by Zoe York
But she was tired, and her body was showing it.
Grady nodded. “Yeah, I can. Is this a much-needed break?”
“Doctor’s orders. Fresh air and morning hikes.”
He gave her a look of alarm. “Doctor?”
“A minor blood-pressure problem.” That medication didn’t seem to want to fix. Whatever. “She suggested therapy. I did that. It didn’t help. She suggested a retreat, and I told her my best friend was working at a summer camp with spotty Wi-Fi and daily yoga. We compromised.”
“Yoga instead of hikes?”
“No, I agreed to do both. Not much of a compromise, really. She seems to think I need an outlet for built-up stress.”
His lips twitched, a flash of perfect, even white teeth before his scruffy jaw reset itself.
She found herself a little disappointed he hadn’t gone there and reminded her they worked out quite a bit of her stress last year. Sex would be better than both yoga and hiking.
Instead, he looked around the cabin until he found the daily print-out of activities. He was a Camp Firefly Falls lifer, after all. He knew how Heather and Michael ran the place, especially in the weeks that were popular with alumni.
“Can I join you for the hike tomorrow morning?” He glanced up as he asked, and her breath caught in her throat at the dark, searching look that pierced through her shell with devastating precision.
“It’s a group thing.”
“I’ll take that as a reluctant yes.”
It wasn’t nearly as reluctant as it should be. She shrugged. “No reason we can’t be grown-ups about this. And it’s probably time for dinner now, so…” She waved to the door, as if that would make her feet move in that direction. “And maybe Tegan can find you another cabin to stay in.”
His brows tugged together, like he wanted to frown at her, but then he forced his face into a smile. “If that’s what you want.”
Her stomach twisted tight. She didn’t know what she wanted. That was the problem.
And there was a very real concern that what she secretly wanted more than anything wasn’t on the table.
Chapter 3
Tegan was nowhere to be found. Priya left Grady sitting at their table for two—because seriously, could her best friend be more obvious?—and went in search of the traitorous cupid disguised as the camp’s recreation director.
“I think she may have headed into Briarsted?” the camp director, Heather Tully, said at the front desk. “But I can leave a note for her if you want.”
No, what Priya had to say to her bestie was best left for a face-to-face confrontation. “It’s fine.”
“Okay. See you in the morning for the Dawn Hike?”
“Yep,” Priya said only the tiniest of winces. “Bright and early.”
“If you have trouble falling asleep tonight, you might want one of these.” Heather handed over a brown paper bag with Back to Nature stamped on the front in what looked like natural purple dye. Beets or something like that, probably. “Lavender satchel to hang up or put under your pillow, and an essential oil blend that’s perfect for rubbing on the soles of your feet.”
“Thanks. Hey, uh…speaking of sleep. Could we have some extra bedding? Our beds were made up as one big king bed, and we’d rather them separated into two twins.”
Heather didn’t blink. “Sure, hang on.” She disappeared around the corner and returned a moment later with a cotton bag. “Extra sheets, pillowcase, and a cotton blanket, too.”
Back at their table, she found Grady still perusing the food options. She stuffed her bags under her chair and picked up her own menu. One of the other reasons she’d picked this week was that the entire week was vegetarian, which meant there would be more options for her to eat. She might drink alcohol and it had been three years since she last stepped foot in a gurdwara, but her parents—secular and modern in most ways—had raised her to respect the dietary rules followed in the langar. No meat, no fish, no eggs.
Which left a lot of amazing food, so she never felt deprived, but often in a meat-centric dining experience, she’d have one or two options. Today, she had more than half the menu that was easily egg free. It was fantastic.
Across the table, Grady shifted uncomfortably, and she smothered a grin.
Fantastic for her.
Mr. Show-Up-And-Horn-In was probably missing steak right about now.
“Are you hungry?” she asked innocently.
“Starving.”
She shouldn’t like the growl in his voice. It shouldn’t make her shiver. She knew better than that. “I’m thinking of the cauliflower bites and the beet salad.”
“Mmm.”
“Are you having trouble deciding what you want?”
He chuckled under his breath. “Is that what you think?”
Despite her best intentions to not give him any direct attention, his laughter dragged her gaze back to his face. “I remember you loving a good steak last year.”
He nodded as the corners of his eyes crinkled. “I have no doubt your memory of…everything…from last year is picture perfect. But I don’t need a steak to enjoy my dinner.”
The waitress appeared a moment later, and Priya repeated her order.
Grady gave one last look at the menu. “Okay. I’ll have a bowl of the onion and barley soup, the garlic mushrooms, and the asparagus ravioli.”
Onion, garlic, asparagus. Grady picked the three foods on the menu that practically waved a white-flag on late night kissing.
Message received, loud and clear.
Two could play that game. “I got new sheets for your bed,” she said as she lifted her water glass.
He gave her a bland look that she didn’t buy for a second. “Great.”
“Great.”
Cold-war style antagonism was not Grady’s strong suit. His dinner was excellent, but he’d dug himself a no-kissing-zone hole, and Priya seemed more amused than disappointed. That had not been his plan.
