He gives me a sexy grin, making my head spin back around.
This is crazy.
My entire body is buzzing at his nearness.
I begin to run, and he follows.
Raffe wraps his arms around my waist just as I reach the water’s edge. “Caught you,” he says, swinging me off my feet.
“Yeah, but I still won!”
He spins me around and smiles down at me. “You always win,” he says, his grin widening.
I try to shove away from him. “Oh, oh, you’ve been letting me win,” I accuse.
He doesn’t deny it. He just shrugs and begins to walk downstream.
I rush after him, having to take three steps to his one. “Why do you let me win?” I ask.
The way he looks at me sideways makes me a little embarrassed. Should it be obvious? He acts like I should already know the answer.
“It’s because I like to chase you, and …” He holds up a finger. “I like to see your smile when you win.”
“You like to chase me?” That’s a little weird, isn’t it?
“You’ve got the cutest butt I’ve ever seen,” he says.
Oh. Oh! My face goes hot.
He chuckles under his breath. “I like you, Jenny. I like you a lot,” he says, grinning down at me.
My head feels dizzy but in a good way. I can’t wait to tell Momma about this.
“Do you want to race back to the bike?” he asks.
“Are you going to look at my butt?”
“You know it.”
I stop at my tree and close my eyes, waiting for his touch. His arms wrap around my waist, and he picks me up off my feet, spinning me in a circle.
“Caught you,” he rasps in my ear. We’re both a little more winded than the last time we did this.
“Yeah, but I still won.”
He spins me in his arms, staring down at me. “You always win,” he says, his voice cracking.
Neither of us move. We just continue to stare at each other. I take in every line, every grey hair, every scar. He’s more beautiful than ever.
Eventually, Raffe tears his eyes away from me to look at where we’ve stopped.
“This is my tree. This is how I survived. He knows everything.”
He steps away from me and places his hands exactly like I taught him so many years ago. I lower myself to the ground, resting my back against the trunk.
“Bill brought me everything I needed in the beginning.”
Raffe stares down at me for a few seconds, and I worry over whether I should continue. He lowers himself to the ground beside me.
