Her mouth moved experimentally against his, and he moved his mouth to meet hers, not increasing the pressure but also not pulling away. His entire being focused down to the sensation of her impossibly soft, yet resilient mouth, moving lightly and gently against his.
And in those endless, sweet seconds, the whole architecture of his life, who he thought he was, and why he was here on Earth, rearranged itself in his chest. He was changed all the way down to the very roots of his being.
And when she stepped back, he was a new person. Completely, and irrevocably changed.
"I’ve been wanting to do that," she said softly, "since the day you fixed my dock."
It took him a few more seconds to find his voice. "Grace," he half-whispered.
"I know."
"I . . ." Wow. He was still having a hard time stringing words and thoughts together.
"You don't have to say anything, Reno. I wanted to do it and I did it. That's the whole transaction."
"The whole transaction?" he echoed, feeling as if his thoughts were flowing about as fast as molasses in a deep freeze.
"You don’t owe me anything in return. Thank you for letting me do that.”
He blinked down at her, still searching for words to express what had just happened to him when she kissed him.
She said easily, “I have to make the biscuit dough for tomorrow so it can rest overnight. I need to go get the sourdough starter out of the walk-in cooler.” She added lightly, “I’ll be back in two minutes. You can think about whatever you need to think about while I do that."
She went into the cooler.
He stood there in the middle of the bakery with the heat of her hand still burning a spot on his chest and her faint palm print in flour on his shirt, and his thoughts ran in a fast bright line.
The stricken face of the woman who haunted his nightmares most nights.
Walking away from everyone and everything that meant anything to him.
His brothers coaxing him to come join the rodeo and have at least some contact with his family.
Dillon telling him to walk through the door when it appeared one day.
Lily at the breakfast table asking him to teach her mommy how to dance.
Boone telling him he would know when the parenting switch flipped.
The picture on Grace’s bedroom dresser of her husband and her on a beach laughing and in love.
The same woman kissing him beside a marble counter.
He breathed out very slowly and very carefully.
She came out of the cooler carrying a big jar of gray-white goop
"You think about everything you needed to?" she asked him.
"Most of it."
"Good. Help me make the biscuits, and then take me home."
"Yes, Ma'am."
They mixed, rolled, and cut the biscuits side by side. He didn’t say anything about the kiss because she’d told him the transaction was complete. He understood now, in a way he hadn’t understood before, that this woman was nowhere near as fragile as everyone else believed she was.
She kissed him because she wanted to. She stepped back from him because she meant it. And she’d told him to think about it.
