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“So.”

  The tone in her voice filled him with dread. There was a question coming, dragging down that single word. This was why he’d suggested Duncan coming with them earlier, to act as some sort of a buffer so he wouldn’t have to address the thing with Da’s house. He wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  “Yeah?” He set his toe on the line and aimed.

  She waited for him to throw and then asked, “How was Connecticut?”

  “Great. Really great. Want another beer?” When she nodded, he ambled around the bar, making a show of motioning to Rafe that he was taking two more. He marked off the tally by the cash register.

  “It’s scary, you know,” he said, when he saw she was watching him, waiting for him to go on. He held the pint glass with one hand, the brass pull with the other. “To start over somewhere else. I mean, completely start over. I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.”

  That had just fallen out, and when he glanced up, he saw Jen watching him with complete understanding. “Sometimes,” she said, “being scared is the best thing for you.”

  He nodded at the head on the ale rising up over the lip of the glass. “It’s a challenge. I’ve never had a challenge before.” That was a strange realization. “Wow. No, I haven’t.”

  “Tell me about you after I left for college.” She’d switched her darts to one hand and leaned into a chair, all her focus on him.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. You left. Hemmertex opened later that year. The next two years I exploded with lawn maintenance jobs. Enough to buy equipment and hire help. Then I realized that I had just enough interest and talent to start suggesting landscape changes, but I didn’t know enough about the actual land and the plants, so the next summer I went after my associate online. The first class, the first book I cracked open, I knew I’d found it, what I was meant to be. All those days with Da in the yard, and me staying in the valley, it all clicked. I had the knowledge. The focus. I didn’t even have to go after clients; they came to me. I was booked solid. And now . . .”

  “And now you’re going to start something even better.”

  It was still scary as fuck, but she was absolutely right. Connecticut would change him, and he couldn’t wait.

  When he came around the bar and handed her the beer, she asked, “Why didn’t you go out and look for it?”

  “‘It’?”

  She sipped. “What you needed.”

  Of course she would say that. She, who had left everything behind to go after her own “it.”

  He put down his glass, a little more forcefully than intended, and red ale splashed to the wood. “Because of Da,” he answered, then turned his back on her to throw.

  The muffled thunk of the darts hitting the board, one two three, released the sharp, sudden tension that had built inside him. He exhaled, pleased at closing out twenty.

  He knew she was waiting for him to expand, to explain. His reason for staying in Gleann was Da, and he’d leave it at that, until the words felt comfortable on his tongue.

  “I have to go back,” he told her. “To Connecticut.”

  “When?” There was a telltale sag to her shoulders, a little hitch in her voice. Her disappointment made his chest expand with something other than breath.

  “Not sure. Soon, though. I can do some work here, some design and planning, but I’ll need to be on-site more and more. Definitely need to find an apartment and arrange transport and storage of my equipment.”

  “Right. Absolutely,” she replied, way too quickly. “Hey, did you know there’s an actual town in Connecticut called Scotland?”

  Then she threw, hitting two bull’s-eyes to win the game.

  “Two out of three,” he offered, and she clinked his glass in agreement.

  Four more beers on his side—because you only got better the more you drank, is what Da always said—and no more on hers, he won the second game.

  Then she won the third.

  “Fuck.” He stood two feet from the dartboard, hands on hips, glaring at where the metal tip of her dart had juuuust slipped inside the triple sixteen for the win. He was just buzzed enough to turn and give her a wildly, purposely flirtatious smile. “So what do you want from me? I’m all yours.”

  The look in her eyes said it wasn’t kissing, but then again, he could be wrong.

  Please, please be wrong.

  “Come with me.”

  Then she reached out and took his hand, and it tripped a live wire in his system. That strange, simple touch. His fingers closed tightly around hers, like a reflex. Like one of those patient, silent plants that sat open, waiting for food to wander in, and when it did, the plant closed around it. Never letting go until that unsuspecting creature was inside the plant forever, part of its being.

  He held on to her, feeling the little roots she didn’t know she’d planted burrow under his skin. He’d lost and had no idea what she wanted from him, but he followed willingly. She was giggling in a way that suggested she’d either reverted back to childhood or that she was drunk—which he knew she wasn’t, not on two beers—or that she was about to make him do something horribly embarrassing.

  She dragged him down the street and across the little bridge into the park with the gazebo and the playground and the . . . Oh shit.

  Releasing his hand, she opened her arms and spun around to him. “You and me, Leith MacDougall, are going to relocate this caber.”

  Relocating is what they’d used to call their teenage habit of taking things from someone’s yard and placing them somewhere else in town. Never destructive, never malicious, always got a laugh.

  He eyed her. “Where?”

  The exaggerated way she shrugged and rolled her eyes toward the sky in a faux-innocent way scared the crap out of him. In a good way.

  “What do you have up your sleeve?” he asked.

  “Just get over there and pick up that heavy end.” She gestured to the thicker part of the caber, the tip that first struck the ground after it was thrown.

  “This is vandalism, you know,” he said as he unclamped the metal ring holding the caber.

  “Yeah, and you’re the one who taught me how to do it and laugh about it.”

