“Yes,” he answers a beat later. “Which is why you have to try and forget. The cases harden you eventually, and you learn to separate emotion from job.”
“Why did you wanna do it in the first place?”
Another beat of silence.
Two.
Caleb finally shrugs. “I just wanted to.”
We barely know one another—he doesn’t have to answer my question if he doesn’t want to.
I step over a root and look again in his direction. Since when do men this hot and jacked want to spend time with me? There has to be a caveat.
But maybe I just grew up always thinking the worst…
Because of my father.
I should probably tell him about that soon, when Caleb asks again about family.
But this is short-term. Just a vacation for him…and a little bit of excitement for me.
Maybe he could offer me some wisdom. If he has any of that. I dunno why a man with brain cells would choose to spend so much time with me. My whole life revolves around making coffee.
“Careful!” he says, voice increasing a notch as he catches me from tripping over the root I didn’t even see. “You almost face-planted.”
A warm hand slides around my lower back, keeping me balanced and upright.
One steady hand…
That’s all it takes for a virgin like me to be sold.
I lose, not just my footing, but my breath as he guides me away from the root. His cologne intoxicates. And so do his eyes.
The look in them deepens and becomes something else.
Inching in, I sense what’s about to come.
He pins me flush against the nearest tree and dives straight in for a kiss that could knock out an untouched girl like me.
“All done!” exclaims Ellie, securing the hair tie.
“A French braid.” I smile at myself in the handheld mirror she holds up. “I love it!”
A woman grabs my attention in the reflection.
I whip around to see her in reality, stalking closer to the house with the most perfect posture I’ve ever seen, and puckered lips.Sheis the real-life Barbie. Not me.
“Gracey!” Ellie takes off after her.
Ouch.I bet she doesn’t joke about the state of the toilet bowl after mistakenly consuming lactose.
I bet she’s not even lactose intolerant.
I try my best to not look like a jealous freak as Ellie and Gracey meet in an explosion of happiness. This must be the babysitter Caleb was referring to.
I’d babysit too if the father was a hot firefighting god.
Grace’s supermodel hair blows perfectly in the breeze as she catwalks over to the porch wearing a cinched white top and skinny jeans. The skinniest you can get.
