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Blake’s forehead wrinkled with a frown, his gaze going back and forth between Mandy and Darby. “What’s she talking about? Dying a virgin?”
“Nothing, really.” Mandy laughed, the sound sparkly. “Just one of those silly ‘most likely’predictions kids make.”
“Most likely?”
Mandy smiled. “Darby’s was…”
Darby opened her mouth, tried to speak, tried to stop Mandy from saying it out loud, but words wouldn’t come from Darby’s mouth. Mandy’s mouth had no such problems.
“Most likely to die a virgin.”
Would the ground please open up and swallow her? Or lightning strike the tree and drop a branch onto Darby, knocking her senseless? Either would work. Just so long as she didn’t have to look into Blake’s eyes and see the pity there, see the realization that she’d been a loser in high school.
Blake’s arm snaked around Darby’s waist, keeping her close. “I can put that ridiculous prediction to rest.”
“We noticed.” Mandy giggled, fanning her tanned face. Her brown eyes twinkled at Blake. “If the thermometer wasn’t reading over a hundred before, it is now. That was some kiss.”
Mandy was right. The temperature must be triple digit, because Darby was melting from Blake’s heat. His arm burned through her thin clothes, making her sweat.
“That kiss was nothing,” he promised, making her wonder if he’d read her mind. “Not compared to what Darby and I share. She’ll die a well-loved woman.” He stared down at her, his eyes sparkling like gleaming black onyx. “As long as there’s breath in my body, I’ll see to that.”
Darby stared at Blake in awe.
She could kiss him.
Not just because Mandy’s jaw had dropped, not because Trey looked at him with something akin to envy, not because he’d just single-handedly saved her face over the past humiliations she’d suffered, but because in that moment, when he looked at her, she believed him.
Which was exactly why she needed to make sure she never kissed Blake again.
Because none of this was real.
Not his kiss, his looks, or his words.
Because Blake was faking and she was the idiot who’d asked him to. The idiot who had to keep reminding herself that none of this was real, no matter how much she wished it were.
She’d set a dangerous game into play, having Blake pretend to love her. A game she wasn’t sure she could continue.
Thirty minutes later, Blake wondered if the people of Armadillo Lake were too blind to see the person Blake saw. Their lack of vision had damaged Darby’s self-confidence in ways he hadn’t realized.
But how could he have? She’d always come across as so together. So self-assured. So confident in who she was.
Only here, in a place that stripped her of the armor she’d so carefully shielded herself with, did he see the vulnerability in her eyes. The need to belong, to be accepted, to show that, despite whatever had happened in her past, she was somebody worthy, both then and now.
Darby had something to prove, and he couldn’t help but wonder if that need went far beyond making a statement with an impressive “date”.
He wanted her, caught glimpses of desire in her eyes, had felt her desire in their kiss, but did she really feel desire for him? Or just gratitude for his role this weekend?
“Blake, are you going to play softball with us?” she called, from where she stood with a couple of females who wore friendly faces and seemed to genuinely be glad to see Darby. He’d liked the women—their husbands, too.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to get his city-boy butt whooped by a bunch of country boys.”
Trey Nix he didn’t like.
Had Darby really had a relationship with that strutting buffoon? Former high school star quarterback or not, the guy was a self-absorbed loser. One who’d taken a look at present-day Darby and decided to make up for lost time.
Over Blake’s dead body.
He hadn’t played softball ever, but he’d once been a hell of a Little League baseball pitcher. Too bad they’d moved away near the end of the season, cheating him out of sure tournament victory. After his third unfinished season due to frequent moves Blake had opted not to play another organized sport, but he had played the occasional pick-up game at the fancy prep school he’d attended.