You don’t have a plan. You have a year’s worth of regret and a week’s worth of desperate, disparate ideas.
But since there was zero chance of her kissing him now, he could set aside that desperate yearning for her mouth that had driven him this far. So he paid more attention to her words, sinking into the sweet, laughter-laced stories she told. Dinner flew by in a flurry of enthusiastic hand gestures and delicate, emotive facial expressions he wanted to get lost in.
When they finished eating, they followed the herd of campers outside, and Grady gestured toward the lake. “Do you want to go to the bonfire?”
Priya shook her head and lifted one of the two bags she’d picked up from the camp staff. “Early to bed tonight.”
He had every intention of walking her back to the cabin, then returning to the bonfire after they separated the beds. He’d take his garlic-breath and drown his sorrows in a s’more, and re-group for the morning’s hike.
But when they walked into the cabin, something shifted inside him.
He’d flown across the country because Wyatt had told him she would be here. It had been a sign, that she had a week off at the start of his post-deployment leave. He’d known it would be a hard-sell, because he’d told her he’d stay in touch and then he hadn’t.
What he hadn’t done was really think about why he wanted her. Still, again, maybe always.
And Priya as unpacked the new linens, as she moved around the cabin, her hips swaying and her dark hair swinging around her face, another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
He didn’t want to head back to the bonfire.
Even if she just slid under her own set of covers on the other side of the room, he wanted to lie down with Priya and go to sleep.
He hadn’t slept well in a year.
Suddenly, strongly, he wanted his first good night’s sleep to start with her, like this.
Moving silently, he shadowed her movements. As she tugged the sheets free from his side of the bed, he folded them tight under her mattress. When his bed was fully unt
angled from hers, he moved it across to the far wall. It wasn’t a big move.
It wasn’t a big cabin.
There were five feet between their beds. More space than he wanted, but way closer than being across the country. On the other side of the world before that, where he’d buried his thoughts of her because he didn’t know how to long for someone and be a finely-tuned fighting machine at the same time.
“Here,” she said, turning with his sheets.
They stepped toward each other at the same time and her hands collided with his. Soft, slim fingers. Warm skin. He should take the sheets, step back, make his bed and find a way to apologize for real.
He wanted to lean in and kiss her.
He didn’t do either of those things. Instead, he just stood there, touch the backs of her hands with his fingertips as she looked up at him.
She didn’t give him any clue as to what she was thinking. Her gaze was sharp and probing as she raked it over his face.
Then, so slowly he wasn’t sure it was happening at first, she smiled. Just the corner of her mouth at first, a slight upturn that pulled agonizingly into a dimple before her lips parted and she let out a small laugh. “I bet you didn’t think you’d show up and I’d make you sleep in a separate bed, did you?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” he admitted. “But if I was, I should have figured that out. And I don’t mind.” He took the linens from her and stepped back, his heart thumping against his chest as he found his cocky footing again. “I’m a blanket hog, anyway.”
She watched him as he made the bed, and he watched her right back, sliding glances her way after each step. Her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. When he finished, she grabbed a bright blue toiletry bag from her suitcase and two very small, very soft-looking bits of clothing. “I’ll just brush my teeth,” she said with a nod toward the bathroom. “Then you can have it.”
He unpacked while she was gone, pulling out his hiking clothes for the next morning and a book to read tonight. Then he quickly packed a light day bag, too, stashing in the front pocket two apples and a couple of granola bars that he’d nabbed from the dining room.
When the bathroom door opened, he looked up from where he’d been reading on his bed and his mouth dropped open.
This was a whole different Priya. Soft and touchable. No makeup. And glasses. Big, round pink frames. She looked young and sweet, like he shouldn’t perv on the curve of her bare thighs sliding out from her sleep shorts or the way her tank top stretched across her breasts.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses.” He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “The secrets you keep.”
“I’ve never liked them. I wear contacts most of the time,” she murmured, moving to her own bed.
They were really going to do this. Sleep in separate twin beds, like a couple on a 1950s sit-com. At least they were a progressive couple. He was the lucky guy who was scoring in a most platonic way with the gorgeous South Asian woman.
Well, not scoring. Now she was giving him a look like she knew he was thinking about sex.
He wasn’t, though, not at this particular moment. He was wondering if her eyes would go a little unfocused when she lifted those glasses up and he leaned in to kiss her. If she’d keep them on, or slide them off as he moved in and telegraphed his intent to—
She grabbed the second bag she’d brought back with her from the main lodge, and he gave up that fantasy for the time being.
“What’s that?”
“Lavender sachets and a soothing foot balm,” she muttered, holding both of those things aloft. “And…” She laughed and lifted a tiny, portable fan out of the bag. She craned her head to read the tag dangling from it. “If you’re missing the white noise of the city, try this little fan.”
She grinned and stuffed it back in the bag.
“You’re not going to use it?” Grady asked.
“Nah. I don’t miss the city. But it was a nice thought.” She yawned and snuggled under her blankets. “What time do we need to wake up again?”
