“Mitchell.”
She blinked at him.
“You can call me Mitchell.”
He was trying to distract her. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I was thinking about the water too.” He didn’t look at her when he said this.
Lara tilted her head. “You said you were certain they would find water.”
Mr. King—it felt far too dangerous to think of him as Mitchell—didn’t answer.
Something else was bothering him. What was it? She plucked a question from the hundred that had lurched their way into her mind. It was on the tip of her tongue . . . but should she ask?
This was exactly the sort of thing that had convinced her parents to send her and Belle off to live with their cousins here in Nebraska. A real lady would bite her tongue. She’d let a man decide when and if he needed to tell her what sat in the deepest recesses of his mind.
But Lara was, apparently, no real lady. Besides, he’d essentially challenged her to learn more about him. And he’d been impressed—or at least amused—by her curiosity, not angered.
“Were you thinking of your family?” There. It was out. Now it was up to him to answer or not.
His chest rose and fell, and then, finally, he looked at her. “Some. But mostly other things.”
Other things. Knowing him, he probably said that to stir her mind into a frenzy. She settled on another question. “Were you thinking on what happened before you arrived here?”
His eyes were definitely on her now, slightly narrowed, and his smile turned into something serious. “What do you know of my time before I came to Last Chance?”
“I . . . I don’t.” That intense look in his eyes had sent her mind tumbling over itself. This was thatsomethingshe’d seen in him before. That dark, hidden part that made her want to run away and run to him at the exact same time.
Lara swallowed and straightened her shoulders. If she wanted to know, this was no time to back down. “Something happened to you before you came here. I imagine that whatever it is, it sits heavily on your mind.” It wasn’t a question, but an invitation to share more. It felt wrong to ask more directly.
His gaze didn’t shift even a fraction of an inch. Lara held perfectly still, not looking away. “You’re right, in a way. It’s always in the back of my mind, but it isn’t anything that happenedtome.”
Which only meant it was something he did.
Perhaps this should scare her. But Mr. King . . . Mitchell was right about one thing. Lara was very much like Josie and her Aunt Vivi—she didn’t scare easily.
Not that she could summon the thought of being scared of him to begin with. His eyes softened as she held his gaze, and a lock of hair that desperately needed cutting fell across his forehead again. What she really wanted to do was to ensconce herself into his arms.
Instead, she reached for his hand.
The wild thought that she was being too bold flared across her mind the second her fingertips touched his, but she couldn’t pull back now.
She didn’twantto pull back now.
He paused and stiffened for just a moment, and then he relaxed, wrapping his hand securely around hers.
Lara lost track of how long they stood like that, hands entwined, eyes on the water drill, and stars twinkling overhead.
The night was so still and silent that when a voice interrupted it, Lara nearly leapt straight up into the air.
“Hello? Lara, is that you?”
Mitchell dropped her hand immediately as they both turned back toward the house. And there was Belle, just in front of the steps. Lara couldn’t see her expression, but unless Belle had only just arrived, she most certainly had seen Lara’s hand in Mitchell’s.
“Miss Cummings.” Mitchell nodded at Belle, his voice perfectly even. “I’ll bid you both good night.”
He held on to Lara’s gaze for just a split second longer than was proper before disappearing around the house.
