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“You think I can go back to being whatever with you, after this?”

I held my breath. I didn’t want to go back to being “whatever” with him, but I’d had too many years of being the one left behind, even figuratively, to put myself on the line like that ever again.

I thought about the guys who had come before. Not a one of them had ever had a problem with a few days of sex and then never seeing me again. Of course none of them, for several years anyway, had lived in Lake Bluff. Not that any of the townies had had a problem calling it quits with me, either.

For that matter, neither had my mother.

When I didn’t answer, he made an aggravated sound. “I’m not a robot, Grace. If I share myself with someone, I do it for a reason.”

“Sex.”

“I’m not made that way.”

“You’re a guy. Don’t tell me you haven’t had meaningless sex and walked out the next morning.”

“I didn’t say that. But this wasn’t meaningless and you know it.”

I did, although I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. Not love. But definitely a step above a quickie in the night.

Something swirled through the water near my hip. I jumped, thinking snake, until his hand slid into my own. “Why don’t we see where this goes? We kind of went at things out of order, but what would you say to a date?”

My face must have revealed my confusion, because he continued with a laugh in his voice, if not his eyes. “You know, dinner, a movie, maybe a walk beneath the moon?”

“Sounds vaguely familiar.”

“I thought it might. Tomorrow night?”

I nodded. I couldn’t believe we were standing in my pond, discussing dinner and a movie while naked. Talk about back assward.

Walker stared up at the towering hills, navy blue against the indigo night. “I’d like to see Blood Mountain sometime. Have you been there?”

“My great-grandmother used to take me.”

His gaze lowered. “Why?”

“It’s beautiful. We had a picnic.”

Waterfalls and hiking trails surrounded the peak. We’d eaten on the banks of Lake Winfield Scott. It was one of my fondest memories.

But we hadn’t gone there just to eat in the sun. According to her, Blood Mountain was sacred. Our ancestors had once worshipped it. On Blood Mountain the greatest of magic was born. She’d done some awesome things there, things I’d never told anyone about.

“The history books claim the mountain was named because of a battle between the Cherokee and the Creek.”

“People still find arrowheads,” I said. Though no one had been able to decide for certain what year the battle had occurred.

“The Cherokee won.”

“Of course.”

He smiled. “And the Creek gave them Blood Mountain. It’s a holy place.”

A spooky place, that’s for sure. I’d often wondered if the blood that had been spilled there had turned the very earth and the air of that mountain into something otherworldly.

“Usually the Cherokee revere the highest point,” Ian continued, “like Brasstown Bald, so it’s odd they took such a shine to Blood Mountain.”

“Not really.” I thought of the way the light hit the lichen and rhododendron, turning the mountain the shade of freshly spilled blood.

“What was that?”

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