She steps closer. “Hudson,” she says.
I set the screwdriver down and take one step toward her. She tilts her head back, green eyes fixed on mine. My hand lifts before I tell it to. My fingers brush one wet strand of hair from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear.
Her breath catches. The sound goes straight through me. I should step back, but her face turns into my palm. The want that moves through me is not simple. Simple would be her body under mine, her soft mouth open, her legs around my waist, one hot summer memory we both understand for what it is.
This is not simple. This is me wanting to know what she looks like in my cabin in the morning. What she sounds like when she says my name in the dark. Whether she’d hate the desert. Whether she’d love the Gulf. Whether she really means it when she saysfreelike it’s something holy instead of something irresponsible.
I lower my head, watching her lips part. Just then, a shout comes from the kayak rack.
“Mr. Hudson! Mom says I have to wear the orange life jacket, but orange makes me look like a traffic cone!”
Layla jolts. I close my eyes for half a second. The Morrison kid. Layla’s cheeks go pink.
I look toward the boy in dinosaur swim trunks and a scowl too serious for his face. “Orange keeps traffic cones alive.”
He considers that. “Can I have blue?”
“If it fits.”
The boy sprints toward the life jacket rack. Layla makes a small sound. I glance at her. She is trying not to laugh.
“I should… go.” She points vaguely toward the cabins and steps back. I let her because if she stays where she is, I’m going to kiss her anyway. She lifts her gaze to mine one more time. Whatever nearly happened still sits between us, warm and unfinished.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For the jump?”
“For letting it be mine.”
I nod once. “You earned that.”
Layla smiles, but there’s something tender beneath it now. Something that did not exist yesterday on the wrong ledge. She turns and walks toward the cabins, damp braid swinging between her shoulder blades, shoes squeaking slightly on the dock boards. I watch her go longer than I should.
Kelsey appears beside the office porch, arms folded, eyes narrowed.
I point at the loose board. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re about to.”
She looks toward Layla, then back at me. “She’s pretty.”
I pick up the screwdriver. “Lots of women are pretty.”
I crouch beside the board and drive the screw down harder than necessary. Pretty is not the problem. Temporary is the problem. Freedom is the problem. The way Layla asked about home like she knew it wasn’t a simple question is the problem. I almost kissed her in broad daylight beside a kayak rack is also a problem.
I tighten the last screw and test the board with my palm. It’s solid. Safe. Fixed. If only everything worked that way.
One home to go to. For the first time in years, the idea doesn’t feel like a trap. It feels like a woman with green eyes asking softly whether I ever get tired of being alone.
Chapter 6
Layla
My hair is still damp from the cove, though I’ve changed into dry clothes. Denim shorts. A soft yellow T-shirt. Sandals. My water shoes are drying on the porch rail like evidence from a crime scene. The crime being that I jumped off a cliff twice before nine in the morning and then almost let a younger mountain man kiss me beside a kayak rack.
I press my fingers to my lips and immediately tell myself to stop it.
