“Never thought you’d be tickling berries in the garden, huh?”
“I can confidently say that’s not something that ever crossed my mind.” She regarded him for a moment, fingers stained blue, cheeks colored a rosy pink, lips parted with a breath that eased out of her. “Something else I never thought I’d do…”
She closed the gap between them with a single step.
J.P.’s wild eyes searched hers, looking for something there, hoping to pull something out of her telling gaze. A question? Permission? He wasn’t sure what the next breath held.
“J.P….”
“Nora.” His voice creaked with unsteady confidence.
And then, in one swift motion, her hand flew to his side, fingers clawed like talons, raking over his skin. Ticklinghim. He yelped from the utter surprise of it all.
“Nora Paisley,” he gritted through teeth clenched to keep his composure. When was the last time he’d been in any sort of tickle-fest like this? He wasn’t sure he ever had. Her fingernails trailed over his arms, moving up to his shoulders, skittering around to his back.
“Johan Pierre,” she blurted through a giggle that started off a single snicker but quickly morphed into a hilarious fit she failed to contain. Tears accompanied her laughter, happy, round, wet drops that curved over her cheeks and down the slope of her chin. It was absurd and delightful and exhilarating, this unabashed playfulness taking place between them.
“You are getting colder and colder with every guess.” He grabbed her by the waist to hold her out at arm’s length, but her hands still flapped and flailed in an effort to reach him. J.P.’s fingers found the curve at her hip and settled there.
Nora suddenly gave up the fight and stood stock still under his gaze, chest heaving like a runner finishing a marathon. “One of these days…” She sucked in a huge inhale. “I’m going to get it right.”
“Or I could just tell you.” He pulled her an inch closer.
“What’s the fun in that?”
“You like games, Nora?” Another inch.
He could feel her words land on his skin, her lips close enough to touch.
“I like a challenge.” Her shoulders shrugged in tandem with the waggle of her eyebrows. “And I like a good mystery.”
“It’s not really a mystery. You can easily find it on my birth certificate in a simple google search.”
“Maybe your name isn’t a complete mystery, butyouare.”
“What about me is a mystery?”
She slipped out of his uncommitted hold, turning back to the berries like they needed her attention more than J.P. did. She couldn’t be more wrong. He jogged the few feet toward her.
“It’s more about the way you make me feel that’s a mystery,” she said, her back to him.
He moved in behind her, chin dipped to her shoulder, mouth close to her ear. He could see goose bumps pull up on her skin, felt a small shiver that made his own body tremble. “How do I make you feel?”
“How’s berry picking coming along, you two?” Pearl’s voice reached them before her figure did, but when she rounded the row, she came to a full stop. “Oh.”
J.P. could’ve been a kangaroo with the leap he took, launching him several feet backward and out of range of Nora. He was suddenly flush against a solid wall of blueberry bushes, nearly enveloped in them.
“Sorry.” Pearl blinked at them. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You weren’t interrupting anything, Mom.” The words sounded false because they were. That moment—had it been able to fully take root—could have grown into something incredible. They were on the cusp of change, thrown into a situation that had the potential to alter the trajectory of their relationship for the better.
And yet, there was a telling glint in Nora’s eyes, a sign that things had already changed. That everything was already different.
“I was just going to give you a head’s up that I’m heading out,” Pearl went on when neither of them offered up anything. “Got to run into town and stop by Howie’s Hardware before they close for the night to grab some fertilizer for the tomatoes. Wanted to see if I could take Waylon with me, maybe even keep him overnight if you’re okay with that.” Pearl stuffed her leather gloves into her back pocket and regarded her son with a wary look. “You two good with locking up the gate on your way out?”
“Yeah, of course. That’s not a problem at all.”
J.P. could read his mother’s gaze like it was a code only they knew how to decipher. It wasn’t a reprimand. It wasn’t distaste over catching a private moment between her son and Nora. No, that look was a threat—aDon’t you dare do anything to hurt hersort of warning given through tight, narrowed lines and drawn eyebrows.