  He had, hadn’t he? All those years ago, he’d been the one to suggest taking the Thistle’s outdoor furniture and relocating it to the parking lot of the market. Bev hadn’t been happy, but after the town had got a good chuckle and Leith and Jen had moved all the furniture back, he’d caught Bev smiling.

  Jen had a bit of trouble getting the narrowed end of the caber down from the metal cradle, having to push up onto her tiptoes. Once she steadied it in her hands, her tongue stuck out in concentration, there was such a fantastic glimmer in her eyes, all he could do was stare.

  “I never get to do this anymore,” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “Have fun.”

  She said it all casual in the way you might say, “Have a sandwich.”

  He saw it then: an emptiness that decorated the edges of her soul. A sadness that he couldn’t remember having seen before. Maybe with age her resolve to hide it had cracked. Or maybe it was him. Maybe it was that part of her he thought he knew, but didn’t.

  The way she clutched the caber twisted her tank top. The moonlight settled into the lines of her arm and chest muscles, and made her dark hair gleam in a way that seemed almost magical. Moonlight had always been her friend.

  Moonlight and a sky full of stars, sprayed over the open top of a Cadillac.

  He cleared his throat, trying to clear his head in the process. “So now what, genius?”

  She nudged her chin back toward town, the sparkle returning. When she smiled, there was the tiniest of crinkles along one side of her nose. “To your truck.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  He blew out a breath, but he could feel his smile getting bigger and bigger. “Lead the way.”

  So she did. Together they balanced the caber between them, jostling its weight, shifting
between their hands, bursting into laughter as they tried to negotiate the nineteen-foot stick around the park hedgerows, then laughing so hard they had to rest when a car full of people rolled down the street, their eyes wide and fingers pointed.

  Finally they managed to hobble and wobble the thing to where he’d parallel parked his truck in front of the closed and dark gas station.

  “My God,” she said as he shifted the caber to one shoulder. “It’s huge.”

  “What is?” He lofted his end over the side of the truck bed, making the thing bounce. “My truck? Or my caber?”

  She let out a really unfeminine snort that did decidedly masculine things to his body. “Get up in there and hold the thing. I’m driving.”

  “No. No. No one drives my truck except me.”

  “You had, like, six beers.”

  “And I’m two hundred and forty pounds.”

  She patted the side of the truck. “I can’t hold that over the cab. Get up in there and hold it while I drive. I’ll go slow and careful. I promise.”

  “This is eight million kinds of illegal, you know, driving around with big stuff not strapped down.”

  She made a dramatic glance up and down the empty streets, then peered down the long stretch of Route 6, where there were no lights. No cars. “Who’s going to see? And besides, you’re Leith MacDougall. Come on, big guy. Pretty soon you’ll be in Connecticut and you won’t be able to go five miles over the limit before you’re thrown in the slammer. Enjoy your freedom, my friend.”

  Though he rolled his eyes, he hopped up into the cab and gripped the caber, swinging it up so the narrow tip rested on the truck cab and the thicker end was wedged well into a corner. He crouched, holding the whole thing in place. “Where to now, boss? Where are we relocating this thing?”

  He didn’t like the way she smiled at him, so full of secrets. “Keys?”

  After a slight pause, he dug into his pocket and tossed them down to her.

  “Just up the road,” she said. “Hemmertex. You’re going to throw that big stick for me.”

  Chapter

  12

  He wasn’t going to throw. There was no doubt about that. Yet he crouched in the back of his truck as the thing thundered under his boots, going where Jen was driving him. Because he’d lost the silly darts game? Partly. Because he didn’t want to let her go tonight? Most definitely.

  The caber was tilted up and over his head, his fingers latched around it from underneath. Funny how the weight and length of a caber could differ from place to place, competition to competition, but the feel of the wood was so similar.

  Jen kept her word and drove like an old lady on the way to church. She flicked on the brights as she pulled off Route 6 and headed down the long drive onto Hemmertex land. She crossed the empty parking lot on a diagonal, angling for the large lawn on the northeast side of the building. She killed the engine but kept the headlights blaring into the darkness.

  He stood as she exited the cab, and he felt like a giant looking down at her upturned face.

  “The athletics field is going to be just beyond that line of bushes. I need to know if it’s big enough.”

  “Isn’t that Duncan’s job as AD?”

  She grinned. “Duncan isn’t here.”

  “We couldn’t do this tomorrow?”

  “No time. Booked solid pretty much every minute of daylight from now until the games. I need you tonight, Dougall.”

  There was something else in those words, something he’d been looking for, dying to hear. Just yesterday she would have looked away after having said something like that. Just yesterday she would have glossed over it, pretended she hadn’t inserted a hidden meaning. Ignored her own intentions, her own desires.

  But right then, she seemed to remember very well how he’d kissed her.

  “So.” She planted a hand on the back hatch. “Go on out there, throw the thing and tell me if I have enough room.”

  She was damn sure she had enough room. In fact, he could pretty much bet that she’d already been out there with measuring tape and survey equipment and a GPS system to ensure the place was absolutely perfect. She was just playing with him, thinking she was lightening the mood, trying to get him to smile after all the sadness she’d seen inside Da’s house.

