“You were my first time,” Gaby whispered, even though he already knew that.
“And I wished you were mine.”
“One of us needed to know what they were doing.”
Peter laughed. “We figured it out.”
“We did.”
She smiled and closed her eyes as she savoured his breath against her face as images of that long ago afternoon flickeredin her mind like an old movie. When Peter stepped back, she missed the press of his body against hers instantly.
“I see rainclouds in the distance,” Peter said. “If we don’t want a repeat of that afternoon we’ve just been talking about, we ought to start walking back.”
Gaby’s mind couldn’t help jumping to just such a scenario. It took some effort to shut off these new—and decidedly more scandalous—images before they turned her legs to jelly.
Grateful for the walk back into town to distract her, Gaby followed Peter along the riverside pathway and on to whatever he had in mind for them next in this trip down memory lane.
20
By the timethey walked back into town, the rainclouds had drifted off to the east without coming to anything and the blue skies had returned. Peter was glad the weather hadn’t turned. He didn’t want their day together upended by the need to retreat indoors, not when there were still things and places he wanted to show Gaby.
The morning had been a success so far, at least he hoped so. Gaby seemed to enjoy the riverside walk and returning to the spot on the edge of the water meadow where they’d lain beneath the oak tree all those summers ago.
He wondered if he was laying it on too thick, revisiting all these old haunts. The last thing he wanted was Gaby thinking he was some sort of sad case who’d spent the last fifteen years living in the past. Until he’d met her again last week, those old memories had rarely occurred to him. What was the point in thinking about them when the object of his affection back then had vanished from his life?
Gaby’s return had brought everything back and made him want to remind her of just what they’d meant to each other. She seemed to be enjoying herself, which was all he wanted.
Except that wasn’t quite true. He wanted more than that.
Yes, he wanted to show her what they’d shared in the past.
But he also wanted to lure her with what they might share in the future, too.
Admitting to himself that this was what he was doing only reminded him of how pitiful he was and how doomed his efforts were.
He was trying to convince Gaby that she could be happy here with him.
That she could live here, settle down, and be his one and only.
The lunacy of the project made him shake his head. Gaby lived a completely different life to the one he was trying subtly—okay, probably not so subtly—to sell her. She travelled the world, working in amazing cities and resorts according to her whims and desires. He’d seen her list of places she’d been and places she still wanted to go. He’d seen some of her photographs and highlights from her life spent always moving on and always exploring.
If he thought she’d ever consider giving up that life she’d built in order to move here to this little market down in this quiet corner of the English countryside, he must be absolutely out of his mind.
And yet attempting to convince her to do just that was exactly what he was doing.
Talking up the virtues of Foxglove Street as they’d walked along it earlier. Taking her to that café in the old boathouse with the pretty views of the river. Telling her all about the new businesses that were making a success of things in Hamblehurst, the new ventures that were taking off, the hospitality opportunities that were growing by the day.
He was trying to sell this place to her, trying to make her see that there might be a life here for her, places she could work, a career she could build.
And a man she could love.
A man who’d fallen for her all over again ever since she’d walked back into his life.
Obviously, he was deranged. And doomed.
And he only had himself to blame, because he was the one who’d talked her into spending this weekend together. He was the one who’d kissed her and told her there was nothing wrong with a nostalgic walk down memory lane.
Well, there quite obviouslywassomething wrong with it because it had made him hope for something he could never have.
