“And relationships take work,” she said. “Which is why they’re easier if we’re in the same place. But I know there are people who have made long distance work too.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And what are we going to tell Wade and Jet?”
“Oh, they don’t need to know anything,” Lark said. “I’ll just tell them to mind their own business.” She blew out her breath. “Besides, they’re hardly part of my life at all.”
“Yeah, but they’re your brothers,” he said. “And they’re my friends. They’re part of my life. And you’ve even said that you were considering getting a veterinary degree and then going and working at their ranch in Texas.”
He shook his head. “You can pretend to be salty all you want, Larky, but I know your brothers are important to you.”
“I just wish I was important to them.”
“You’re important to me,” Cash said.
Lark nodded, her emotions pricking at her. “Thank you, Cash. I think you’re the only person I’m important to.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he said. “Your momma and daddy?—”
“Are in Costa Rica,” she said, cutting him off. “And they could come home for the holidays, but they chose not to. I’ve told them all about Grammy, and they choose not to listen to me. I’ve been away at college for three and a half years. And do you know how many times they’ve come to visit?”
“No,” Cash whispered.
“Twice,” Lark said. “And at the most inconvenient times too.” She sighed because she didn’t want this negativity in the hot tub. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk like this.”
“You can talk about whatever you want in the hot tub,” he said. “I spill my guts to the stars and the heavens, and I always feel better when I do.”
“My parents are great,” Lark said, because they were. “They’re good parents, but I think they were done raising kids before I left home, and I just feel….”
“Neglected? Abandoned? Like you’re talking to strangers?”
She looked at him, somewhat in awe that he had been able to nail those things on the nose. Of course, he had moved from Utah to Wyoming, from living with his mother to living with his absent father, overnight. Perhaps he knew a thing or two about being lonely, afraid, and feeling abandoned, neglected, and forgotten.
“I sometimes wish I had a lot of siblings that were close to me in age,” she said.
“Join the club,” he said. “I’msixteenyears older than Celeste. She’sten.”
Lark swallowed the lump in her throat, which seemed to be growing and growing. “Yeah, but you’ve got a lot of cousins close to your age.”
“That’s true,” he said. “And they all liked you, by the way.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” she said. “I made a fool of myself over the prayer, and I left the table before anyone else, escaped to my bedroom, and left you to make the doughnuts by yourself.”
“Oh, honey, I wish I’d been by myself.” He laughed, and somehow scooted closer to her on the small seat in the hot tub.
“Lark,” he said, and she turned toward him, finding him closer than she thought.
The steam rose around them, almost creating a bubble between them and the rest of the world. He seemed darker outside, in the night, with shadows playing across his face in yellows, golds, and oranges as the lights slowly pulsed around them. His eyes dropped to her mouth, and Lark practically went into cardiac arrest just thinking about kissing him.
“I want to build arelationshipwith you,” he said. “I want to know everything about you, and I want to tell you everything about me.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen,” she whispered. “I’m only going to tell you the interesting things about me.”
He smiled and lifted a dripping hand out of the water to slide it along her neck, one finger going above her ear and the rest below. He leaned closer, and Lark started to inch nearer to him too. She hadn’t been properly kissed in a long time, if ever, and fear struck through her that she wouldn’t know how to keep up with a man like Cash.
His breath tickled her lips, and his touch had to be a moment away.
“Well, well, well, look at this,” Jet said.
Lark sucked in a breath and jerked away from Cash.