  They’d had an incredible evening; every second, every laugh, every word nudged them close together. He wasn’t about to let the big giant elephant wedge itself between them. He’d talk her out of throwing. He’d distract her by what they both wanted.

  Putting one hand on the side of the truck, he launched himself over, landing heavily on the cracked asphalt. Straightening, he saw her catch her breath. Saw the way her eyes had gone a bit glossy, a bit lost. Good. He felt pulled toward her from deep inside, as though the very essence of him, down to his molecules, was calling to her, and she was answering.

  “Wow,” she whispered. Or maybe it was more like an exhale, with a curse unknowingly tagged on.

  “What?”

  She threw an exasperated hand at his chest. “No one should look as good as you do in a green plaid shirt. It’s a ridiculous thing to wear. I mean, really.”

  Suddenly it was his most favorite shirt in the whole world. “I can’t throw, Jen.”

  “Sure you can.” She reached over and flipped open the truck hatch. The caber, having been braced by the hatch, slid out.

  “Jesus!” Leith lunged, caught the stick just before it hit the ground. “Watch the truck!”

  “Sorry, sorry.” She helped him get it out and laid it on the grass just inside the yellow circle made by the headlights.

  He moved to the back of the truck, forcing her to follow.

  “You’re not actually thinking about welching on the bet, are you?”

  He turned around, mid-eye-roll, to find her much, much closer than he expected. There was a soundless bang inside his mind and a virtual lurch of his heart as he looked down at her and found himself caught between two worlds.

  The thing was, for the last ten years, all he’d had of her was the past. An eighteen-year-old Jen owned the images and memories that had remained in his mind, and they carried such mixed messages. Most good. Some sour.

  He realized something profound. It felt better to be with her today than it had back then, because of the time spent apart. Because of who they’d become during those years. Because of who they were today.

  “I’m not welching,” he said, suddenly finding it difficult to swallow. “I haven’t been—”

  “Don’t even say you haven’t been working out.”

  “I was going to say training, which is an entirely different thing. And I’m not warmed up at all.”

  “So get warmed up.”

  The invitation couldn’t have been more intentional, more sexy. Just looking at her mouth fed his brain some pretty wicked pictures—ones sprouted from memories of what she’d once felt like, and enhanced by a man’s experience and exposure. And ones from just a few days ago, when he’d teased himself with her lips. The things he wanted to do to her . . . the things he wanted her to do to him . . .

  But.

  This had all happened once before. He’d pursued her, caught her, and in the end she’d slipped free, run off. Only this time he was under no assumption that she would stay. After all, neither would he. So why did he still want more? He knew the dangers, the stakes, and yet he wanted to be more to her than someone reappearing out of the past. He wanted her to be more than that to him, but there was no way, in this universe, that that could happen.

  Fuck it.

  He grabbed her. Just shoved his hand around her waist, pulled her to him with a not-so-tender yank, and wrapped his other arm around her body, fingers splayed between her shoulder blades. He waited for her to protest, to push away, to say something that would contradict her earlier invitation, but then he felt the pressure of her arms around his neck, and it wasn’t gentle at all.

  Despite the speed of the embrace, the clinging desperation of it all, the
kiss happened slowly. It took forever to reach her mouth, and he savored every millisecond.

  The other night against his back door, that hadn’t been a true kiss. This, this, was their first kiss.

  He thought “first” kiss because it was, in fact, entirely new. A first kiss with this new woman he somehow knew so well. It was the strangest feeling in the world. And also the most wonderful, the most natural. All his other first kisses—yes, even with her that night outside the Stone—had been precursors to true emotion, driven solely by a teenager’s throbbing need. But this time, the emotions were already there. Already strong. His head felt light, spinning. His arms tightened on their own, needing no prodding from his brain. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss.

  Holy hell, her mouth. He couldn’t exactly recall her taste from all those years ago, but it didn’t matter because it was now all new. Jen. Here. Now. The taste on his tongue was exquisite—fine and sweet and rich. They were perfectly in tune, on the same beat, sharing the same need as the pressure and intensity of the kiss evolved into something almost painfully hard and teasingly soft.

  In the back of his mind he was sure he’d kissed other women in the past ten years, positive that he’d slept with some of them, too, but the feel of Jen in his arms, in his mouth, erased all that. There were no others. He couldn’t recall a single moment in time when she wasn’t wrapped around him. Couldn’t remember a single one of those bad dates and relationships with unsuitable women.

  Her fingers curled into his hair. She’d never been able to do that before, and it caused waves of sensation to ripple across his scalp. She gripped him like he was about to dissolve, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  He was, however, losing it. Fast. The fact that she’d angled her body, turning him so his back hit the lowered hatch, and then essentially started to climb him, didn’t help. If there was anything he needed right now, it was control.

  In a swift movement, their mouths never releasing, he flipped her so her back was the one against the truck. There was a moment’s pause, a simple stillness of her mouth that either spoke of shock or dislike, but he didn’t care. He sank down, knees bent, and nudged her legs apart so that he could fit himself against her body. As he expected, it was the perfect puzzle piece, the one you search for on that table of a thousand tiny others.