“I think the Lady of the Lake might be jealous.”
I laugh so hard my head tips back and hits the rock, and the pain makes me laugh harder, and he’s laughing, too, real laughter, the kind that crinkles the corners of his eyes and shows his teeth and makes him look like the boy he might have been if the world had been kinder.
He lowers me down slowly, and my legs are jelly, and when my feet touch the ground, I wobble and he catches me with a hand on my waist.
“Steady.”
“Your fault.”
We dress slowly. Or try to. He keeps pulling me back to kiss me, his hands finding excuses to touch my skin before I can cover it, and I keep letting him because I’m incapable of denying this man anything and I’ve stopped pretending otherwise, even when it’s freezing outside.
When we’re mostly clothed, he sits down on the rock floor and pulls me into his lap. I curl against his chest, my head tucked under his chin, and listen to his heartbeat slow down.
The waterfall sounds different from this angle. Softer.
“I talked to Paxton yesterday,” he says after a while.
“About?”
“I want to start something. Here in Rosebrook. A training program for kids. Self-defense, but not just that. Discipline. Confidence. The stuff I taught Percy, minus the part where it almost got him killed.”
“Lance, that sounds amazing.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal. It’s a huge deal.”
“It’s just an idea.”
“It’s a perfect idea.” I press my hand to his cheek. “You’re good at this. You’re good at teaching people how to be strong. You did it for Percy. You did it for me.”
“Pax said he’d fund it. Set it up through WayMont’s community outreach. I’d run the program.”
“Of course he did. Because it’s brilliant.”
His ears go red. Lance Calloway, who has bled in front of hundreds of people and never flinched, is blushing because I told him his idea is brilliant.
“It’s not—”
“If you say ‘it’s not a big deal’ one more time, I’m throwing you in that waterfall.”
He grins. “You could try.”
“I landed a clean hit on you this morning. Don’t test me.”
He pulls me closer, and I settle back against his chest, and we sit there behind the falls, in that ethereal blue light, with Cavall barking happily from the other side of the alcove.
“Hey, Half-Pint.”
“Hmm.”
“Did you know Dante’s head chef walked out last week?”
I go still. “Dante’s? As in the restaurant Paxton owns?”
“That’s the one. He said to tell you the job’s yours if you want it.”
My heart flips. “He doesn’t have to do that. I don’t need charity, I can interview somewhere, or figure something out.”
