“Hey!” She grinned as she shut the door to her car, toting her own bag over her shoulder.
“Nice wheel.” I pointed to her front left.
“You like that?” She posed like a car model. “It’s brand-new from the manufacturer and looks exactly like the other three already installed. But wait, there’s more! It comes with four new tires, since its friend on the back right was also flattened while avoiding a deer. All for the price of I-think-I-just-put-Keith-Mayberry’s-kid-through-college!” She ended with a flashy grin, and I laughed.
I never knew how she did it, but she could flip my moods with a twist of her lips. Lips I knew the taste and texture of. Lips that had fueled way too many dreams lately. All because I had the self-control of a teenager when she came near.
Or maybe it was because I’d wanted her since I was a teenager.
“Let’s get in. It’s freezing out here.”
She nodded, and we climbed down the stone-ringed embankment until we reached the heavy, flat stones that bordered the north and west ends of the pool. We dropped our bags, and I busied myself with getting my towels out and stripping down, mostly to keep from watching Willow strip down.
I laid out one towel to step on and folded the other for when I got out, then started dropping clothing until I was in nothing but the black swim trunks I’d worn under my pants. “See you in there!” I called out and jumped, careful not to cannonball, because I wasn’t fifteen anymore.
The water engulfed me in heat, and I lingered but didn’t hit the bottom before I swam back up. I broke the surface, and the drops of water on my face immediately chilled.
“How is it?” Willow asked from the edge.
I turned around and nearly swallowed my tongue.
She stood on the ledge, pulling her long brown hair up into a knot on the top of her head. Words. I didn’t have words. “Incredible,” maybe. “Beautiful,” definitely. “Sexy as hell”? Yeah, we’d go with that, too. Her suit was a two-piece and straight out of a forties pinup fantasy, complete with navy-blue bottoms, gold buttons up her stomach, and a red-and-white-striped top that looped around her neck and tied between her breasts in a bow that I was going to undo with my teeth.
God. Bless. America.
I locked my jaw to keep those teeth exactly where they were.
“Well?” she asked, and it took me a second to remember what she’d asked in the first place.
“It’s a balmy one hundred and four degrees, just like every other day of the year.” Though I really was wishing it was a hell of a lot colder at this moment.
“Perfect.” She sat on the edge of the stone, then lowered herself into the water until it covered her to her neck. Then she moaned. “This feels amazing.”
This was the worst idea I’d ever had in my entire life.
Except that it was her idea.
She made her way toward, then past me, stopping at the grouping of shallow stones that made up the east end of the pool. “Come sit,” she called out.
“That’s probably not the best idea.”
“Why?” She tilted her head to the side and leaned back so her weight was braced on her hands.
The water hit her neckline, but it was also crystal clear in that section.
“Trust me. This is close enough.”
“So you’re going to stay out there in the middle and tread water the entire time we’re here?” She disappeared behind a cloud of steam as the breeze shifted, then reappeared.
“Maybe.”
“Suit yourself. So you know the entire town thinks we’re together, right?” she questioned.
Ah yes, the elephant in the room or, rather, in the hot springs.
“I am aware.” I swam a little closer when another wave of steam hid her from me. I might not be able to touch her, not in the way I wanted, but I wasn’t going to deny myself the simple pleasure of looking at her.
“Because you keep putting your hands on me when we’re in public.” She arched an eyebrow in clear challenge.
“Define ‘hands on you.’” It was nothing compared to what I wanted to do.
“You put your arm around me at the diner.”
“You held out your hand first.” I moved through another cloud of steam when I couldn’t see her.
“You held my hand at the Historical Society meeting.”
“You…” Shit, I had nothing. “You hugged me.” There.
“You held on to my waist.”
“So you didn’t fall off the chair. Do you have any clue how clumsy you get when you’re distracted? You get this laser focus on something shiny, and everything else doesn’t exist, including your own feet. Trust me—I was saving you from yourself.”
“You kissed my forehead.” All pretense of play dropped in those hazel eyes.
I’d kissed a hell of a lot more than that in my kitchen. I swallowed and sat on the edge of the ledge that marked the shallow end. “You chose me over your dad.”
“You pulled me from my car and carried me home.”
I turned to fully face her, the water falling to my stomach. Cold air prickled at my chest, helping to ground me. “That was just being a good neighbor. Plus, the entire town didn’t see, so I don’t think it counts.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “Okay. You took a bullet for me.”
“Six,” I corrected her, feeling that sliver of terror at the reminder of how close I’d come to losing her. “It was six bullets. Buckshot.”
“I thought you were dying,” she admitted. “I didn’t know about the vest.”
“I thought he’d kill you before I could get out there.” I ran my hands over my air-cooled face.
“I thought about you before I saw you.” She shifted and sat up.
“What?” Game over.
“I saw the gun, and your dad was talking about cougars, and I thought about you.” She tucked her knees to her chest. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes.” Believing in anything earned you a shit ton of disappointment.
“I thought about you every single day, Cam.”
Fuck me, the woman wasn’t pulling her punches.
I did, too. But I couldn’t say those words. Couldn’t cross the lines I’d already stumbled across once. That had been passion and need, but to do so here would be choice. An unforgivable choice, and I’d already made one that broke her heart.