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He got quiet, then shrugged. “Lots, but I’ll try most things once.”
Such as living in one place. He’d tried that once. He’d been miserable. He’d said so himself. Who was she to try to force that on him again?
“I know what you’re thinking, Taylor.”
He did? Her eyes were probably bigger than the full moon shining down on them.
“I keep thinking about it, too.”
She blinked. He was?
“Eight days isn’t long enough.”
Taylor’s breath caught. Was he going to stay longer? And what if he did? She kept thinking about him, about how he was a free spirit, but what about her? She’d had no plans to wrap her life around a man, to get so wrapped up in a man that, rather than focusing on learning who she was, she focused on him. Her plans were to build a career, to get to know herself, her likes and dislikes, to do the things that made her happy. Not to add a man to the equation who she felt she had to cater to.
Jack gave a heartfelt sigh. “But it will have to be.”
She wanted him to stay, yet maybe, for her own sake, his leaving was best all the way around.
They ended up not doing much fishing but made love on a blanket spread near his pond. The moonlight created the perfect hue. Taylor didn’t ask him to stay, not with her mouth. That she kept quiet. Her brain said he needed to go for, oh, so many reasons.
Her body, however, had a mind of its own and begged him to be hers forever.
* * *
Tracing a pattern across Jack’s chest, Taylor snuggled closer against him.
She’d given up any pretense of going home this last week. Going home was a waste of precious time she could have spent with Jack.
“I can’t believe tomorrow is your last day at the hospital,” she told him, hoping her voice didn’t convey how utterly bereft the thought made her feel. The music festival in Daytona started the following Thursday so she imagined he’d want to arrive on Wednesday to check things out. That left four days.
Four days to make a lifetime of memories.
“You going to miss me?”
“A little,” she answered with false bravado.
He laughed. “Good to know where I stand.”
She glanced up at him. “You know I’m going to miss you, Jack Morgan. Way more than a little.”
Bending his neck toward her, he kissed her forehead.
“I mean, who is going to take me fishing? Or boating? Or hiking? Or skinny-dipping in the pond?”
“We never went skinny-dipping in the pond.”
“No?” She feigned innocence. “We still have four days.”
His body tensed beneath her and she knew whatever he was going to say wasn’t good.
“About that...”
Her stomach tightened.
“Duffy called today. We’ve worked Daytona together for as long as I can remember. Last year, we went down a few days early and scuba-dived at an old shipwreck site. He wants to go out again.”
Her heart pounded. “Before the festival?”
