Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Not even booming laugh from the paddling canoe on the calm river could tear her gaze away from Malachi as he rubbed his palms over her bare knees and up her arms. She hadn’t realized her entire body broke out with goosebumps until he made her aware.
“I didn’t mean to make you upset,” he said, his brow pensive. “Look at you.”
She did.
But he was wrong, too.
“It’s not you,” she said firmly. “You didn’t do it. It just happens.”
Not often, but always with surprise.
She didn’t explain that part.
With one knee to the veranda, one of his hands on top of hers, and another clasping the chair arm’s edge, Malachi froze, but then he nodded. “I guess everybody’s demons are a little bit different, huh?”
“Yeah? Well, what’s yours look like?” She hadn’t meant to sound so defensive, but that didn’t change her delivery, either.
Malachi didn’t blink an eye. “Abandonment and anger issues. One’s better than the other, but that took a few years to sort out, too. Kind of like my attention seeking. I was always chasing one woman or the next looking for affection and attention in the wrong places and people until it got me into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Pick your poison. Any kind of trouble. The last straw was when I got kicked out of basic training because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants.”
He laughed under his breath. “Well, all that came before I figured out it was useless trying to find something to fix me in other people because I would never get what I wanted from those I was really angry at. I was the only person left stewing in it all the damn time. Alone.”
“I’m not sure this is something I can let go,” Gracen admitted.
He stroked her knee. “Nobody said you had to.”
The only thing keeping the warm July sun bearable was the light breeze rustling the branches of the trees surrounding the lodge. Gracen barely felt the kiss of wind with Malachi so close. She wanted to enjoy that more—the sense of being lost with him—instead of the panic that had been gripping at her heart.
It wasn’t fair.
“If it helps, because you don’t like to look forward, I guess,” Malachi said, shrugging at Gracen’s inquisitive glance. “If it helps—I wasn’t talking about five or ten years from now when it came to us.”
She gave his hand on her knee a playful slap. “How does that help?”
“Because I meant right now, and tomorrow. I’m not really worried about what we’re going to do who the hell knows when—I care about what’s going on between you and me today, babe. And maybe once all that’s figured out, we’ll get a better look at where we’re going from here. Or if we even want to go somewhere. That’s all.”
He chose every word carefully.
She could tell.
Gracen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that he thought he needed to treat her like a baby deer caught in a car’s headlights. Confused, and easily scared, but stuck to the spot all the same. Or maybe it was a decent comparison, and she was just offended about it.
She wouldn’t say.
Wiping away any stray tear that might have fallen, Gracen asked, “So, what are we doing, exactly?”
Malachi smirked. “We’re back to asking that?”
“Isn’t that what we’re trying to figure out?”
“Yep,” he murmured, still smiling in that sexy way. “I figure if we’re going to keep doing this dance together, then we might as well make a few things clear.”
Gracen couldn’t help but grin, too. “What do you want to make clear, huh?”
“Are you putting me on the spot?”
“Or trying to ease myself into the conversation,” she returned.
Malachi played along. “I want to get a call from you tomorrow when you get home—first thing, you know what I mean? I want to be the first person you call to say you made the drive back safe. And then next week, when I’m bored out of my mind and trying not to waste money at the bar for something to do, I want you to pick up every call. Talk to me for hours.”
“I can do those.”
That didn’t include words that implied situations she couldn’t necessarily control. It wasn’t putting her in the place of envisioning the impossible white picket fence and happily ever after that she simply didn’t believe in.
No, it didn’t feel like that.
“And I want to do more of these weekends,” he added, but that wasn’t a hard sell for Gracen.
“I’ll never say no to this lodge, for the record.”
“Nobody would, let’s be honest.” Malachi tipped his head to the side, his expression softening when he said, “Maybe we’ll work out a few weekends over what’s left of the summer if we can because I don’t know how to do the distance with somebody. I’m willing to try with you.”