907 For Keeps Way (Cherry Falls)

He’s one of those people you look at and know they have their life together. I bet he was unrushed getting ready this morning. I’d venture to say that he got to work early and is caught up on all of his paperwork. He probably goes to bed at dark and gets a good night’s rest—after he reads a couple of chapters in the book he picked up during a leisurely stroll at the bookstore last weekend.

He exudes a quiet confidence that seeps into my bones by osmosis. My heart steadies under his gaze.

“So, marriage is out,” he says, once I’m settled. “What about love?”

“What about it?”

“Do you believe in it?”

“Do you?”

The fear that I’ve come to expect from men when discussing a topic such as love is nonexistent on his face. There’s no pupil dilation or fingernail biting, just a thoughtful consideration. Who is this man?

“I do. One hundred percent,” he says.

“A forever and always kind of thing?”

“Absolutely.”

“Huh.”

He rests his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together. “I’m a big proponent of crafting the life you want.”

“Like your muscles,” I say before I can really think it through.

He watches me with a smug grin, making my cheeks heat.

“Like my muscles, yes, I suppose so,” he says. “The way I see it is this—I get one life. It’s up to me to take the hand I was dealt and do the best I can with it, shape it into what I want it to be.”

“And what do you want it to be?”

“Happy. Joyful. Passionate.”

My face flushes even more as the last word triggers very vivid, very passionate images in my brain.

“I’m not going to spend time on things or people who don’t matter,” he says. “And once I find the woman I want to include in my life forever, then I will put that time and energy into making sure my marriage lasts forever and always.”

The honesty in his tone and the sweetness in his words hit my raw and severed heart hard. It feels like a punch in the gut and salt in a wound all at the same time.

I wince with the pain, actually leaning away from him with the force of the reaction.

“Are you that disgusted by marriage?” he asks, a hesitant laugh in his tone.

“No, not disgusted.” I take in a large, deep breath. Just so, so disappointed my husband hadn’t thought the same way toward me. “I just … my heart is still a little tender. That’s all.”

“Were you serious earlier? About your husband leaving you?”

I make a face. “Yes. My husband left me for a college student.” I hold up a finger. “Let me rephrase that—a college student in her sophomore year.”

I might as well have said that the sky is blue because there is not a breath of a reaction from Dane.

There was no way that I could have expected support or for him to take my side—and there are definite sides to this situation. Regardless, the fact that he didn’t even frown or bother to bat a lash at the deplorable conduct of my ex-husband stings.

Men.

“I thought you were a personal trainer and not a psychologist?” I ask. “I’m paying you to whip my body into shape, and trust me, that’ll be easier than sorting my head out.”

He bites his lip.

I force a swallow, unable to contain the energy that pulses through my body at the sight of him looking at me like that—even though I’m absolutely certain that I’m imagining it.

“Are you free tomorrow?” he asks. “Tomorrow can be day one.”

I open my mouth to spew some story about pizza dough or Anna’s nonexistent guitar lessons, but the look in his eyes stops me before I can even start. It’s like he knows I’m going to object, that I’m going to have a solid reason to delay day one, and that he’s already prepared to force the obstacle out of his way.

And as much as I kind of hate that, I also kind of love it.

Dammit.

“Meet me at the Kissme Bay Marina at eleven,” he says.

It’s a statement, not a question. Instructions, not an invitation. Even though I want to be annoyed by it and buck against the directions, his tone stops me. It’s not commanding, not barking at me to do as he says. Kindness is heavily interwoven into the take-charge words of the man in front of me.

That’s why I let it go.

It’s also the combination of the two things that has a flurry of goose bumps bursting across my skin.

“Why the marina?” I ask. “I thought we were working out here.”

He winks at me. “Trust the process.”

“But—”

“Three days, Kaylee.”

I ignore the heat of his gaze and the way he brushes against my side as he walks toward the door. I don’t focus on the way my body tingles or how I’m a tiny bit light-headed from the smirk he left with me as he walked away.