a smaller table inside the kitchen.
“The hill,” I say, nodding toward the steep decline.
“The famous hill,” Caroline chimes in, releasing me a touch. She points down the hill and through a copse of trees. “My hangar,” she says. You can’t see her parents’ house from her hangar, but you can definitely see her house from here. It’s the angle. The distance between the two is more than you’d guess.
“Because the property is close to the airfield with planes taking off and landing they got an amazing deal on the house and all of this land.” It looks like they own half of this tiny city from where I’m standing.
“While this is a nice view and all,” I whisper into her ear, “I’d really like to be looking out of your window right now.” I have one arm wrapped around her waist—a heavy weight showing her how much I want to be on her in every way possible. “Except without clothes on,” I add, so softly I wonder if she’s heard me. Telltale pink cheeks tell me her truth.
“Dessert first?” she squeaks, turning to glance at her parents. Mr. May is drying dishes, and Mrs. May is prattling on about the NYC trip while she tops a pie with whipped cream. The fact that they have a dishwasher but wash dishes together tells me something about them as people.
If you pay attention, you can know someone without speaking a word. Part of my training as a SEAL isreading people’s body language and expressions. The phraseactions speak louder than wordswas never more true than when I discovered how easily people can be deciphered. It’s when my heart gets mixed in that my radar is fucked. Caroline confounds me constantly and profusely, yet I want to unravel her one thread at a time.
Swallowing hard, I reply, “As long as you’re on the menu for second dessert.” My chest squeezes a little, knowing I’m finally going to be having a piece of her I’ve never had before.
“Don’t mind my mom about that commitment stuff. She doesn’t know that we’re going slow,” she says, facing the window once again, trying her best to brush off my come-on. “Don’t let her scare you. Even if you say you aren’t, I don’t see how it wouldn’t.” Licking her bottom lip, she chances a quick glance up at my face.
“Caroline.” I say her name like a curse word and a scold at the same time, and both of her parents turn to look.
“Pie?” Mrs. May says, a chipper, hopeful smile on her face.
“Yes, of course, Mama. We’ll be right in.”
Mr. May grabs a newspaper and vanishes into the dining room after his wife. Taking Caroline by her elbows, I spin her toward me. “Do you honestly think I’m afraid of committing to you?” I ask, eyes narrowed.
She shrugs both shoulders. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Isn’t that what men typically do these days? Have problems with staying with one girl. With the exception of a few good ones, most of the guys I know are likeWhit.”
“Whit is an idiot,” I return. “He’s also an asshole.”
She grins, pulling her bottom lip with her thumb and forefinger. “Sort of,” she replies.
“Are you defending him?” I ask, rumbling with mock outrage.
She smiles wider. “What if I am?”
“Then I’ll have to kill him.”
She drops her lip and looks at me, eyes wide, a horrified grimace transforming her beautiful face. “I’m joking, Caroline. I’m not going to kill him.”
