She opened her mouth, thought better of it, shook her head, sighed.
When he laughed, she fought the powerful urge to smackhim. “Where are we going?” she finally asked, once it was clear they weren’t headed to the cottage or the Rise. They were driving out of town, racing sunset to its close. It matched her emotions, glorious and blustery, streaks of cobalt cutting through a marigold sky.
He glanced at the clouds, then at her for one blistering second, before snapping his gaze back to the road. “It’s a phenomenon called scattering. Sunsets, I mean. Molecules and small particles in the atmosphere bend light rays, make them scatter. You see red so easily because it has the longest wavelength of any visible light. Violet’s harder, our eyes can’t catch it. But a camera can. A lens picks it up without hesitation.”
She turned to face him. “Oh my God, you were a science geek.”
He blinked, took his hand off the wheel long enough to give his glasses a bolstering shove. “Well, um, I guess. A lot of photography is light and angles, physics, so I minored in it. Figured it’d give me a leg up.”
“I think geeks are sexy.”
His hand flexed around hers, his top lip dragging over his bottom in a move that sent a dart of heat straight between her thighs like it had a target. A dimple flickered to life on the side she could see and held. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she whispered, resting her cheek against the seat as she let everything she felt for him flow through her.
No more barriers. No more roadblocks.
It would take time to lean on him, to let him carry even a piece of the weight she’d hauled alone. That was why he’d been hurt: he thought she didn’t trust him. But she did. With herlife.
Campbell was protective, and that melted her heart, but she loved him too much—loved Hannah and Jaime too much—to put them in the line of fire.Herline of fire.
She would never regret going after that bastardalone.
Maybe it was better to keep this to herself.
Gravel crunched as he pulled into the mill’s deserted lot, the truck shuddering with the downshift. He caught her grimace and patted the dashboard, his hooded gaze sweeping deliberately from her face to her scuffed, well-loved boots. “Good bones. History. Not seeking perfection.”
The laugh came from deep inside, surprising her. His answering one was all she desired. No need to ask what he had planned. Her future was unfurling before her like silk sheets on a sun-warmed bed. Sheets she wanted to drag him onto, flushed and bare.
“Cam,” she breathed, aching.
He leaned in, brushing his thumb over her bottom lip, his breath a whisper against her skin. He smelled of citrus and smoky winters, and beneath that, the sharp trace of darkroom chemicals.
He smelled like Campbell Loman True. Her one and only.
The kiss was gentle. Tentative. An appeal.
Forgiveness. Acceptance.Desire.
He toyed with her—advance, retreat—not teasing, but hesitant, slightly uncertain. To steady them both, to anchor her faith in what they were building, she sank into the moment and let him lead.
I trust you. I want you. I need you.
His fingers tangled in her hair as their tongues slid, circled, entwined. He dropped his hands to either side of her, pinning her in. “What’s this?” he asked, voice ragged, his chest hitching beneath that gorgeous sweater. “My girl’s letting me drive? I’m stunned.”
His eyes were the color of oak when they met hers, the amber flecks she loved so much glowing like embers over dry brush. Words were lost to the sound of the wind and branches colliding in the distance. Uneven breaths, gentle moans, and the squeak of aged leather as they tried to get closer.
“Uh-huh, Quinn. You and your wildly hypnotic kisses aren’t throwing me off my game,” Campbell whispered, already out and rounding the front of the truck with that easy, grounded stride, an overnight bag he’d grabbed from the back clutched in his fist.
He opened her door just as she got it ajar, lifting a brow. She arched one in return, the silent exchange sparking a crooked smile from him. Then they were moving—around broken brick, fallen branches, bits of windblown trash. She tried not to stare at his impossibly broad shoulders, at the way faded denim clung to an ass she could’ve bounced a quarter off.
No geek she’d ever known had a body like his.
They strolled through the gate he’d once shattered with a swift kick, and the possibilities hit her. Soft, scattered, and unexpected, like raindrops.
She frowned as they stepped into the mill, scanning for answers. Rooms she’d walked through just days ago were now in a strange state of restoration, caught between ruin and revival.
The sound of Campbell’s other girl, Etta James, drifted like smoke through the air. Fontana stepped into what she liked to call her greenhouse and stopped so fast he bumped into her. Candles flickered on the floor and along the narrow window ledges, casting flushed shadows over pitted planks. A quilt and pillows, ones she recognized from her cottage, were spread across the floor. And flowers. Not roses—Campbell wasn’t the conventional type—but at least five vases spilled over with wild blooms, the kind that curled her toes just to look at them.
