Foolish girl.
Just because they’d spent the past two weeks climbing in and out of each other’s beds. The gazebo. The loft in the old barn. The mill, on a blanket spread beneath a glass roof he seemed to love as much as she did.
What did days of sexual bliss really mean to a man like him?
It was her problem, her fault, if she’d let thoughts of where this was going—orcouldgo—lead her down a garden path.
Sex wasn’t the snag, either.
It was the movies with Kit and Luca, candlelit dinners across her shaky kitchen table, going to the shelter with the boys to adopt a dog, walking the fields with him and debating what crop could go where, what the soil might need to make that happen.
It was Campbell taking her hand, so sweet and simple a gesture she couldn’t help but lose her heart and part of her mind.
As she crossed the yard, because it was too late to slink away, Fontana slipped off her hairband, letting the strands trail over her shoulders and fall into her face. Campbell liked it down, he liked it tangled, he liked it sweaty, and she needed all the fortification she could get.
She was a mess, unprepared for lover-to-lover presentations—her jeans smeared with dirt, blood on her shirt from a stubborn rosebush.Naturally beautiful, my ass.
Closing in on the house, she viewed the couple as if they were a romcom running in slow motion, finding nothing heartwarming about it. Her, leaning into him, a flower bending toward sunlight. Both of them smiling. Nothing obscene or obvious. They weren’t touching, but there was acloseness, a familiarity no meager space between them could erase.
This would be his world when he left. Beautiful women and meaningless charm.
She was almost upon them and feeling like she had a grip, was prepared, doing A-okay. Then ‘Nothing Special’ plucked the toothpick from between Campbell’s lips and slipped it between her own. A sly grin followed to hold it in place.
And for the first time in her life—over an idiotman—Fontana’s vision flooded crimson.
CAMPBELL
One look at her, and Campbell knew he was fucked.
Marching down the pebbled path that snaked through winter-dead grass, her hideous combat boots kicked up dust like a car barreling down a dirt lane.Oh, she looked incredible, hot and a little undone. Like she had after two hours of ferocious sex on the bed of his truck last night, beneath a sky he could have yanked a thousand stars from.
Memories of the last two weeks crashed over him like a strong tide, his body kicking into gear as he shifted from one foot to the other.
His dick was set on embarrassing him—not playing nice at all.
Damn, did she tear him up. And damn, did he have itbad.
He was pretty sure he was in love with a woman who looked like she wanted to kick his ass from here to her cottage across the field.
“Yikes, she looks mad.”
Campbell sighed and slid a pained glance Jessica’s way, momentarily forgetting she was there, observing the entire production. Flawless hair, flawless clothes, flawless teeth. Nothing hewanted, but packaged perfectly enough to set any woman off. “I’m happy to see you, Jess, but frankly, your timing sucks.”
It was the toothpick. Somehow, he just knew it was the damn toothpick.
How could he argue with Fontana’s jealousy when he’d blown a gasket after Henry called her last week? The second she hung up, he made her say his name as he took her against the kitchen wall like they had moments left to live, to breathe.
Like he was losing it.
Which, he supposed, he was.
The clock was ticking, and it was starting to make him crazy.
Jessica looked at him closely before stepping back, out of reach. His expression must have said,I’m in big trouble. “So, this is why you haven’t returned my calls. Gorgeous, dirty girl in Jeep.”
“No. Maybe.” He cursed under his breath. “Yes.”
Jessica laughed, a husky sound he prayed to God didn’t travel.
