“In the friend zone.”
Her words doused the sparks that had been flaring to life all day. The truth was, it had been a spectacular day. He’d enjoyed every moment, from riding in the Jeep with the top down to belting country music songs together to talking about anything and everything. Yes, the special activities he’d planned had been amazing too. But her presence had been the only thing that mattered.
Had he been hoping she would be feeling more for him by this point? Because he couldn’t deny he was feeling more for her. He hadn’t stopped to analyze how much more and what that meant, but it certainly went beyond thefriend zone.
He’d even brought up the various nursing jobs in the area, trying to gauge whether she’d be open to something besides traveling nursing. He’d been hoping she might be having the same tug toward him and, as a result, might consider a more permanent position.
But he should have realized when she’d told him she liked traveling that she was keeping him as just a friend, like she was doing now.
If he were honest with himself, he knew that was for the best, even if it was disappointing. He was getting too caught up in his attraction to her…and he was forgetting all the reasons why heneeded to be careful about letting his attraction get the best of him. Mainly so that he didn’t repeat the mistakes he’d made with Stephanie.
Yes, Kinsey was different from his ex in a lot of ways. Stephanie had always been too optimistic, too bubbly, and too carefree. She’d thought love was all it would take for them to make their marriage work. When the reality of life and hardships and difficulties had fallen upon them like they did for every married couple, she’d been disillusioned.
Kinsey wasn’t like that. She was realistic, practical, and responsible. She handled hardships and difficulties every day in her work. And she’d experienced loss already in her own life with the death of her sister. In spite of all the challenges, she was strong and kind and compassionate—more than most people he knew.
Even if Kinsey wasn’t like Stephanie in some ways, there were still too many similarities that scared him—namely that Kinsey wasn’t used to living outside a big city. She would eventually get tired of a rural ranch the same way Stephanie had.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m stepping back into the friend zone.”
Kinsey quirked a brow at him. “It’s that easy?”
“Yep.” No, it actually wasn’t. He couldn’t just turn off the attraction he was feeling for her. But he didn’t want to let it overrule solid reasoning the way he had when he’d been dating Stephanie.
Kinsey pulled a white bikini off the rack and held it up. “So, myfriend, you’d be okay if I wore this instead?”
His mind filled with an image of her wearing the flimsy covering—a sizzling image that dumped gasoline onto the sparks inside him. The flames sprang up high and fast and hot. Rapidly, before they could consume him, he stomped them out.
As if she could sense the firefighting battle inside him, her lips tilted up with a sassy smile.
“I’m not a saint, Kinsey,” he growled.
“So the blue Speedo?” She held up the plain suit she’d taken off the rack first.
“Fine.” He turned and began to stalk toward the changing rooms, wishing he weren’t so weak. Because the truth was, he didn’t want to lust over her. He wanted to respect her and their friendship.
Friendship with Kinsey. That was all he could ever have. And that was all he needed. If only he could convince himself of it.
17
Kinsey groaned with pleasure as the shallow warm water of the hot spring enveloped her. It was silky smooth, like the finest cotton sheet, wrapping around her, tangling her up, and tingling through her skin.
At the splash of water, she opened her eyes to find that Tyler was moving away from her to the opposite side of the pool. His bare back faced her in all its expansive tanned glory.
As he sank into the new spot and turned, she got a perfect view of his chest, which rivaled his back with its muscular grandeur. His pecs and abs were like the granite mountain peaks she’d seen earlier in the day—rock solid, with chiseled lines and smoothly rounded curves. She couldn’t deny that she wanted to run her hands over his shoulders and down his arms and feel all that solidness beneath her fingertips.
The thought was completely unwanted but sent shimmers of heat through her belly anyway. He was already too easy to look at with all his clothes on, much less wearing only swim trunks.
She shifted her gaze down to her legs stretching out in the water, the low lights showing off her toned muscles. She couldn’t let herself think about Tyler’s body. Not now, after she’d made a point of clarifying with him that they were only friends and that nothing but friend-ness was going to happen tonight in this gorgeous place that was entirely too romantic.
He was staring down at his hands under the surface of the water, his expression tight, almost pained.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.” The one word was clipped and different from how talkative he’d been most of the day, even from moments ago after they’d changed. He’d grabbed them both bottles of lemonade from the snack bar, and then, on the short walk to the original hot spring that had been on the property when his family had first lived on the land, he’d explained how they’d expanded the hot springs over the years and tapped into a deeper underground source to create several other smaller pools known for their varying temperature levels.
She didn’t understand all the science behind the hot springs, but she understood that people from all over came to experience them because of the healing myths associated with the water.
The original Ute Natives of Colorado had been the first to discover and use the hot springs, making claims about their healing properties. Apparently, miraculous healings had taken place over the years as a result of the hot springs. Family members who’d had ailments had been cured or nearly so because of the water. There were also stories of guests who had found relief from sicknesses.
