“Jameson, I think I need to face facts.”
“About...?”
“Well, I keep knocking myself out, trying to make myself forget our one night together...”
Hope burned hot in his chest, but he kept his tone light. “And how’s that working out for you?”
She blew out her cheeks with a hard breath. “Not well. Today, at the rodeo, it all kind of came clear to me—that you are a good guy and I enjoy your company and...” She seemed to run out of steam.
He leaned in a fraction closer to her and her scent of roses taunted him. “Say it.”
“It’s just that I think about you.” Her thick, dark brows drew together. Was that longing he saw in her eyes?
He gave her words back to her, meaning every one. “I think aboutyou. A lot.”
And she smiled with a relieved little sigh. “I kind of thought so.”
He couldn’t resist teasing her. “Did you think I was trying to hide that I can’t stop thinking of you?”
“Um, no.”
“Good.”
“So then...” She gave a tiny cough into her hand, a stall, really, as she braced herself for whatever she’d been working up to saying. “I was thinking today that, if we were to agree to keep things just between us, why shouldn’t we have a little fun together until I leave at the end of August?”
He would have pulled her close right then, except for that last line. “Just between us, you said?”
“Yes. I’m not comfortable with taking it public, but I do want to be with you. I want that a lot. So if you’re willing to keep the time we spend together private, not let anyone else know we’re seeing each other, I would love to go back to your place with you right now.”
“You’re saying nobody can know that we’re spending time together.”
“What?” Her low voice had a definite edge to it now. “I didn’t make that clear?”
He needed some distance. Jumping to his feet, he swept off his hat, beat it once on his thigh, put it back on and stared out at the creek until he felt he could speak without yelling at her. “Vanessa, what is up with you?”
“I told you at New Year’s. I’m not staying in town, and whatever goes on between us is just for fun and just for now.”
He turned to look down at her. “Fine. It’s only till the end of August. That doesn’t mean we can’t have dinner together at a decent restaurant like any other single man and woman who are attracted to each other might do.”
She got up, too. They faced each other across the empty blanket. Somewhere in the bushes on the far side of the creek, a meadowlark loosed its high, plaintive song.
“I just don’t want my family in my business,” she said. “You know how it is around town. If we go out to dinner, people will notice. Word will get back to my mother and my grandmother—and now Winona, too.”
“So what?”
“They want me here, at home and happily married. I just don’t want them to get their hopes up, that’s all.”
He’d had enough of the careful distance between them. Stepping onto the blanket, he reached for her hand.
She didn’t resist. On the contrary, she came into his arms with a soft, willing sigh. “Vanessa,” he whispered into her upturned face, his voice like a growl to his own ears. “You’ve made me wait too damn long.”
She had her soft hands on his chest and her head tipped back at just the right angle. Those beautiful freckles were on full display. “And what am I trying to tell you? I’m saying that you don’t have to wait any longer.”
He swooped down and took her mouth.
She tasted so good, like all the best things—sweetness and heat, laughter and tenderness. For too long, he’d wondered if those things would ever really be his.
Her right hand strayed upward and wrapped around his neck. He felt her fingers sliding into the hair at his nape, and he took the kiss deeper, gathering her body closer, sense memory firing—the way she felt naked in his arms, strong and so soft, more than enough to grab onto, toholdon to. He wanted to take her to the blanket, peel off every stitch of clothing and have her right here, by Bushwhacker Creek, under the late-afternoon sky.
