I shiver, the air feeling colder around us. Like waking from a dream, I suddenly feel strange. Cash kissed me, and I kissed him back. It was good, but what will it mean? What will he expect?
And more importantly, what do I want?
“You’re cold?” Cash asks, rubbing my upper arm. His hand is big and warm, and the contrast makes me shiver again.
Nodding, I glance back to the house. “We should go back inside,” I say. “Do you think you could sleep now?”
His thumb traces my jaw, and his eyes are almost dreamy. “Maybe,” he replies softly.
Cash leaves me in the kitchen, where I return to my book. We don’t speak of what happened, maybe because neither of us truly knows what it will mean, but as I hear him retreat up the stairs, I press the tips of my fingers to my lips, closing my eyes and reliving the simple, perfect, kiss from a complex man all over again.
9
They're looking at me funny.
It's lunchtime, and there is nothing different about anything I've prepared. I've made thick sandwiches filled with meat and cheese, exactly the way the Bradfords like them. There's a hot apple pie on the counter that has scented the air in the kitchen with sweet cinnamon. The boys are all dusty and sweaty from their morning labors and talking about work, so no change there.
But alongside all of that, I keep catching things that make me certain Cash has told them about the kiss. It's there in the way that Colt winks at me when he walks in the door and the way Cary sneaks a little sideways glance at me when I sit down to join them for lunch. It's in the extra furrow between Scott's brow and the small, intrigued smile Sawyer gives me too.
And Cash?
Well, he's acting as though nothing happened, except for when he comes to help me bring food to the table and his fingers brush mine. The rhythm of his breathing seems to falter just from that single touch. And his eyes meet mine like he's passing me a bolt of electricity. I have no idea what to do with that much static. No idea how to handle the way his proximity warms every part of me.
And still no idea what is going to happen next.
It's not a feeling I can deal with without frustration. I like life to be predictable, and this is anything but.
But I know, despite all the resentment that I felt when I moved here, I want Cash to kiss me again.
In the book I'm reading, the main characters share a hungry kiss, and for the first time in my life, I can really imagine what it's like. Except my kiss was better than the author described for the heroine. It was so good that it kept me awake last night. So good that all morning, I've found myself paused and still with my fingers pressed to my lips. Thank goodness it's only been Big Boy here to see my foolishness.
"What do you have planned for this afternoon?" I glance up, waiting for one of his brothers to answer but find his gaze on me.
"Err…well, I need to clean up after lunch, and there's some laundry to do. Plus, I thought I'd bake some of those blueberry muffins y'all polished off in record time."
He nods, lowering his sandwich. "Would you like to come out with us? We're driving out to look at a horse."
A horse? I'm pretty sure they have plenty of those, although I've never ventured out to the stables myself. And why does Cash want me to come?
I risk looking around and find all of the Bradfords have paused chewing, waiting for my response. This is definitely to do with the kiss, and my cheeks are telling everyone that I know it.
Ugh. My traitorous complexion leaves nothing a secret.
"Err…sure. What time?"
"As soon as we're done here," Cash says.
"Well, okay. As long as you don't mind dinner being a little later," I say.
Cash nods as though that's fine and Scott mutters something unintelligible under his breath, and inside, my heart flutters like the wings of a bird taking its first flight.
"Did you call the vet to look at that foot?" Sawyer asks Colt.
"I did. He can't come out until tomorrow. He advised me to strap a block onto it so the cow can walk."
"It's in the shed, so I don't think that'll be necessary. Poor thing is just standing there, trying to keep its weight on three legs."
"It's an abscess," Scott says.
"Probably," Cash agrees.
I'm used to this kind of gross conversation at mealtime, so it doesn't put me off my food, but I imagine how Connie's friend Sandy might feel about cow foot pus being discussed over lunch, and I have to stifle a snigger. Or Amber. She's grown up around this kind of thing but strikes me as a woman who'd expect the ranch to be left at the door and everything in the house to be cupcakes and flowers.