Clove’s eyes darted about as she considered the options. “She’s been so down and sleepy, I can’t see taking her out into the cold. I’m afraid she’d get sick.” She paused and rubbed her lips together. “I don’t feel right about sending her home alone. The cabin is a lot to take care of and I know she’s capable and spry, but if she’s under the weather she could be in trouble out there, too.”
He nodded. He’d had the same thoughts. “So we leave her here?”
Clove cupped both hands at the back of her neck, dropped her head back and moaned. “If we do, we can’t tell her what we’re doing or she’ll be an accomplice.”
Drake switched directions and ran his hand the other way around the wheel. “How are you at sneaking out?”
Clove gave him a wicked grin. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“Come on.” He nudged her. Even the slight contact calmed and thrilled him at the same time. He was still trying to figure out how Clove managed to do that to him. “You can’t tell me you never snuck out of the house.”
She laughed. “I didn’t. I swear.”
He felt his neck warm. Her eyes widened. “Tell me!”
“Tell you what?” He lifted his palms.
“You totally snuck out! Your neck is all red.” She touched his neck, her fingers light against his skin. His stomach flipped, and he sucked in a breath. She’d nudged him, elbowed him, and hip bumped him, but she’d never initiated a touch before and he liked it—a lot.
He shouldn’t. But it didn’t seem to matter what he should and shouldn’t do because, when it came to Clove, he threw rules out the window.
Maybe if she found out he wasn’t a saint—like she didn’t know that already—then she wouldn’t allow him to hold her hand.
He reached for her fingers, and she laced hers through his and the parts of him that were out of alignment clicked into place.
“I was a dumb teenager. Okay? I thought no one noticed me and that I could get away with anything.” He traced a circle on the back of her hand. Her breathing sped up. He’d done that. Sweet rolls and buttermilk. He needed to drop her hand, get out of the truck and get a hold of himself.
Like the idiot he was, he kept going. “So my dumb friends and I decided to sneak out and go up to this pond and light fireworks.”
She barely held back her laugh. “Fireworks.”
“Yeah. I know. They sound like gunshots and bombs and we thought we could get away with setting them off in the middle of the night and no one would notice.”
She clamped her free hand over her mouth to hide her giant smile. It didn’t work. Her baby blue eyes danced.
“So we drove our four wheelers up to the lake—yeah, the ones you have to yell over the sound of the engine to be heard. We made it up there and were congratulating ourselves when a cop car pulled in right behind us. He’d followed us up there with his lights off and we didn’t even notice.” He shook his head at himself.
“He gave us the option of turning over our fireworks and going home or having him call our parents. We all chose option A.”
She giggled. “That was a smart decision.”
He huffed. “I pulled in and Dad was waiting on the porch. Guess who’d called the cops?”
“No!” she gasped.
“Yep. He didn’t say much that night, but I found out a couple of days later.” He drifted back to shuffling his boots on the wooden porch slats.
“Was he so mad?”
“I don’t think mad was the right word. He clapped me on the back and said it was good to have me home and to set my alarm for four thirty because we had work to do. Then he worked me hard from the crack of dawn until midnight. I got the idea that if I couldn't keep myself out of trouble, he would make sure I didn’t have enough time to find it.”
She melted a bit in her seat. “Can I tell you how much I love him for that?”
He stopped making circles on her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Me too.”
“I wish I had a father like that,” she said wistfully.
Drake held his breath. She’d been so tight-lipped about her past, but he yearned for her to share it with him, wanting to carry or even erase some of the pain. He stilled, waiting to see if she would share more.
