Is he thinking of her now?
Shaking my head, I step back and grab my cardigan.
“Where are you going, freckles?” Kade asks, closing the distance between us.
Stomach twisting painfully, mind a mess, I move toward the door, needing a minute to get my head right. “Your mom asked me to help her with laundry day.”
He watches me slip into my tennis-shoes, brows high. “You do know what that means, right? It’s not just a load in the wash at the Big House.”
I scoff, rolling my eyes and adjusting the part in my long, yellow sundress that matches Aurora’s. I’m an idiot. Dressing like her. Like we’re… like we’re…
Stupid fool. Stupid hopeful, head in the clouds, heart in your vagina, fool.
“I know,” I say, voice harsher than intended as I move toward the door. “She explained it. It’s hanging sheets on the clotheslines. I’ve done it before. How hard can it be, Kade?”
I can feel my blank mask slipping into place and I hate it. Hate that I’m like this.
He stares at me for a long moment, jaw ticking before shaking his head and dragging me into him, planting a lingering, delicious kiss on my lips that has my toes curling and my mind momentarily forgetting to panic over…
Nothing?
Everything?
I don’t know anymore, and that’s the problem.
“Good luck. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Turns out, hanging sheets is a lot harder than it looks.
For one, they’re heavy as hell.
Second, the wind is a menace.
And third, Bea Archer has what I’m convinced is the largest clothesline system in the entire state.
By the time I’m halfway through my fifth row, I’m sweating like crazy, my hair’s fallen out of its clip, and the clean sheets keep slapping me in the face like Abby when she’s had too much Vodka.
Still, it’s weirdly calming.
There’s something about the repetition, the clothespins, the fluttering fabric, the golden sun above, that soothes the part of me still trying to find my footing in this town, this farm.
With Kade.
After an hour, my mind is more collected than before, and I’ve had multiple full-blown arguments with myself about letting go of this weird jealousy I have about Marlee.
The woman is dead, and being jealous of a ghost is only going to destroy what’s growing—and make me miserable.
Not to mention… an awful human being.
She passed. She’s not here to raise her daughter. Aurora will never see her mom again.
Being jealous of that is awful.
But, simply telling myself to stop is impossible. Only time will make the ache and life's worth of insecurity stop.
I’m reaching for another sheet, arms stretched high, when a low whistle cuts through the air.
“Damn, baby,” a familiar voice drawls. “Sun behind your back, pretty tits heaving in that dress… Even your shadow’s tryin’ to kill me.”
