“So, that’s how Kip’s keeping you around,” I said wryly.
Her eyes widened. “You bastard. And to think I got these for you.” Emberly snuggled the jars of honey closer to her chest.
I reached for them but dropped my arms when she twisted away. “That isn’t nice.”
“Neither are you,” she shot back.
“Oh, come on, Em, you know it was funny.” I lifted a hand in mock-surrender. “But I’ll stop. I’ll be on my best-man best behavior from now on.”
Her face went void of emotion. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” A laugh rocked through me when she shoved the jars against my stomach. Gripping them in one of my hands, I reached for Rae with the other and nodded at Emberly. “Let’s go eat.”
After a few feet, I leaned closer to Rae and whispered, “Kip’s the guy who wants to get serious.”
“I figured. So,” she said, drawing out the word as she nudged my side, “you must really like honey . . .”
“It isn’t for me,” I said as I led her toward the table my friends were already at, Emberly jogging ahead. “Savannah and my mom will shun any member of the family who comes here and doesn’t get this honey for them. It’s usually the last thing I get before I leave. Emberly must’ve just been by the booth and grabbed them.”
Rae was silent for a few seconds before she said, “Maybe we should get more.”
When I looked at her, she was worrying her bottom lip again.
One of these times, I was going to bite that lip for her.
Flashes assaulted me. Rae against a wall, hands in mine and pinned above her head, my mouth pressed against hers. Her beneath me, trembling and crying out my name. Her perfect mouth around my cock.
“Do you think?” she asked, grounding me in the present.
“What?” The word was rough and filled with gravel.
“Honey,” she said slowly. “Should I buy more for Savannah since I’m staying there . . . as a thank you?”
I released her and ran my hand over my face, trying to force away the images still playing out in my mind. Shaking my head, I said, “You’re paying to stay there. Their house is literally a place for guests.” Once I had her hand in mine again, I sent her a wink. “Besides, if you give Savannah honey, I don’t think she’ll ever let you leave.”
Rae tried to laugh, but it fell flat as her stare drifted from mine. The hint of unease that swept through her eyes at the innocent joke was enough to remind me that the girl beside me was a flight risk, and I was an idiot for letting myself want her. But with every passing minute in her presence, I was beginning to think the pain that came with wanting her might be worth it.
I let her move away from me when we neared the tables and tried not to notice how empty I felt once that connection to her was gone, as I had every other time we’d parted during the day. And, instead, let myself be content with just watching the way she moved. The way she easily fell into a conversation with Emberly and went toward the rest of my friends as if she’d known them for years.
“Hey!”
I slowly turned my attention away from Rae when someone smacked my shoulder and found my friend Gavin backing away.
He gestured toward the barbecue place behind him. “Already ordered all the food. Help?”
“Yeah, be right there.” After I set the jars on the table next to where Rae was seated, I hurried in the direction Gavin had gone. When I found him, he was all wide smiles and anxious movements.
He’d barely been able to contain it this morning either.
“You excited, man?”
His smile somehow grew. “Faith is gonna lose her fucking mind.”
“She hasn’t figured out something was going on yet with you looking like this?” I pushed his shoulder, moving him closer to where we needed to go to get the food. “You look like a kid on Christmas.”
“Man, she’s so stressed out with last-minute wedding stuff, I don’t think she notices half of what’s going on around her.”
“Should’ve just eloped and saved both of y’all the headache.”
He snorted, but turned and asked, “Hey, do you have my keys?”
“Em does. That’s why she was late meeting us this morning, but I’ll get them.” Once we reached the area where others were waiting for their orders, I asked, “How much was the food?”
“No way,” Gavin said, looking all kinds of offended. “You got breakfast.”
“I’m not getting married or about to buy a puppy,” I reasoned with a dry look.
“Speaking of,” he began, evading the question, “one thing Faith did notice is Rae.” His brows lifted knowingly. “She spent a good half hour talking about how y’all were looking at each other before she went back to stress-mode. Considering I’ve only ever seen you with a girl when y’all were leaving somewhere to go hook up, this is huge. Spill.”
He and I both knew that wasn’t true. But it was as if nine years was long enough for everyone to disregard or forget Leighton.
If she’d just been some high school crush, maybe it would’ve been long enough for me too.
“Nothing to tell,” I said honestly. When he gave me a look that said he thought I was full of shit, I shrugged. “Seriously. Like we said earlier, she’s staying at Blossom. Nothing more.”
“You’re telling me you don’t want there to be anything more?”
I glanced away before meeting and holding his questioning stare. “It’s complicated.”
“Like, Beau-will-kick-your-ass-for-sleeping-with-a-guest complicated?”
A huff left me at the thought of it but faded at the reality of the situation. “Like, Leighton complicated,” I admitted, looking away when Gavin’s expression fell. “And Rae . . . she teases and she deals with my shit like she’s done it for years before delivering it right back to me. But there’s also a steel wall between us. I can’t figure out why. I’m guessing she was in a bad relationship or something. Not to mention, she’ll be gone in a few weeks, so it doesn’t even matter.”
