“What feeling?” Ronan asked with a dry smirk. “Being helped?”
“Yes, smartass. It’s like you said, I hate people being in my business. Even if that person is my best friend.”
“It’s better if she doesn’t know about us,” Ronan said. “She’s friends with Evelyn Gonzalez, right?” He drained his last beer of the night. “If Evelyn finds out, the whole damn town will know.”
“True.” I studied Ronan’s profile. In the firelight, his eyes looked silvery, his jaw cut to sharper angles by the shadows that danced over his face. “You’re really serious about that, aren’t you? Keeping me safe from Dowd or—?”
“Yes.” Ronan turned to look at me then, his voice low and intense. “Yes. I’m really fucking serious about that.”
I sat back, a flare of heat sweeping through me at the dangerous glint in his eyes. Not for me, for whoever he thought might want to hurt me. Heat pooled between my legs, wanting him, while my heart was craving something else entirely. Something it shouldn’t.
We’ve already come so far beyond casual, it’s not even funny.
I jumped to my feet and brushed sand off my pants. “I have to get back. Bibi’s starting to wonder if I still live there.”
Ronan nodded and packed up his stuff.
“What about them? Think they’ll be okay?” I whispered with a nod at Miller and Violet, sleeping tangled up in each other. She was tucked under his chin. His arms held her close.
“Yes,” Ronan said. “They’re finally okay. Thanks to you.”
“I just gave them a push.”
I wish someone would do the same to me.
Half of me wanted to throw my precautions and protections to the wind and let myself fall for Ronan. It would be so easy.
The other, stronger half wondered if I’d survive the crash if he decided I wasn’t worth catching.
The night was dark and the moon hidden behind silvery clouds, yet Ronan led me back along the coast safely, as if he could do it with his eyes closed. We arrived at the parking lot just as the sky was showing the first hints of dawn.
Even before climbing in the Buick, Ronan reached for me, but I stiffened.
He pulled back. “You okay?”
“Fine. Just tired.”
A weak excuse. I hadn’t been tired all the other mornings we welcomed the dawn from the backseat of my car, practically attacking each other. Fogging the windows in heated, grasping embraces, clothing askew but never removed. Ronan was holding back, slowing things down for my sake. We were supposed to be keeping things on the surface. Friends with benefits. No grand gestures or declarations of feelings required. Or wanted.
But even without sex, Ronan was unraveling me, stripping me naked with each passing day until one day, I’d be exposed. He’d see all of me and then what?
Then he’ll leave.
I fumbled in my bag for my keys and managed to get the car door open. Ronan held it open for me instead of going around to the passenger side.
“You don’t want a ride?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll walk.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I crossed my arms. “Well… are you mad? I’m just tired. That’s allowed, right?”
Dawn had only just begun to climb from behind the mountains in the east; Ronan’s expression was unreadable.
“I just feel like walking, Shiloh,” he said, his voice low, and I immediately felt like shit.
“Okay. Goodnight.”
“Yep.”
I climbed behind the wheel. Ronan shut the door for me and then waited, watching to make sure I left safely. He grew small in my rearview, then I turned a corner and he was gone.
Bibi was awake and bustling in the kitchen when I came in.
“Sorry, Bibi. I fell asleep at the beach.”
She smiled to herself as she reached into the fridge for a glass pitcher of orange juice. “You smell like campfire. And Ronan.”
“Bibi!”
“I am merely stating the obvious.” Her grin turned sly. “I was eighteen once too, you know.”
“Oh my God…”
“And anyway, I’m glad. I love him for you.”
“Don’t…say things like that. We’re keeping it casual.”
She pursed her lips and poured me a glass of orange juice. “So you keep saying. And yet you’ve been out with him most nights this week. Late.”
“It’s not just us. We’re hanging out with friends,” I said. “Violet too. I managed to get her to come tonight to reconnect with Miller.”
“Good for you! Little cupid, aren’t we? Now if only you could aim that bow and arrow at yourself…”
She swatted me on the butt and cackled a laugh.
“You are in too good a mood for this early in the morning. Any mail come for me yesterday?” I asked, desperate for a change of subject.
“Not yet, honey.”
“Damn.”
I had turned in my applications for business operation and seller’s licenses and was now waiting to hear back from the city. If approved, I’d be one step closer to my own shop.
“It’d be nice to know if I got my permits before someone rents that old laundromat space.”
“It’s been available this long, so it must be destined for you,” Bibi said. “But that old place is so run down. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who could help you make it beautiful?”
I tensed and then eased a breath. “I don’t need Ronan—or anyone else—to help me. I’m doing this on my own. I’ve come this far.” I smiled to take the harshness out of my words. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Shiloh—”
A knock came at the front door.
Bibi squinted at the clock in the kitchen. “Who could that be? At this hour?”
She watched from the dining room table as I went to find out.
I opened the door to my mother.
My breath caught in my throat, my heart dropping as I clutched the jamb, not believing my own eyes.
“What…what are you doing here?”
“I flew in late yesterday,” Mama said, her gaze darting everywhere and finally landing on me. Taking me in. She took a fortifying breath and stood taller. “To talk to you, Shiloh.”
“You came all this way to talk to me? It’s seven in the morning…”
“You’re eighteen now, and I think it’s time,” she said, her hands gripping and twisting the strap on her purse. “I waited eighteen years, and suddenly, I can’t wait another minute.”
I fell back from the door to let her in, staring. She wore blue jeans, a red sweater under her coat. A yellow headband kept her curls back.
Blue, red, and yellow. The primary colors… I thought and wondered if I were losing my mind.
“Hello, Marie,” Bibi said warily.
“Hello, Bibi. How are you feeling?”
“That depends,” she replied pointedly.
Bibi moved to the couch and sank down with a heavy sigh. I couldn’t take my eyes off Mama, afraid she’d disappear if I blinked.
“What’s…what’s happening? Is Bertie okay? Uncle Rudy?”