“I do not!” Holy cow. Do I?
He chuckled and pulled her up to her feet. “It’s this quiet, girlie snore, like this.” He made a soft snoring sound.
Harper covered her face. “Oh my gosh! I’m such a mess.”
He gathered her in his arms, grinning like he’d never been happier, and said, “Your hair is a tangled mess, you snore, and at one point I woke up with your hand cupping my package.”
“Ohmygosh.” She covered her face again.
He lowered her hands and said, “You’re real, Harp. It was one of the things I first noticed about you when we met, and you’ve proved it every minute we’ve been together since. Real can be messy, and I always believed that meant it wasn’t always pretty.” He lifted the ends of her hair, which had come undone from her bun and fell in tangles around her shoulders. “I didn’t realize I was wrong until this morning. Apparently messy can also be beautiful.”
“Wow,” she said a little breathily. “How are you still single?”
He stretched, and the hem of his shirt lifted, revealing a path of toned, tanned abs and a tease of the treasure trail she remembered so well.
“It’s a choice.” He patted her butt and said, “Let’s go.”
He headed for the house, and she hurried to keep up. “I thought we were watching the sunrise.”
“We are, but I have to pee like a racehorse, and unless you want me to whip it out right here…” He put his hand on the button of his shorts.
“Bathroom,” she said.
After using the facilities, finger combing her hair, and finger brushing her teeth with Gavin’s toothpaste, she snuggled with him beneath a blanket on the dock. The sun eased into the sky, pushing shades of orange and yellow into the blue-gray dawn, until a bright new color appeared. Harper glanced at Gavin and realized he was pushing the clouds of the last few months away, allowing her to find her way to a bright new day, too. And here she was, thinking those months had formed an impenetrable wall.
“I’m glad you slept,” he said, breaking through her thoughts. “You sure you can’t hang out today and hit the coffee shop?”
“I think I’m going to swing by my parents’ house this afternoon, and I need to start unpacking. But we’re still on for the concert Wednesday, right?”
“Absolutely. Want help unpacking?”
She didn’t want their time together to end and wondered if he was serious. “Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Probably, but I like spending time with you. Besides, who knows what secrets I can uncover by helping you unpack.”
“You’ll be sorely disappointed. But you know what? As much as I want to see you today, I’m not sure what my parents’ plans are or when I’ll be back from visiting them. Can we do it tomorrow in case they want me to stay for the day, or have dinner? I’ve been gone so long, I don’t want to rush them.”
“Of course. That sounds great.” He pulled out his phone. “Let me just send Justin a text and let him know I won’t be riding tomorrow.”
“Riding?”
“Yeah. I got a motorcycle license a few months ago. When the weather’s nice I try to ride with Justin and the guys.”
She’d never expected to find a guy on a motorcycle sexy, but she imagined Gavin in a black leather jacket, straddling a motorcycle. And then she took that thought one step further, picturing herself sitting behind him, her arms wrapped around him as they cruised down the road, and holy cow. That was scorching hot.
“I’m guessing whatever didn’t happen earlier when you blushed isn’t happening again?” he teased with a shock of heat in his eyes.
She swatted him, and he chuckled.
They settled back into companionable silence, and after a while Harper said, “Do you ever bring your computer and work out here?” She loved her house and gardens, but there was definitely something more inspiring about being on the water.
“I thought I might when I first bought the place, but I never have. I spend all day being ‘on,’ pitching, working with clients, finessing distributors. This has become more of a place where I come to relax and center my mind.”
“I understand that. Writing is the opposite. It’s a very quiet job, since I’m always in my own head. I think that’s why I like working at cafés or at the pier. I get inspired by the things around me. But this is inspiring in a different way. The colors, the water, the trees. It’s serene.” There were a few houses in the distance, but they were far enough away that it felt like they were all alone.
“I guess it would be good inspiration for creating settings?”
“That, yes, but I meant the energy is different. I feel different energy when I write while sitting by my gardens or at my desk in my cottage than I do when I write in a café or on the pier, with people milling about and lives going in every which direction. This is totally different from any of that. It’s like I can hear myself think in a different way than I can in those places, which makes me wonder if that might play out in my writing.”
“You’re welcome to write here anytime, Harp.”
“I didn’t say that to try to weasel my way into your yard.”
He hugged her against his side and said, “You weaseled your way into my mind months ago; you might as well weasel your way into the rest of my life.”
IF GAVIN HAD his way, he’d have kept Harper at his house all day, relaxing by the water, talking, writing, or whatever else she wanted to do. He enjoyed being with her. She wasn’t just finding her way into his life. She was tiptoeing into his heart. He hadn’t let a woman in for so long, he hadn’t recognized just how big his feelings for her were. Although he should have, given that she’d been on his mind for almost a year. He wondered what she was working on now and why she thought it sucked. What was her plan to get out of her writing slump? She was definitely a planner. He could spot one a mile away, and she’d had a to-do list on her desk by her computer with a note to call her parents at the very top. She might have been putting off seeing them, but her family was very much on her mind, which he considered the mark of a solid, grounded person.
He glanced at her sitting in the passenger seat of his car in her shorts and his Boston College sweatshirt. Under that bulky sweatshirt she wore a sexy light-pink spaghetti-strap top with a built-in bra that left nothing to his imagination. He’d hardly had time to admire her in it before she’d put his sweatshirt over it and announced that she was keeping it. That confidence to take what she wanted was just one more thing he fucking loved about her. She might not trust all her instincts, but she was getting there.
She fidgeted with the ends of her hair and said, “What?”
“Everything.” He reached for her hand. He might not have been waiting for her, because he hadn’t known he’d see her again, but as he held her hand, he realized his heart hadn’t been fully functioning until she’d shown up and jolted it back to life.
She eyed their joined hands, but she didn’t pull away. At thirty-plus years old, that shouldn’t make him feel like he’d won the lottery, but after months of wondering if he’d imagined her, it sure as hell did. He was bubbling over with happiness, and he wanted to share it with their friends, to let them know that this incredible woman lit him up, even if she wasn’t his quite yet.