Tumble (Dogwood Lane 1)

I bring my cup to my mouth. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your dad you said that.”

He laughs. “Please don’t. I’d never hear the end of it.”

My laugh melts together with his, and for this one split second, I breathe easy and enjoy a familiarity I haven’t had with anyone in so long. “How’s your brother?”

“Same. Total asshole. But Matt works for me now, so that gives me some leverage.”

“I bet that’s a fun day on the jobsite.”

“It’s a real treat.” He regrips his cup, the veins in his forearm flexing. “We work together pretty well, actually. We have quite a little crew. Get a lot of work.”

My eyes travel up his muscled bicep, over his wide shoulders, and up his thick neck. I gulp. “I bet you’re good at it.” I think back to the way he could strum a guitar or fix practically anything. “You always were good with your hands.”

As soon as the words pass my lips, I realize what I’ve done. He fights a smirk. I want to die.

“Thanks,” he quips, the smirk growing by the second.

Sticking the coffee between us, I shake my head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

Pulling the cup to my lips to hide my errant blush, I override the part of my brain telling me to leave. A grin kisses his lips, and I hold my breath for whatever is to come.

“If anyone would know how good I am at anything, it would be you,” he says.

It’s true at face value, but the innuendo is right there for the taking. My thighs clench together as I consider what Dane could do to me now. With that body. With those lips. With that damn smirk.

The latter grows deeper. He thinks he has me. He might be right. But just as he might not completely be the bad boy next door anymore, I’m also not the naive teenager who wears her heart on her sleeve. And I’m definitely not a fool.

Tossing my shoulders back, I shrug. “It’s hard to remember after all these years. You’ve kind of faded from my mind.” Lies, lies. All lies.

We stand eye to eye, our chests rising and falling in time. I need to leave. I need fresh, un-Dane-scented air. But if I do, he may misinterpret it, and I refuse to let him have the upper hand.

“You married?” he asks nonchalantly, but there’s a hint of deception in his eyes. He’s bracing himself for my reaction, knowing, or at least suspecting, his tiptoe into these waters won’t be met with grace.

He’d be right.

A bucket of cold water douses the warmth of the moment, and I shiver. My guard comes up and locks into place. “I think the real question is, are you?”

“Nope. Never been married.”

My eyes grow wide before I can catch them. Why that answer surprises me I don’t know, and before I can think about it too much, I change the topic.

“Nice shiner you got there,” I note, nodding toward his eye.

“If I told you how I got this, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“That’s a fact,” I tell him. Biting my lip to suppress the tangent I’m about to go on, about how I wouldn’t believe much at face value with him, I give up. It’s time to go. “You know what? I gotta go. Thanks for the coffee.”

“I know you think back then, before you left, that I . . . that things . . .” He removes his hat and roughs a hand through his hair. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.” He drops his hand, his jaw set.

“You’re right,” I say, my mouth hot as I gulp in a steadying breath of air. “It doesn’t matter. Good to see you, Dane. Take care.” I tip my coffee toward him.

He doesn’t move as I step around him toward the door. He doesn’t call out as my palm grips the handle and twists it. He doesn’t follow me as I walk by the windows toward my car with a step quicker than can be explained as natural.

He also doesn’t stop watching me, because his gaze burns a hole in my profile.

It’s the second time he’s burned me. It’ll be the last.

CHAPTER THREE

DANE

Splat!

The sound of the hammer—swung with more force than was necessary, to boot—crushing my thumb ricochets across the front lawn. The tool falls from my hand, striking against the sawhorse, and flips into the soft grass with a gentle thud.

“Son of a . . . Shit!” My hand shakes, the top of my thumb threatening to explode. I tilt my head to the sky and try to find some peace in the clouds.

I come up empty.

“Matt!” I call to my younger brother. “I’m taking ten.”

He nods from halfway up the ladder leaned against the side of the house.

Wrapping my good hand around my thumb, I head toward my truck. Sounds of construction ring out behind me. It’s usually music to my ears, the lifeblood of the Madden name. But each cut of a sawblade, buzz of a power drill, and swing of a hammer feels like a distraction this morning. I have a throbbing thumb to show for it.