Encouraged, she asked, “Do you?”
His arm tightened around her as he turned. Her breasts brushed his chest. “Ask questions? What do you think?”
She grinned. Talking with him was like dancing or sex, each of them alert to the other’s moves. “Miss your family.”
“Yeah. Some.”
She waited. She didn’t recognize the music, something smooth and slow and country. When he didn’t say anything more, she asked, “Do you ever think about going back?”
What did she want him to say? That he was staying on the island? She wasn’t staying. What did it matter?
His shoulder bunched and flexed under her hand. “For the holidays, maybe. Sure. My folks are still there. But longer than that, I’ve got to ask myself, what for? Am I going back to be with them? Or am I trying to get back to the way things used to be? Because if it’s the second thing, it’s not going to happen. That boat’s already sailed.”
She almost lost a step.
He gathered her in. “What?”
“You’re not...” She shook her head. “Every time I think I have you figured out, you surprise me. You’re nothing like what I expected.”
He raised an eyebrow, his black eyes impenetrable. “You’re not what I was expecting, either.”
Hostage Girl. He’d seen her on TV. He’d read her book. Reality couldn’t live up to that.
She stuck out her chin. “Disappointed?”
“No. Not at all.”
She flushed with pleasure.
He held her close, not grinding, but apparently the past five days had sensitized her to sex or something. She was constantly aware of him, the strength of his arms, the solid muscles of his chest and belly. His animal heat, rising through his civilized clothes.
The afternoon whirled like a kaleidoscope toward evening, the action breaking and shifting, falling into bright, glowing patters. Sunshine, flowers, music.
Moments.
Tom and Tess Fletcher, married forty years, cheek to cheek on the dance floor. Meg, flirting outrageously with Sam. Taylor, grinning up at her uncle Matt. Love, radiating from the bride and groom, all around.
Thalia, glowing and grown up, danced by in Josh’s arms. Lauren’s heart clutched at the sight of them, clumsy and happy as puppies, full of hope and hormones.
“They’re so cute together.”
Jack followed her gaze. “Teenagers. That won’t last.”
She frowned, feeling out of step. Statistically, of course, he was right. “I don’t think it matters. Love doesn’t have to last to be real.”
“You’re talking about puppy love.”
“First love,” she corrected. “It’s formative. The first—maybe the only—relationship where you haven’t had your heart broken yet. The novelty of the experience creates a chemical rush that makes it memorable. It’s the lens through which you see all future relationships.”
“What about parents?”
She beamed at him as if he were a particularly bright student. “Your parents’ example is significant, too,” she said in her classroom voice. “And of course, early loss of a parent can cripple your ability to form attachments, to trust yourself completely to another relationship.”
Another dark, unreadable look. “So where does that leave us?”
“Us?” she repeated uncertainly.
“Yeah. Basically you’re saying that since I got dumped and your dad died on you, we’re screwed.”
