“Thank you.” Maren took the bags. “I’ll just put these away.”
He watched her pad quietly down the hall, barefoot, since she’d kicked her slides off at the front door. She closed the bedroom door behind her.
He wasn’t sure if he sighed out of relief or disappointment.
Colin was in the kitchen rummaging in the fridge when he heard her bedroom door open again. He closed the refrigerator door and looked up.
She’d changed into one of the summer dresses she’d bought and was coming down the hallway almost hesitantly, but with a small smile on her face. Colin couldn’t look away.
“That looks great on you.” The words slipped out.
“Thank you. It’s all right.” She looked down at herself.
“It’s more than all right,” Colin said as he studied Maren. The day had been good for her. He’d watched it happen in tiny pieces. The first time she’d really let go at Do’s and Donuts. The fierce concentration when she threw the axe. The moment at Riversong when April had told her this town took care of its own, that she was family, and Maren looked like she’d forgotten what it felt like to be included in the world.
Then the river. Her face in the sunlight. Her quiet voice saying she understood why Sean loved it.
It’s worth moving here just to be near it, Charlie had said.
And Maren had looked at him, just for a second.
Don’t go back to San Diego. Stay here. With me.
He couldn’t say it out loud. Not yet.
Maybe after this is all over.
“It’s so quiet here without Juni,” Maren said.
Colin should have left her alone. Instead, he looked at her standing in that too-quiet living room, looking lovely in a new dress that caressed her curves.
“Let me turn on some music.” Colin pulled out his phone and connected it to the house’s speaker system.
“Music?”
“Yeah. You’re right; it’s way too quiet.”
“What kind of music?”
He grinned as he selected his playlist. “You’ll find out.”
“That sounds ominous.”
Colin chuckled. “Trust me.”
A slide guitar started playing a slow rhythm—warm and lonely and full of sunbaked roads. Music made of desert shadows and open sky.
Maren closed her eyes and smiled in a way that made Colin clench his jaw with sudden desire. “Who is this? I love it. I wish I’d had it while driving through Utah.”
“Hermanos Gutiérrez. ‘Hijos del Sol’ is the song.” He had to swallow a couple of times to get the words out without his voice cracking.Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
Or, the best idea he’d ever had.
“I always was a sucker for a slide guitar and that high lonesome sound,” she continued. “Even back in Iowa, when I was a little kid and it wasn’t cool.”
Colin grinned. “I can’t imagine you not being cool.”
Maren laughed. “This,” she gestured at her body—her gorgeous body that Colin wanted to hold close, even just once—“is not cool.”
