“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked, smile gone. He reached for me.
“I think I stepped into a spider web.”
“Yep. You did. You’ve got some…” He reached for my hair and I shrieked.
“Stop. Let me get it.”
“Is there a spider? Oh my god, don’t tell me. Is there?”
“No spider,” he said, pulling things off my hair and shoulders. I closed my eyes and waited until he was done. Finally, he pulled me into his arms. “You were very brave.”
“Damn right I was. You guys could do a Halloween haunted house thing out here and barely have to decorate.”
He held onto my arms and pushed me back. “Lexie. That’s such a good idea.”
“You don’t usually do anything for Halloween?”
“Not for years.”
I rolled my eyes at him. This family, talk about one-track minds. It was Christmas and nothing but Christmas. “Well, you should think about it.”
“I’m not sure it would do any good,” Ethan said. “Dad can’t run it and none of us can take the place on full-time.”
My heart fell. I’d forgotten they were trying to give the inn a good year so they could sell it at a better price. I’d forgotten and I’d gone and gotten attached. “Why the face?” he asked, stroking my cheeks.
“It’s just sad thinking of other people running this place.”
He looked at me for a long time. “Why the face?” I asked him back, screwing the tip of my finger into his cheek until his dimple came out.
“I’m thinking all the things in my head that you won’t let me say out loud.”
My breath hitched. Our bellies touching. Be brave I thought. And at the same time I thought, don’t be stupid.
“What kinds of things?” I asked bravely, but the coward in me stared at his chin. Not his eyes.
“That you should be on the team running the place. That even if we sell the inn you could get a job doing anything in this town. Maybe running the Christmas Jamboree.”
“I haven’t seen the Christmas Jamboree,” I whispered. Which wasn’t a declaration of my staying in Salt Springs but it wasn’t not a declaration.
“Well, we’ll go tonight.”
I smiled at him and caught his eye for a second. “You say that every night.”
“And every night you take your clothes off and I get distracted.”
“Tonight, you mean it?”
“Keep your clothes on and let’s see if we can get out the door.”
“What if…” I glanced around. No one was up here. And the barn was quiet. “What if I took off my clothes now?”
“Here?” His eyebrows went up.
I unzipped my jacket and shrugged it off, carefully hanging it on a machine behind me. The clothes I’d ordered had come in and I was wearing a pair of black velvet leggings and a shimmering silver chemise that actually came all the way down to my waist. I thought I looked like a PTA mom, but Jasmine and Kristen assured me I did not.
Ethan took off his sunglasses and threw them on the ground behind him. “You’re going to let me fuck you here? In my dad’s workshop?” He unzipped his coat. “Sawdust and spiderwebs—”
“Stop talking.”
He grinned at me, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing me until I forgot about the spiderwebs. Until I forgot about my reservations and Henny’s voice in my head and every lesson I ever learned at my mother’s knee and I let myself, just a little… be loved.
Ethan
Every time I had sex with Lexie, it was the best sex I’d ever had. I didn’t know if that was statistically possible, but it was real in my brain. And my heart. The more I knew her, the more I liked her. The more I kissed her, the more I wanted her.
If I hadn’t wanted her to leave two weeks ago, I was in agony now. But I could see how my patience was working and she was slowly, slowly starting to see us the way I saw us.
Wreathed in possibility. Anchored in something real.
It wasn’t about love, because I was pretty sure love was on its way for her. It was about trust. And I needed to be patient to win that.
Building the stage for her put a big W in my column and I hadn’t even shown her the little PA system I’d rented for the night.
At 7 p.m. I walked into the inn and found her at the front desk talking to Jasmine and Kristen. They were huddled together, coffee cups in their hands, laughing about something. Baby Girl, the traitor, was cuddled up in my sister’s arms.
Nice, dog. Real nice.
“That’s not coffee in those cups is it?” I said, smiling because they were smiling.
“Ugh. My brother the buzzkill.” Kristen rolled her eyes so I punched her in the shoulder as I walked by. Over our many years together, we had a calibrated system of abuse.