She puts a hand on my thigh, her fingers immediately igniting my blood, turning it to lava. ‘That’s fair enough.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’ I break our contact and push out of the car, striding around to her door to open it. But she beats me to it, moving almost at the same time I do, stepping out quickly and coming to me, wrapping her arms around my waist.
‘You’ll work it out,’ she says simply, and somehow, it’s just exactly the right thing to say. She’s not telling me what I should do, what I could do, but rather putting her faith in me, and my heart warms in response. For a second, I feel like she’s simply on my side. Like she’s someone who wants the best for me, and it makes my body lift with the sense that I could do just about anything.
‘Now, where the heck are we?’ she asks, looking at the surrounds.
‘Well, Bailey James, this here’s the spot I was telling you about.’ I reach and latch one of my hands to hers, weaving our fingers together and drawing her to the back of my truck. I pull out a picnic rug and bring it with us, toward the gently sloping grass at the edge of the creek. I toss the rug down, but have to drop her hand to get it to sit properly. Once it’s all laid out, I gesture for her to take a seat. When she does so, it’s with a back that’s ramrod straight, legs that are crossed, hands fidgeting in her lap.
‘Chill out,’ I say on a husky laugh. ‘It’s just you and me.’
She tilts her face to mine and I have to work overtime on keeping my features relaxed, my smile in place, because in that moment the sheer beauty of her features almost knocks me sideways. I can’t help but reach out and touch her cheek, brushing away an imaginary clump of hair. In the moonlight, her eyes are a swirling, mesmerising shade, her lashes forming deep shadows on her cheek. I drop my hand to the blanket between us, my throat tightening as I swallow, my mouth feeling as dry as a desert.
‘So this is your creek, huh?’ she says, the words throaty in the still evening air.
I wrench my gaze away, to the forest across from us. ‘That, over there—’ I nod toward the hook in the river. ‘That’s where I’m gonna build my place.’
Her eyes trace the line of the trees, all bunched together in the distance.
‘What do you think?’ It shouldn’t matter, but I hold my breath, waiting for her to speak. A night bird flies overhead, silent but for the slow, lazy flapping of its enormous wings. Bailey glancesup, watching it travel, a small frown on her face, before her gaze slips back to mine.
‘I think it’s perfect.’ She lifts a hand to my chest and holds it there, her fingers bunching in the fabric. ‘I love it.’
And dammit if my heart doesn’t soar at those words, at the way I can hear her meaning them, at the way I can tell that, yeah, she really does love it here. I swoop my head down, kissing her as though she is the beginning and end of my needs and wants, as though this, right here, is all I live for. And maybe, just in this moment, that’s God’s honest truth.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bailey
We agreed we wouldn’t spend the night together, and that’s not what we’re doing. Not really, anyway. Lying here under the stars, bodies naked, just a soft old blanket on top of us for cover, with the sounds of the wild animals and the birds, the trees whispering in the gentle breeze, the babbling of the creek beyond our feet, the smell of the earth and the forest, we’re not spending the night together. We’re just … existing, in nature, worshipping at its altar.
And we are.
I realise, as I lie close to his side, that this is new for me. I push up a little, so I can press my chin to his chest. It’s warm and his muscles bunch beneath me.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ I say, moving one hand to tease his arm, drawing invisible circles over his bicep.
He glances down at me, and his angular face is so perfect, so handsome, so completely familiar, that I close my eyes, as if Ican somehow lock it away in my mind forever, just like this. No hurt, no heartbreak—that’s not our path. We were never destined to be more than a brief fling, a time of togetherness that leaves no space for hurt or anything worse, and that’s somehow so perfect. Because I can’t imagine how I could reconcile that: having Beau be someone that hurt me.
‘Done what?’
‘Just lay still, under the stars.’
‘You’re kidding?’
I shake my head a little and he makes a growling sound of surprise. ‘You must have led a deprived childhood.’
‘I led an urban childhood,’ I smile. ‘This,out here, is something else.’
‘As kids, we’d do this all the time. Tear out the back door, throw a blanket down, stare up at the stars until we almost fell asleep.’ He breathes in, so his chest shifts beneath my chin. ‘Don’t you feel it, Bailey?’
‘Feel what?’
His grin shows he’s joking, but there’s something deeper in his tone, a kind of reverence. ‘Magic.’
The thing is, I do feel that. Out here the magic almost makes me believe I could do or be anything, anything I want. And it tells me that maybe what I want isn’t what I’m working toward. Washington and political journalism feel a really long way from this, and this is just about the happiest I can remember being. Just Beau, me and a blanket of shiny stars. The thought has me shifting a little. The moment is perfect, seductively so, but I can’tlet it drag me away from my life, my goals, the reality I have been building for so many years.
‘I really should be getting back,’ I say, reluctance in my tone despite the panic that’s setting in. ‘I don’t want them to lock me out.’
