“Did he ever find out you were obsessed with him?”
“No way!”
“Why not?”
“Because I never told anyone.”
Linden pauses at a four way stop, tapping the steering wheel with his thumb “Not even him?”
“Especially not him.”
He turns right. “Why not?”
“I was a gawky fifteen year old with braces and chunky thighs. He would have laughed at me.”
He narrows his eyes. “I’ll bet he would’ve given his left nut to know you even gave him a passing thought.”
“Whatever.” I slide the bracelet around my wrist. I like the way the delicate chain brushes my skin. It reminds me of Linden’s gentle touch. His steady, unrelenting focus.
“I feel like I should know how old you were when Greta was born,” I ask.
We cruise down a tree-lined street. “Twenty two.”
That makes him thirty-seven, or -eight. At least ten years my senior. Some people might think that’s too big of a gap, but itdoesn’t feel that way to me.Experienced, Quinn said. Another rush of heat washes through my belly.
I want to ask if Greta was planned, but that feels too personal. And I think I know the answer because what twenty-two year old male signs up for fatherhood at such a young age?
“How long have you been divorced?” I can just see Darienne looking down her nose at me if she thinks it hasn’t been long enough.
He takes a left, toward the country club. “Four years.”
“What made you pursue a career as a firefighter?” Maybe in the context of us being a believable couple, he’ll bite at this question that’s been roaming around in my mind.
“Fatherhood.”
A practical answer, and I have no doubt there’s truth to it, yet... “Did you know a firefighter growing up?”
“No.”
Gone is the playful edge to his tone. We’ve hit that invisible force field again. The one I can feel but not see. The one he doesn’t want me to cross.
Chapter Seventeen
When Linden parks,I reach for the door handle but he stops me with a stern, “Stay put,” so I fidget with my new bracelet and try not to stare too long at the thick curls left wild at the nape of his neck and his muscular shoulders flexing beneath his shirt as he crosses in front of the truck to open my door for me.
Has he always been this handsome and I just couldn’t see it? Or has something happened to us since he carried me down the mountain and saved my life?
He swings open my door. Framed by the cerulean summer sky and dressed so sharp, I can’t contain the flutter working up my chest. I slip my hand into his big, calloused palm and climb down. But touching him only heightens the electric buzz firing under my skin. And with it comes a sudden ache between my thighs. It’s reckless, almost urgent.
I’ve never had a craving like this before.
Linden offers me his arm and I feign a laugh while the temperature inside my core flashes to critical levels. We cross the hot pavement, my heels clicking in time with the scuff of his boots.
“Are there jobs I can help with once we get inside?” He reaches to open the big door for me.
“Everything should be set.”
Once inside the country club, I practically squeal. The big poster of my dad on the field, his smile a mile wide seconds before getting the cooler of ice water dumped on his head after winning state is set up on the easel with the blue and white balloons just like I planned. So what if the blue is more of a teal thanks to Darienne’s meddling. It doesn’t matter now.
