Page 38 of Unpacking Secrets
I was absolutely certain that I had no desire to try.
Blue trotted out into the water until it reached her belly, then pounced excitedly at a school of tiny fish. Juliet laughed when the dog returned to my side to shake herself off, sending a spray of lake water all over me. I yelped and shifted closer to use Juliet as a shield, dragging her partway across my lap in the process.
She shrieked when the cold droplets of water hit her skin. Laughter rumbled low in my chest and I grinned down at her.
“Hey! I’m injured!”
“Oh, I don’t know, Red. You said you werefine,” I replied, letting my gaze travel over her, lingering for the barest second at the lacy neckline of her shirt, “and I’m inclined to agree.”
I reached up to brush a drop of water from her chin before settling her back into her spot beside me. Much to my delight, her cheeks flamed in response to the soft sweep of my fingers. That blush was something I was determined to invoke as frequently as possible when I noted the appealing shade of pink creeping along those delicate cheekbones.
Still, I was gracious enough to give her time to compose herself while I leaned away to grab a stick and hurl it down the shoreline. Blue chased after it with joyous bounds.
“Let me know if you get tired and want to head back,” I said when I turned back to her. “Libby will rip me a new one if she thinks I’m delaying your recovery.”
Juliet didn’t look worn out, in my opinion, not in the slightest. With the breeze lifting curling tendrils away from her face and the sunlight brightening those turquoise eyes, she was absolutely breathtaking.
I had to force my gaze away before I did something stupid like lean in to kiss her, so I took advantage of Blue’s return to throw the stick again.
“You agreed that I’m fine,” she replied after a moment.
The hint of challenge in her tone had me grinning. In an attempt to resist touching her again, I eased back onto the rock until I was lying down with my arms folded behind my head.
“I did, indeed,” I murmured, closing my eyes.
When I finally snuck a glance at Juliet beside me from under my mostly-closed lids, the serene expression on her face unleashed a strange flutter in my chest. Blue returned with the stick and Juliet had to lean across my body to reach it. I felt her shifting, so I opened my eyes fully, admiring the way her shirt lifted to reveal a smooth swath of skin at the small of her back when she launched the stick.
I’m such an idiot.
I'd thought to put a little distance between us by lying back on the rock, not to torment myself further. Last night had been a revelation—when I stepped into that bathroom, everything inside me coiled tight, desperate to drop my attention to those creamy bare shoulders hovering just at the edge of my field of vision. My entire body had gone tense with the effort of resisting that urge, and now? The feeling was only growing stronger.
If she hadn’t been injured, if I hadn’t been such an asshole in those early days, if I was sure she’d really forgiven me, I would have lifted a hand to trail my fingertips across her back. Hell, I might have even tugged at her arm just hard enough to send her sprawling atop me again.
It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from reaching for her. This new pull between us was damn near irresistible, though I couldn’t quite pinpoint why.
While I was focused on getting control of myself, Juliet sighed softly. The whisper of breath was barely audible over the sounds of the lake, but I sat up slowly and touched her shoulder, almost by reflex. Her skin was as soft as I remembered from the night before. Biting back a groan, I dropped my hand.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded, keeping her eyes on the water, but I could see her copper brows drawn together, a tiny dip between them.
“Just thinking. If it wasn’t a gunshot I heard up there, what else could it have been?”
I puffed out my cheeks as I considered. “A tree branch breaking? We had some bad storms last winter, and sometimes trees get damaged enough to split a branch from the trunk. They don’t always fall right away.”
“It sounded close,” she added softly. “Close enough and loud enough to startle me into stepping back too far at the edge of the ravine. I thought . . . ”
“You thought what?”
She bit her lip and the crease between her eyebrows deepened. “It’s stupid, but I thought I saw someone up there, right after I fell. I was still dizzy, though, then it was gone. It was probably just an animal.”
Every minute of my hike with Blue, from hopping out of the truck to buckling Juliet into it, replayed behind my eyes. I’d seen nothing unusual, and the only thing Blue charged toward was Juliet, but those woods were huge. Definitely big enough to get lost in, intentionally or otherwise.
And her sketchbook was still missing.
She could have knocked it off the other side of the cliff when she fell, but Mark had gone back out with his hiking buddies the next morning to check the base of the ravine. There’d been no sign of it.
Someone might have picked it up between yesterday and today, but it seemed unlikely.
