Darren couldn’t believewhat he’d just said.I fell in love with you.
“Once,” he added onto the end of his statement, a little too late. He shoved his hands back in his pockets so he wouldn’t sweep her into his arms and kiss her. Then she’d know he still loved her. “Let’s go to dinner.”
“All right.”
“You want to drive?”
“No.”
So Darren helped her into his truck, glad when she slid over and sat right next to him the way she used to do when she was his girlfriend. He wasn’t sure what else to say to her, so he asked her about what she’d done in the boutique today.
She talked, filling the cab of his truck with the sound of her pretty voice. As the outskirts of town came into view, Darren reached over and threaded his fingers through hers, bringing her wrist to his lips for a kiss.
Her tension wasn’t hard to detect, but she didn’t withdraw her hand or say anything. “I started going out to the Bybees about a year ago,” he said. “Right after Sam left. It was…difficultwith him gone, and Logan was dating Layla, and….” He sighed, trying to put into words what Jim and Corey had become to him.
“They accepted me, just how I was. They didn’t care that I didn’t talk much, and Jim taught me to whittle, and Corey kept tryin’ to set me up with everyone she knew—at least until I met you.” He drove slowly past the sports complex and the elementary school, both of which were vacant, at least for a few more weeks. Then school would start, and fall sports, and the heat of the day would yield to winter temperatures.
“We went out a lot,” she said. “When did you go see them?”
“Whenever,” he said. “I don’t really remember. They, well, they’re almost like my parents now.” He swallowed as they arrived on Main Street. “What do you want to eat?”
“I don’t care.”
She never had. Farrah had always been easy-going about what they did when they were together—except for going out to Steeple Ridge. She’d made that proclamation on their first date, and though Darren had tried to change her mind several times, he’d never pressed her on it.
“Waffle house?” he asked, wishing he could cook so he had an excuse to go back to the farm and feed her there.
“Sure.”
He turned on Center and went down several blocks to the waffle house. He parked but didn’t get out. “I was afraid you were there to take them from me,” he said, real soft like he wasn’t sure he should give voice to the words.
Darren reached over and brushed an errant piece of her hair from her face. “You are so beautiful.”
Farrah turned and looked at him—right at him, without any of her usual walls in place. A smile started in the corners of her mouth and pulled until she was smiling a true smile. Darren ached from the beauty of it, from the sparkle in her aqua eyes to the straight, white teeth she possessed.
“I want to know everything about you.” He trailed his fingers across her bare shoulder, cataloguing the shiver that shook her back. “Not today. But whenever you feel like sharing.”
“Like what?” she asked, her voice full of air.
“Like why your last name is Irvine and your father’s name on the boarding paperwork is Paul Fletcher.”
He wanted to know that, wanted to know who was buried in the cemetery, wanted to know where she’d gone to college, wanted to know where she’d lived in California and if she’d made it onto any movies or TV shows.
He’d realized after she’d left last night that she’d told him a lot about her childhood, but almost nothing about the last twelve years of her life. And he wanted it all.
“You’re a really impatient man, you know that?” She glared at him, but the gaze didn’t hold much more than aggravation.
“I am?”
“Yes.” She folded her arms.
“Because I want to know who you are?” He opened his door and turned back to help her out of the truck.
“I just need more…time than most women.”
“All right.” They’d dated for eight months previously, and it seemed like all of his brothers had managed to fall in love and get engaged in that amount of time. But if Farrah needed to go slower, Darren could do that.
At least he thought he could. He held open the door for her, and as she slipped past, a dark look crossed her face. Darren regretted this whole conversation. He cleared his throat. “So Rambo learned a new trick this week.”
