“Sophie's eyes light up whenever you walk into a room. You don’t always see it, but I do. She completely adores you. When you’re not there, she talks about you all the time. You’ve made her entire world so happy.” Jake stepped back, pulling his arm from my grasp as he turned away from me, his hand going to his eyes.
“You are horrible at this game, Tuck.” The words held no heat. They couldn’t when he was busy keeping tears at bay.
I grinned and gave a little bow before I wrapped my arms around his shoulders in a surprise attack, squeezing him before kissing his cheek soundly.
“I meant every word,” I said, brushing my hands together. “You talk a big game, but that was the easiest thing I’ve done all day.”
He attempted to stop me from going, but I skirted out of his reach, laughing. Needing some space, I began walking toward the next corral, where a lone steer was watching us. A real steer.
“You’re never going to get good practice with a cow that doesn’t move,” I called over my shoulder, graciously giving Jake a moment by himself. “I’m bringing this steer over, and you’re going to practice for real. I can’t have you embarrassing me tomorr?—”
All of a sudden, a rope fell from the air above me, sliding past my head and shoulders before finding its mark at my waist. My movement was halted, and I turned in surprise to find Jake the Cowboy standing at the other end of the rope with a dangerous smile across his face.
“My turn.”
My breathing, which had been normal up to that point, skittered to a stop.
He drew the rope slowly toward him, cinching it firmly around my waist, and began pulling me toward him. He kept therope taut in his grip and his eyes on me. His hair was tousled, his smile was mischievous, and my heart exploded with nerves.
“It figures that I’d have to show you how to do this right,” he said, a soft smile playing on his lips. The ruddiness from his cheeks, that had been there only a moment ago, was gone, replaced by a look in his eyes that gripped my heart and squeezed.
By the time I was standing in front of him, my body was one touch away from cardiac arrest.
His fingers found the waistband of my jeans and ever so slowly, drew me closer. Flames ignited inside of me, but we were in the middle of a battle, and so I tried desperately to hide the heat growing on my face, to no avail. He was on to me.
“Blushing already, Tuck? I haven’t even done anything to you yet.”
With my body now pressed against his and his arms currently wrapping themselves around my waist, I begged to differ.
We were laughing, and then we weren’t. We were smiling, and then…we weren’t. I felt his eyes everywhere. Behind his heated gaze, a touch of sadness still lingered. His lips were growing closer. And then I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Jake,” I whispered, his mouth a breath away. “What is this?”
A part of me died inside at breaking into this moment. Whatever it was. Maybe I should have waited. But I had been waiting. Nobody on earth had ever wanted to kiss somebody more than I wanted to kiss Jake right now. But that was the problem. I wanted it too much to let it happen this way. If I was going to move in a week without a boyfriend, I wanted to know. There was still time to dial back the clock.
If he kissed me now, it was over for me.
Jake bit his lip and looked down at me. His eyes shone with a hint of humor, but mostly, they were just lit with something that had my toes curling.
Maybe I didn’t need to know. There was a fun sort of spontaneity in not knowing, in just acting and reacting without definition. We could figure it all out later.
But I wasn’t seventeen. I was a grown woman with a job waiting for me in Boise. And Jake had a daughter. He had set clear boundaries between us at the beginning of the summer. We needed to define this before it went any further. So I took a step backward and waited.
“You’re kind of nosy, you know that?” Jake said softly, his eyes brushing sweetly across my lips.
“If this really is some idiotic final exam from your subpar coaching, you'd better tell me now.”
“Subpar?” he said, affronted. His fingers gripped the belt loop of my jeans, pulling me against his body once more.
“Yeah,” I whispered, bracing myself for impact as he looked like he was about to ignore my question. And heaven help me, I was going to let him.
But before he could kiss me, the crunch of tires on gravel broke into our spell. We turned and saw the truck of the one person who had a special knack for ruining everything.
28
JAKE
If I didn’t hateCole Evans already, I hated him now.