THE DUMBASS PROPOSED. Michael stood back, fiddling with some ridiculous strap on Amanda’s pack while the dumbass pulled out a box holding a diamond ring so big it probably cost a year of Michael’s salary.How was she supposed to climb wearing that thing?
What was he going to do if she said yes?
He knew Ethan was the wrong guy for Amanda. He might be good on paper and buy her big-ass diamonds, but he didn’t know her—not really. And he didn’t value her. The problem was just because he knew the guy wasn’t right for her didn’t mean she knew it. And he had to face the fact that up until the previous week, they’d been a couple. People broke up and got back together all the time.
Their time in the woods together cemented for him that Amanda was the only woman for him, but that didn’t mean the experience meant the same thing to her. If he loved her—God, he loved her—he needed to give her a chance to figure it out for herself. Without hovering over her.
Ignoring the scene playing out in front of him—or at least trying to—he skirted around the side of the SUV to the ATV parked behind it. A guy who looked like a one-man private army leaned back in the seat, soaking up the sun.
“Any chance you could give me a lift?” He needed to get away from Amanda and Ethan before he threw himself at her feet and begged her to pick him. Regardless of what happened, her brother would make sure she was taken care of. Even with the emotional cutting aspect of watching her and the dumbass and the ring, he would have stayed if Gabe wasn’t there to look out for her.
“Sure, man. Hop on.”
Michael dropped their packs into the cage on the back and one of the stress balls fell out and rolled on the ground. He bent to retrieve it, remembering the way her face lit up when she told him the answer to the puzzle. She’d been curled up on his chest, her chin resting on the back of her hands so she could watch him with those gorgeous hazel eyes. They’d tried almost all the ways there were to make love without a condom and he’d been sated and perfectly content to listen to anything she wanted to tell him if she let him hold her.
Don’t blow it. Good planets are hard to find.
She’d giggled, proud of herself and so completely filled with joy. And then, because they were both too wiped out to make love again, he stroked her back as she fell asleep in his arms. Damp and cold, sleeping on the hard ground with a rock wedged into his back and Amanda wrapped around him like a sweaty octopus, was the best night of his life.
Shoving the ball back into the pack and the memory aside, he climbed on the back of the ATV and forced himself not to look back as they drove away.
––––––––
IT TOOK WAY too long to convince Ethan thatI don’t want to see you anymorewasn’t code forLet’s get married. And then when she’d finally gotten rid of him, it took even longer to convince her overprotective oaf of a brother that she didn’t need to go to the emergency room. By the time they were done, Michael was nowhere to be seen.
Her first response, after theyou’ve got to be kidding meeye roll, was to wonder if maybe she’d misread things between them. Maybe their weekend together hadn’t meant as much to him as it did to her. Pushing the thought aside because she wasn’t about to let Ethan wreck this for her too, she wheedled at Gabe until he agreed to take her to Lift.
Michael had an apartment above the gym. With a shower and presumably a bed. If she misjudged things between them, she’d have to take a cab home, but she wasn’t giving up on the two of them without trying. And she wouldn’t let him give up either.
Of course, she’d been more certain of her convictions before she ended up standing on the doorstep in front of the closed gym. She’d seen his truck in the lot when they pulled in, so she knew he was home. She just had to figure out how to get to him.
“Want me to give you a ride home?” asked Gabe, leaning his head out the window of the Southerland Security SUV.
“No. I want you to leave.” If this thing with Michael went south, she didn’t want her brother watching. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
“I don’t think—”
“Gabe, if you don’t get out of here, I’ll tell Momma you’ve developed a sudden allergy to bananas and you’ll never get another one of her banana puddings.”
“You’re mean.”
“I’m determined,” she said.
She blew him a kiss and waited until he rolled up his window and pulled away from the curb before turning her attention back to the locked door in front of her. Her cell phone was tucked in her pack, presumably still with Michael. If she had to, she could hobble across the street to the bakery and ask to borrow their phone.
Scanning the front of the building, she looked for a buzzer or anything she could use to let him know she was there. She finally took a chance and started to bang on the door.Maybe he’d be able to hear it upstairs.She’d raised her fist to pound on the glass again when she saw a very sweaty Michael walking toward her, still wearing the clothing he’d put on that morning but with the noticeable addition of sweat stains across his broad chest. Only a crazy man would work out after a fifty-mile hike, but it looked like that’s exactly what he’d been doing.
His expression softened when he saw her and some of the constriction in her chest relaxed.
“Hey,” he said, opening the door and standing aside to let her enter. He didn’t automatically reach for her and some of the tightness returned.
“You’ve been lifting?” she asked, heading for neutral territory until she got her bearings again.
“I had some frustration to work through.”
She nodded and waited but he didn’t elaborate.
“You kind of disappeared.”