“Damn,” Gavin finally muttered after nearly a minute. “I—” He hesitated and then cleared his throat when our order was called and didn’t continue until we were headed back to the table, arms filled with food. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Don’t,” I said in a low tone. “I already have Em starting in on this shit.”
He nodded, but still said, “I’m happy for you.”
“Few weeks,” I reminded him.
“Maybe you should try to change that,” he said, trying to keep his tone indifferent, and failing.
“Yeah, that isn’t a possibility with a girl like her.” Trying to lighten the mood before we reached the tables, I said, “I’d ask you not to tell Faith, but that’s probably the first thing you’ll do once we leave.”
A sharp laugh burst from him. “No doubt, man. She’s gonna wanna hear this. Hey, I meant to ask you, does Rae look familiar to you?”
I looked toward the girl in question, trying to see any kind of familiarity when all I saw was the woman my body craved. “No.” I drew the word out, making it sound like a question.
“Huh. Faith and I both thought she did.”
“She’s an author,” I said slowly, reaching for anything that might spark something for them, but I doubted they’d know her from that. Faith wasn’t big on reading.
“Oh yeah? That’s cool.” His tone confirmed what I’d been thinking—the fact that Rae was an author meant nothing to them. “I don’t know, there’s just something about her. When we walked up to y’all this morning, I did a double-take before I realized I had no idea who she was. Faith said she couldn’t stop staring at her because she was sure she knew her.”
I studied Rae, trying to see her the way they did. Trying to remember the first time I’d seen her—but even then, I’d been wholly enraptured in her.
“Probably nothing,” Gavin said as we neared the girls.
“Yeah . . .”
Then why did it feel li
ke I was missing something?
Once we’d placed all the food down, I pulled some money out of my wallet for the food and slipped it into Faith’s purse before rounding the table and leaning in between Rae and Emberly.
“Need to talk,” I whispered into Emberly’s ear before stealing a slice of sausage from in front of Rae and popping it into my mouth. I grinned when she pulled the plate closer to her body and mock-glared at me, nudging her shoulder as I did. “You okay here?”
The glare immediately faded into confusion and worry. “Yeah, why?”
“Need to steal Em away for a minute.”
She glanced around the table at the rest of my friends and shrugged. “I’m fine.” When I started moving away, she hurried to ask, “But, seriously, is this the part where you ditch me in a massive flea market?”
My chest moved with my silent laugh, and I reached for another piece of sausage. “Ditch you? Why would I do that when you have the food?”
She shoved me away, and I stumbled back, my next laugh pouring free as I steadied myself. After a tap on Emberly’s shoulder, she twisted away from the table and followed me out of hearing distance.
Before I could ask her what I needed, she unleashed all her pent-up excitement on me. “Oh my God, what happened between this morning and now that y’all were holding hands?” She was practically vibrating she was so damn excited, but despite how natural and good it had felt having that connection to Rae, it hadn’t been what Emberly thought.
“Yeah, it . . . it wasn’t like that.” When she cocked her head and gave me that look of hers—the one that said she was only going to give me one chance to reveal the truth—I held up a placating hand. “Honest. She was bouncing around from vendor to vendor, and I kept losing her in the crowd. After the fifth time, I finally just grabbed her hand to prevent it from happening again.”
Just like that, Emberly was smiling and bouncing on her toes again, looking like a tiny, grunge, Energizer Bunny. “What’d she do?”
“When?”
She heaved an irritated breath and shoved her palm into my shoulder. “When you grabbed her hand, Sawyer, Jesus.”
“Nothing, she just let me.”
When I didn’t offer anything else, she pressed her hands together and then placed them in front of her mouth, the way she did when she was trying to force herself to breathe before she spoke. “You don’t hold hands, Sawyer. Be a girl for five seconds and give me details so I can give them to your mom later,” she said unapologetically. Before I could react to that, she leveled me with a glare. “Of course your mom knows. Savannah told her before I could. Details. Now.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Details.”
“It was natural to grab her hand, Em,” I finally said, the confession coming out on a harsh breath. Knowing she would only continue to prod until she knew everything, I ran a hand through my hair and continued. “When I did? She didn’t look surprised or react in any way other than looking back to smile at me and pulling me to the next booth. Whenever we’d separate, she’d be the one to reach for me again when she was ready to move. It didn’t feel pressured, it was just easy. It was like she’d been there for years. But it was really only because I kept losing her.”
“Does she know that?” She lifted a knowing brow and hurried to add, “Do you?”
“Yes to both.”
She scoffed, her smile offsetting the sound. “You’re such a liar, Sawyer Dixon.” She dropped her voice to a whisper as she started walking away. “I’m so telling your mom everything.”
I grabbed her arm before she could make it far, and said, “First, there’s nothing to tell. Second, I’m the one who needed to talk to you. Have you seen the couple that makes the blankets we like?”
“Yeah, the guy’s there . . . over near the honey. Did you want another?”
I looked past her, to where Rae sat, laughing freely at something, and tried to ignore the urge to go to her. To hear that laugh. To just be near her. “I don’t know, maybe.” Forcing my stare back to a smiling Emberly, I held a hand out and said, “I need Gavin’s keys.”
