Tears sprout in her eyes at that particular memory. And then, before she can stop herself from saying the next words, they tumble out of her mouth, as if Crew has hooked them with a reel and is pulling them out of her. “It was kind of soul-crushing when I realized as an adult that there was no one left on that list,” she says, slightly hoarse from all the talking. “No one left in the world who loved me.”
She doesn’t realize she’s actually crying until Crew is wiping her tears away with his thumb. He doesn’t say anything—he doesn’t have to. His eyes are full of something Grace doesn’t want to try to decipher, for fear that she’ll find pity. She lets out a watery laugh, turning away from him.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean for that to turn into a sob story.”
“Hey,” Crew finally says, breaking his prolonged silence. He gently turns her head to face him again, and they’re so closenow. Their mouths are inches apart. He swipes his thumb across her bottom lip, watching the motion, and then finds her eyes again. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” His eyes search her face, like he’s trying to memorize her every freckle. “I don’t know what happened to you, Grace, and you don’t have to tell me. But I do know this—”
He swallows hard, then leans forward to one of her cheeks, placing just a whisper of kiss there, then doing the same with the other. He leans back, cradles her face in his hand, and says, “You deserve to be loved. You deserve to be happy every single day of your life. If I would’ve—” His lips flatten in frustration, and his eyes drop. He stops himself abruptly, but then seems to shake off whatever was caught in his throat and returns her stare with renewed conviction. “I can’t change the past. I can’t hold you through all of that lost time and tell you how precious you are. I wish I could.” He lays his forehead against hers. “But I can hold you now.”
The tip of Grace’s nose grazes his as the words settle between them. As they sink into her bones, her every iota. He’s making good on his promise—holding her like she’s something inexplicably special to him—and there’s no other way for her to thank him but to tilt her head up and press her lips into his. It’s tentative, a quiet, fleeting question she asks on instinct, then pulls away as quickly as she’d leaned in. Crew’s eyes are fluttering when she looks at him, but when they open, they’re glassy, searching hers with a darting wonder.
“Grace.” He says her name on an exhale. Like the very word is a relief.
And then he spreads a hand to encompass her jaw and neck, and he descends.
Grace has been kissed before. Enough times to know that no kiss is the same—there isn’t a rulebook anyone follows, or if there is, most seem to disregard it entirely. She’s experienced everything from a hard, dry push of her mouth into another person’s to a sloppy, tongue-forward lick fest that left her chin sparkling with saliva. Everything in between had been forgettable, a mechanical, uneventful locking that did nothing for her, physically or otherwise.
This is nothing like any of those kisses. This kiss is singular; it’s raw like an exposed nerve. It could raze cities; it could start wars. It is everything good and warm and intoxicating, and she wants to live and die in it. To let her bones rot beneath the weight of its intensity.
Crew groans when Grace leans into it, a fervor she’s never known taking over her body and calling the shots. He reaches down to grab her thigh, then yanks until he’s hooked it over his hip. Within the space of a pounding heartbeat, he’s halfway on top of her, settled between the cradle of her legs. He kisses and kisses and kisses her, worshipping her lips with his own. When he swipes his tongue across the seam of her mouth, she lets out a keening sigh, loud and unexpected. It just—it feels so good. To be kissed so hungrily. To be wanted like this.
The sound breaks him from the spell they’ve both been under, and he picks his head up to look at her. When the rushing, pulsating blood in her ears dies down, she realizes what he’s doing. He’s listening, intently checking what’s going on outside the nylon—and extremelythin—walls of the tent.
She hears it then. A familiar, sobering, moment-killing sound.
A collective, knowing chuckle.
Crew sighs, letting his head fall onto her collarbone. After along moment of silence between them, he starts to kiss her throat softly, hesitantly. When Grace starts to squirm, her mouth falling open, he seems to pick up on it. To understand they’re never going to be able to do this quietly. He picks his head up again, pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, and smiles.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, his eyes sparkling. A little mischief, a little adoration. She wants to kiss him again, nearly does—but instead, she refrains, knowing if she complies, they might have a moment to actually be alone.
“Tosomewhere?” she asks, calling back to his promise from earlier.
Crew nods, then brushes his lips across hers in the most teasing, lovely way.
And then he’s up, pulling her along with him.
Chapter 17
Somehow managing to avoid any curious, prying eyes, Grace and Crew sneak out of the tent and pile into the truck. Whether because everyone is graciously giving them an out or they’re just lucky, she doesn’t know. Doesn’t particularly care. Especially not now, sitting in the passenger seat with the windows rolled down and Crew’s hand on her knee. “Folsom Prison Blues” plays on a spotty radio station, Johnny Cash’s deep croon tuning in and out, accompanied by dull static. Though Grace knows Crew is driving toward something, his route feels aimless and unpredictable. He veers off between trees and brush, wholly trusting in the four-wheel drive of the truck to get them over the uneven, rocky terrain.
“Are you gonna tell me where we’re going?” she calls out, voice rising over the radio, the wind, and the thrumming engine.
Crew just smiles, looks over at her, and winks.
It makes her stomach swoop, that cocky little action. That mix of playfulness and self-assured ease that she’s beginning to understand is therealCrew Caldwell. She used to think he was a man of opposing forces—able to be split clean down the middle. One side, the grumpy, chilly, ever-scowling foreman. Andthe other, a devoted big brother and a loyal, hardworking elder son. A warm, protective, and understanding man of whom she only ever saw sporadic glimpses. Those rare, quiet moments she’d hoarded into her memory for safekeeping.
She understands now that he’s somewhere in between. Not quite as clear-cut, but a swirling mix of beautiful, frustrating attributes, the sum of their parts coming together to form this magnetic man she can’t seem to look away from.
So distracted by the enigma that is Crew, Grace doesn’t even notice that the truck has started to slow down. When she looks out the windshield, what’s spread out before them is…somewhat anticlimactic. Her brow furrows. “It’s a field.”
Crew nods, also staring out at the clearing.
“You took us from a field…to…another field?”
He chuckles. “Notice anything different about this particular field?”
Grace squints, trying to understand, playing aspot the differencegame she isn’t quite grasping. But then it dawns on her, and when she pokes her head out the window to confirm her suspicions, she plops back down, her eyes beginning to sparkle with excitement. “Mud.”
