“I got that much,” I say. “Where does it go?”
He runs a hand over his face. “To the cottage.”
“Wait, like a shortcut?”
“More or less.”
“Is there a reason we’re not taking it?”
He arches a brow. “I didn’t take you for the hiking-in-the-dead-of-night type?”
I push past him.
“Stephens,” he says. “You don’t have to prove anything.” His faintly spicy scent catches up to me before he does, so familiar and yet surprising, notes of cinnamon and orange that are much stronger on him than they are on me. “Let’s just go back and follow the road.” Overhead, an owl hoots, and he ducks his head and throws his arms over it protectively.
“Wait.” I cut him a glance, stop. “Are you . . . afraid of the dark?”
“Of course not,” he growls, starting down the path again. “I’m just surprised how far you’re taking this small-town-transformation thing. And just so you know, those bangs do not make you more approachable. You just look like a hot assassin in an expensive wig.”
“All I just heard,” I say, “is hot and expensive.”
“If I showed you a Rorschach blot, you’d find hot and expensive somewhere in there.”
My gaze catches over his shoulder. Just beyond the trail, a stream funnels over a small waterfall, massive rocks jutting up like teeth on either side of it to form a swimming hole. A break in the tree cover lets moonlight pool on its center, turning the frothy water into a landscape of shimmering silver spirals.
“Number six,” I exhale.
Charlie follows my gaze, his brow furrowing. “There is absolutely no way.”
The urge to surprise him surges like a tidal wave. But there’s something else too. In college, I was always the Party Mom, the one who made sure no one fell down stairs or drank anything they hadn’t seen poured. With Libby, I’m the doting-slash-worrying older sister. For my clients, the hard-ass who argues and presses and negotiates.
Here, I realize abruptly, I’m none of those things. I don’t have to be, not with obsessive, organized, responsible Charlie Lastra. So I step onto the nearest boulder and kick off my shoes.
“Nora,” he groans. “You’re not serious.”
I peel my dress over my shoulders. “Why not? Are there alligators?”
I look back at him in time to catch his eyes cutting up from my underwear, instinctively snagging on my bra for a split second before launching to my face with a clench of his jaw.
“Sharks?” I ask.
“Only you,” he says.
“Leeches? Nuclear waste?”
“Regular waste isn’t bad enough?” he says.
“I’m not making you get in,” I say.
“Not until you start drowning.”
I sit on the rock, dangling my legs into the cool water. A shiver breaks across my shoulder blades. “I’m a very proficient swimmer.” I slip into the stream, suppressing a yelp.
“Cold?” Charlie says, tone self-satisfied.
“Balmy,” I reply, wading deeper until the water reaches my chest. “I would have to try very hard to drown in this.”
He steps up to the ledge. “At least the bacterial infection will come easily.”
“I would’ve thought this was some kind of Sunshine Falls rite of passage,” I say.
“Do I seem like the kind of person who would honor local rites of passage?”
“Well, your boots are Sandro and I’ve seen you wear luxury cashmere at least thrice,” I say, “so maybe not.”
“Capsule wardrobe,” he says, like this explains everything. “I only buy things that can be worn with everything else I already own, and that I know I like enough to wear for years. It’s an investment.”
“Such a city person,” I sing.
He rolls his eyes. “You know this doesn’t count for number six, right? Maybe in Manhattan they consider this skinny-dipping, but in Sunshine Falls we’d call that getup ‘a glorified bathing suit.’ ”
Another challenge.
I’m a woman possessed. I sink beneath the water, unclasp my bra, and hurl it at him. It thwacks against his chest. “Closer,” he allows, lifting the dainty black lace strap to examine it in the moonlight. “All this,” he says seriously, “wasted on Blake Carlisle.”
“I exclusively own pretty underwear,” I say. “They’re bound to be wasted occasionally.”
“Spoken like a true lady of luxury.”
I drift backward, knees bent, toes gliding along the smooth stone creek bed. “I think we’ve proven that, of the two of us, you are the aristocrat here. I’m skinny-dipping. In a local watering hole. Whereas you can’t even swim.”
He rolls his eyes. “I can swim.”
“Charlie,” I say. “It’s okay. There’s no shame in the truth.”
“Remember when you used to pretend to be polite?”
“Do you miss it?”
“Not at all.” He tugs his shirt over his head and discards it on the rocks. “You’re way more fun this way.” When his pants are halfway off, I remember to look away, and a moment later, when the water breaks, I spin to find him wincing at the cold slosh against his stomach.
“Shit!” he gasps. “Shit-fuck!”
“Such a way with words.” I swim toward him. “It’s not that bad.”
“Is it possible you don’t have any pain receptors?” he hisses.
“Not only possible but probable,” I reply. “I’ve been told I feel nothing.”
Charlie frowns. “Whoever said that clearly only met Professional Nora.”
“Most people do.”
“Poor assholes,” he says, almost affectionately. The same voice in which he said Of course you did when I told him I met my agenting goals eight months early.
I stop close enough to see his skin prickling. The droplets on his throat and jaw catch the moonlight, and my chest and thighs tingle in response.
I drift backward as he wades toward me, maintaining the gap between us. “What other Sunshine Falls rites of passage did you ignore?”
The muscles along his jaw shadow as he thinks. “People are really into bouldering here.”
“Let me guess,” I say. “That’s when you stand at the top of a mountain and wait for one of your enemies to walk by, then push a rock over the ledge.”