Page 34 of Dirty Fighter

It’s not until I get closer that I notice the shimmer of her eyes and the bit of moisture she must have been trying to wipe away when I showed up.

“Aww, shit. Rowan, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted.”

“You didn’t. I’m just… I’m fine.” Turning back to the lookout, she pats the empty spot on the boulder. “Want to join me?”

I move in beside her, trying to leave as much room between us as I can, but in the end, it’s not even an inch. Not that it matters since in the next breath, I’m reaching for her, brushing a knuckle across her cheekbone to catch the last of her tears. “You want to talk about it?”

She shakes her head with a soft laugh, absently rubbing the pendant my father gave her between her finger and thumb. “Just feeling my feelings. Thinking about Ed.”

“He’s been on my mind too. You know this was his favorite spot.”

She smiles. “I do. He told me about it. Brought me a picture of the ‘Thinking Rock’ once. It was from a day like this, with the sun shining on the distant shore and the turbulent water between. He said there was nothing like actually being here though. Feeling the wind rushing around you and hearing the gulls, the waves. All of⁠—”

“Nature’s chaos,” we say in unison, turning to each other with matching grins.

“He’d tell me, ‘Everything else can wait, kid. Just take the minute and soak up nature’s chaos.’” I swallow past the knot of emotion, not from sadness, but from having someone to share this with. Someone who gets it.

“It’s one of those Ed-isms that always resonated with me. But there were a million, really.”

“There were,” I agree.

We sit for I don’t know how long, comfortably not talking, just soaking in the kind of afternoon my dad loved best.

By the time I need to head back for Bruce and the lock guy, the wind is really picking up, and the sun has slipped behind one of those endless cloud banks, so Rowan decides to come with me.

It’s cooled off enough that I close the windows before getting dinner going while Rowan showers.

I’m making a roast chicken and root vegetables with my go-to recipe for quinoa and herb muffins on the side. Something I’ve made dozens of times, but tonight, I have to triple-check that I’m not forgetting an ingredient. Because distraction is a thing. It has auburn hair, a surprisingly wicked sense of humor, and tears that wreck me in a way nothing else can.

Rowan isn’t supposed to be on my mind this way.

Not anymore.

But it only gets worse once she emerges from the bathroom, fresh scrubbed and infusing the air with the same hit of honey and vanilla I couldn’t ignore lying next to her last night.

Because I don’t want to think about how pretty she is with those tendrils of damp hair falling past her shoulders or how good she smells. I don’t want the fact that she’s not afraid to meet my eyes and has zero qualms about giving me shit to satisfy something inside me I didn’t know I’d been missing. I don’t want to know how easy it is to talk to her when our lives aren’t aligned in a way that means I get to keep her after this weekend.

And I definitely don’t want to notice the way her sweatshirt (one of those faux-oversized numbers that’s actually cropped at the waist, resulting in a flash of skin here and there) reminds me of what it was like when my hands were wrapped around those scant inches of smooth⁠—

Stop.

“What? Oh, sorry,” she replies from the far side of the living room, looking up from her phone with a sheepish smile that tells me my inner voice is getting louder. “Just obsessively refreshing my weather app over here. I know the signal’s bad even when it’s totally clear, but I can’t get the forecast.”

Right, get with the program. “No, I was talking to myself, not telling you to stop. Refresh away.” I pull up my app. “Yeah, mine’s not updating either. When I checked this morning, it looked like there was some weather south of us, but all we’re getting is wind.”

Just then, I get another text.

Gut drop.

“You okay?” Rowan crosses to the built-in divider, stopping there like she’s not sure the kitchen is big enough for the two of us.

“That was Bruce.”

She must see it in my face but isn’t ready to give up hope. “The lock guy’s going to be… late?”

I wish. “He doesn’t want to cross the lake tonight. Too much wind. Too many waves. He’s not coming until tomorrow.”

She nods.