Once Upon a Campfire (Meet Cute Romance 6)

“Maybe. Hard not to, looking at that.” He nodded toward the view.

“Subtlety isn’t your strong suit.”

“I’m out of time for subtle. That is the unfortunate truth. You leave tomorrow.”

“And you think that’s a mistake.”

“It’s not for me to say whether it’s a mistake. I just know I don’t want you to go.” He stroked a thumb across her cheek. “That spark didn’t fizzle, Sarah.”

No, it definitely hadn’t. But was this pull she felt with him the real deal? Or was he just another challenge? Something she’d started and felt compelled to see to the end?

“How do you see this working? For better or worse, my sister gets here tomorrow to take her rightful place. There’s no job waiting here for me, even if I was free to take it. Which I’m not. I’m going to finish my thesis. I’m going to finish my Master’s degree. I cannot have come this far down that path and not finish. Not when I’m this close.”

Beckett laced his fingers with hers. “And what about finishing what you started here? With me? Or is this week it? Are we at the end, when we’ve barely even begun?”

Sarah framed his face between her palms, searching the blue-gray eyes so steady on hers. “I don’t want this to be the end. But I don’t—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Just stop right there. I don’t need to hear the but. It’s enough for me to know you don’t want to walk away.”

“But how will we—”

“We’ll figure it out.”

It was the kind of loose, optimistic planning Taylor was so prone to. The sort that usually ended in a crash and burn. Much as she wanted to give things a chance to work with Beckett, she couldn’t see how they possibly would. What chance did a neuropsych grad student, who lived in Brooklyn, and an ex-national park ranger, who didn’t even know where he’d be at the end of the summer, have of meeting in the middle long enough to see if they had a shot?

But as she sat with him at the top of their immediate world, Sarah found she didn’t want to think about it. Instead, she leaned forward to brush her lips over his, determined to make the most of what little time they had left.

~*~

Beckett checked his watch, calculating how much time they had left before someone—Sarah or Taylor herself—would have to be slotted into the rotation for certification testing. Not a lot. He and Sarah stood at the edge of the staff parking lot, well away from all the goings on. She paced restlessly from one edge to the other, agitated that her sister hadn’t shown up when she’d promised.

Was Taylor going to show at all?

Sarah’s bags were packed. She was all set to walk away, and he didn’t know what he was going to do about it. He’d lain awake half the night, turning the problem over in

his head, wondering if he could convince her to give long distance a shot. It wasn’t ideal, but maybe…

Beckett opened his mouth to say so.

“Where is she?” Sarah demanded. “She texted me when her flight landed in Boston. She should be here by now.” She pulled out her phone and glared at it before shoving it back into her pocket.

This was not the right time, and she wasn’t in the right mood, but he was out of time waiting for the right anything. He stepped into the path of her pacing, hands coming up to cup her shoulders. “Breathe. She’ll be here when she’s here. You’ve got this covered. You made sure of that.”

“I just knew something like this was going to happen.” She vibrated with tension and nerves, staring at the entrance to the parking lot, as if that would make Taylor appear.

Not what he wanted her thinking about. “Sarah, look at me. Please.”

She lifted those big doe eyes to his. “I don’t want this to come crashing down on you and get you in any kind of trouble.”

“I’m fine. That’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay.”

He felt her attention really shift to him then and slid his hands down to take hers. He hoped that was enough. “I don’t want today to be goodbye.”

Regret twisted that pretty mouth. “I—”

“Just let me finish. I know you’re headed back to Brooklyn, and I know you’re writing your thesis this summer, but there’s no reason we can’t still see each other. It’s only two and a half hours away. I get time off. You could come up for a visit between writing stints.”