“They’re in my purse.” She gave me a comically helpless look. “Faith hasn’t left his side, what was I supposed to do?”
“A stealthy handoff.”
“Right . . . with my luck, I’d end up tripping and dropping them right in front of Faith, and then I’d fumble over trying to think of a lie and end up blowing the entire surprise.”
I rubbed at my forehead and fought a grin. “Did you at least get everything taken care of?”
“Crate, beds, food, and bowls are all in place and ready to go. Leash and collar are in my bag.”
I held out a fist and waited for her to bump it, then turned her toward the tables. “You think you can manage handing the keys off to me without the whole ruin-the-surprise scenario?” A laugh crawled up my throat when she pushed me away from her, but once we were seated at the table, she still managed to miss my hand directly next to her, letting Gavin’s keys drop to the ground. “Jesus, Em.”
She dropped her face into her palm as I bent to pick them up and pocketed them. “Never again,” she whispered. “Don’t ever trust me with these things again.”
“Noted.”
Thankfully, everyone else had been listening to one of our friends tell a story about a time he and another guy got in an all-out brawl over the wrong girl in a bar. Not that anyone would’ve actually known what had been happening if they had been paying attention to us. But their laughs had drowned out our short conversation, and then my chest expanded with a ragged inhale when Rae leaned against me as she tried to catch her breath, her hand moving to slide over my thigh before resting there.
Easy.
Natural.
Like she belonged there.
I tilted my head toward Emberly enough to catch her eye. She was failing miserably at hiding her happiness which closely echoed my own.
But with mine came pain and fear and nearly a decade of ignoring this.
Unable to fight it anymore, I let a faint smile slip free, then wrapped my arm around Rae, holding her close.
Welcoming that rush of rightness that surged through me when she relaxed into me.
Damning the pain.
Damning the fear.
Damning the day she inevitably left.
Chapter 16
Sawyer
Watching Rae then, sitting on the grassy area, head tilted back as she laughed while a puppy licked and nipped at her chin, another couple of puppies climbing all over her, I knew I would do it.
Abandon everything I’d sworn to myself and one girl.
Destroy my heart in the process.
Find a way to keep her here.
The knowledge was terrifying.
A week ago, I was sure no woman would ever have the capability of getting under my skin and in my head, but Rae had so easily. In such a short time, she had me ready to throw away rules I’d lived by for years. And I hardly knew her.
I grabbed one of the wrinkly pups crawling across her lap and pulled it close as I let my attention dart to where Emberly and my other friends stood a few spots down, then to where Gavin and Faith were doing the paperwork for their new puppy.
Faith was still crying and had yet to put the fluffy thing down.
“How can a puppy smell so good?” Rae murmured, capturing my focus again. She lifted the puppy’s face to hers and nuzzled it for a moment before cradling it to her chest. When she looked at me, a mixture of peace and excitement burst from her even though her eyelids had steadily gotten lower and lower.
“You think you can handle one more stop before we leave?”
She narrowed her exhausted eyes at me. “Are we going to be attacked by geese again?”
My chest pitched with a silent laugh. “You had bread, Rae.”
“You could have warned me,” she snapped. “They kept following me even after I’d thrown all the bread at them.”
I fought against the g
rin tugging at my mouth and shook my head. “No more animals.”
Her full lips fell into a pout as she looked at the sleeping puppy in her lap and the other securely in her arms, nibbling on her fingers.
I carefully stood and placed the one I was holding back in the gated area, then reached for the one in her hands. “You could get one. Or there’s always next month . . . and the next month.”
Rae practically shoved the puppy at me. “Oh, no, no. Yeah, that’s . . .”—she sucked in a sharp breath—“just, no.” When I just gave her a bemused look, she let out a soft, sort of frantic laugh and explained, “The thought of anything longer than a month-to-month rent makes me hyperventilate. I’m pretty sure the only thing or place I’ve ever been tied to were my cars, and that’s because they help me move. I’m not the kind of person to commit to a dog.”
I studied her for a few moments before murmuring, “Got it.”
Once we had all three pups back in the gated area, had thanked the owners and called out goodbyes to everyone else, I pulled her back in the direction Emberly had told me about earlier, and finally asked, “What happened to make you so resistant to settling down?”
“What makes you so sure something happened?”
I glanced at her, but she was staring straight ahead. “If you were the kind of person who just wanted to travel, you would be excited with the thought of each new place. Not saying you aren’t, but I don’t think you would have that underlying, genuine fear at the thought of staying somewhere. I don’t think you would freak out at the idea of being committed to anything or anyone.”
Her only response was that soft humming noise in the back of her throat.
I didn’t push the subject again. I just held her close to my side and wove through the crowds until I got to the vendor I’d been searching for.
Lowering my head close to hers, I asked, “What about these?”
I felt her sharp intake of air a split second before a breathless laugh tumbled free. She looked up, her eyes sparkling with wonder. “How did you know?”
“You’ve paused or stopped at every blanket vendor we passed today. These are the best.”
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