He grabbed the week’s schedule. “Morning hike departs at six, returns at eight in time for a hot build-your-own-oatmeal bar.”
“Okay. Wake me up at quarter-to-six.” Her voice was already mumbly and sleepy.
“Will do,” he said softly. He sat there and watched her drift off. It wasn’t until her body fully relaxed, her lips parting as her breath settled into a slow, steady pattern, that he realized two things.
First, it was pretty creepy that he’d just watched her fall asleep.
But second, how exhausted was she that she didn’t even mind?
Maybe Priya needed this week of relaxation more than she’d let on.
Chapter 4
Priya was no stranger to waking up in the middle of the night. Stories broke at all hours of the day, flights needed to be caught first thing in the morning, and once in a blue moon, she’d pretend to enjoy getting in some exercise before work.
But there was something cruel about having to get up in the dark while on vacation.
Technically not vacation. She shoved that thought away as her alarm beeped again. Eyes still closed, she reached for her phone—and her fingers wrapped around a warm, strong forearm instead.
Oh. She snapped her eyes open.
Grady grinned at her from where he was kneeling beside her bed, his arm outstretched. He’d been setting a Thermos of what she hoped to God was coffee on the table next to her pillow. “Morning,” he said, his voice low and far too sexy for…quarter to six in the morning.
She groaned. “Yeah. I’m up.”
“There’s sugar and a couple of creamers if you take them.”
She pushed herself up to sit and gratefully doctored up the elixir of life. “Thanks. This is nice. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I was getting myself some anyway.”
She rubbed the heel of her hand into her eye before shoving her glasses onto her face. “What time did you get up?”
“An hour ago.”
“Wow.”
“Well, when you rack out at nine-thirty at night…” He grinned, a lopsided, easy expression.
“No, we did not.”
He nodded. “We did. Well, you did. I read for a bit, but I was lights out at ten.”
“I’m an embarrassment to all city girls everywhere.”
He winked. “It’s the fresh air.”
She was pretty sure it was more than that and equally sure he knew it, but it was polite of him to pretend. “Is it cold out?”
“A bit. What were you thinking of wearing?”
“Shorts, but I do have hiking pants.”
His gaze dropped to her still blanket-covered legs, and she felt the heat of his inspection through the fabric. “Shorts will be fine. Maybe a sweatshirt, though.”
They needed serious boundaries between them. So why did she have a little thrill at the thought of him enjoying her legs in shorts?
He’d enjoyed them wrapped around his waist, too. Damn it. She dropped her attention to her travel mug and took a long, slow sip of coffee.
Perfect.
“How much time now?”
“Eleven minutes.”
“Damn it.” She took one last sip of coffee, then climbed out of bed and grabbed clothes to change into. She dashed into the bathroom and quickly washed up, then put on the barest of makeup before reaching for her contacts.
As she opened the case, a loud rap sounded on the front door of the cabin, and she almost dropped the lens into the sink. “What was that?” she called out.
“We, uh, have visitors,” Grady said from the other side of the bathroom door. “Tegan’s here. And she’s not alone.”
Priya finished dressing and stepped back into the cabin proper. Next to her best friend—who she immediately shot a we need to talk, you traitor look—was her best friend’s fiancé. Also known as Grady’s best friend and fellow Navy SEAL.
How cozy. “Wyatt,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Mid-summer surprise visit to see Tegan.” He gave Grady a hard look. “And a little bird told me that Grady here had snuck into camp, so I thought I’d come and see what that was all about, too.”
Oh. Priya gave Tegan a wide-eyed look—why didn’t Wyatt know about this?—and Tegan shot her a quick shrug in reply.
They had so much to discuss. Later. First it was hike time. “Well, we’re off for the morning hike. Are you guys joining us?”
Tegan shook her head. “We’ll see you at breakfast, but I need to set up the Arts and Crafts sessions for today, since I disappeared last night to go and pick up Wyatt.”
“Heather said you’d gone into Briarsted.”
Tegan laughed. “A little further. His rental car died halfway here from Boston.”
“They’d have eventually brought me another one,” Wyatt said, tugging Tegan close as they all stepped outside onto the porch and into the cool, gray dawn.
It was too early in the morning for the puppy dog eyes the reunited couple were giving each other.
“But I didn’t want him to wait on the side of the road all night.” Tegan wrapped her arms around her partner and squeezed him tight as she gazed up at him. “Besides, it was an adventure.”
“Sounds like,” Priya murmured.
Grady handed her the coffee mug she’d set down inside, then set his hand in the small of her back and propelled her forward. “Okay, we gotta go. Catch you guys later.”
Her legs weren’t planning on going quite that fast, but Grady kept even pressure on with his hand—warm, big, strong—until they were out of earshot of the cabin.
Then he laughed.
“What?”
“You don’t have a poker face at all when it comes to romantic bullshit.”
“I’m not a romantic person.”
“No shit.” He laughed again and dropped his hand. She ignored the shiver that ran down her spine. She didn’t miss his touch in the least.
“I’m learning so much about you, Priya.” He shot her a quick, warm, sideways glance. “So much.”
