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Her shoulders tensed. Her back went rigid. She turned around to face him slowly, her expression pinched.
“What I mean is we’refine.” She said it in a way that suggested it was her last word on the subject. “I’m at a better place right now with my father.”
“And yet you’re still here.” He readjusted the brim on his Stetson, trying to ward off the sun enough to see into her eyes. “Don’t you ever dream about taking a break from caregiving? From all the time you devote to helping your family?”
Her scowl pulled her eyebrows into a deep vee. “Do you want the tour or not?”
In his family, he was the peacemaker. The one who smoothed things over. So, it went against the grain to rile her up on purpose, but if he didn’t call her out for all the sacrifices she made for her father, who else would?
“I’m taking the tour, all right. But first, tell me why you’re running yourself ragged taking care of a guy who doesn’t give you anything in return? Your dad sold your land—yourlivelihood—right out from under you.” Thinking about that made him indignant on her behalf all over again.
“How is that any of your business?” she snapped defensively, anger almost covering the deeper layer of hurt.
He noticed she didn’t deny it.
“It’s my business because you sacrificed all the plans we made so you could stay here and watch him destroy himself.” He hadn’t planned to bring that up, but the words were out now and there was no calling them back. “I guess I hoped maybe there was some reason I never understood that kept you rooted here instead of following the dream.”
A light breeze stirred a strand of her long hair across her cheek, but the movement didn’t soften her stony expression.
“Baseball was your dream, Nate. Not mine.”
“There was a time you shared it. Maybe not baseball, per se, but you liked the idea of getting out of here. Of traveling wherever baseball could take us.” He knew that was true. He remembered nights lying in his truck bed, staring up at the stars in the middle of a deserted field, whispering their hopes for a future together. She’d talked about building an online business. “We had a lot of the same dreams once.”
She blinked fast, and he thought for a second she might be thinking about those nights too.
“That was a lot of years ago.” She swatted away a mosquito pestering her shoulder near the strap of her bright orange tank top, drawing his gaze to her tanned skin and long, lean limbs. “It seems like a lifetime.”
A hint of something wistful passed through her dark gaze as she looked up at him. Even more surprising? It stirred an answering sensation inside him.
A strong one.
With it came a need to touch her that he only just barely wrestled back. He struggled for a response, his brain slow to track their conversation after getting thoroughly diverted by physical attraction that was never far from the surface. But then, she spoke again, saving him from replying.
“And for what it’s worth, I feel a lot of loyalty toward my dad for the way he kept the family together when my mother left us.” She turned on the heels of her work boots and continued the hot trek through the rows of flowers. Green stalks waved as she walked past in her denim cutoffs, petals brushing her bare legs. “Alexis was having nightmares and crying herself to sleep. But my dad was a rock through all of that. He made sure Alexis and I had a real home. A sense of family and roots.”
Her hand skimmed the air just above spiky purple flowers as she walked by, the motion somehow making the blooms all the more fragrant. He breathed in the scent, enjoying the view and the flowers even if he couldn’t understand the reasons for her devotion to her dad any better. Although, maybe in comparison to the mom who’d walked away from the family, her dad looked pretty good.
No doubt that had been painful for her, a loss she’d never talked about much when they were dating. Now, he hated that he’d been content to soak up her attention and leave the dark side of her life in the shadows. A mistake he wouldn’t make again.
“Keely.” He said her name before he’d fully thought through what he wanted. The need for her still simmered, only now it was all bound up with more than a little regret.
She turned around, her expression expectant. Maybe she thought he’d been about to ask her about her crops or the land. But he could see in her face when understanding registered.
When she saw that he wasn’t thinking about wildflowers or soil composition, or even the way they had parted.
For a fleeting moment, it occurred to him how strange it was that he could be away from her for five years and still read so much in her face. In her eyes. In her body language.
Then he stepped closer to her and none of that mattered at all. Her breath hitched at his nearness, but she didn’t step away.
He memorized the way she looked right then, so beautiful with all her flowers blooming behind her. Breathing in the light scent of her mingled with the heady fragrance of all the hot blooms, he wanted to tell her how much he desired her. How much he’d missed her.
But while he struggled to find the right words, Keely flung her arms around him and kissed him with all the heat and passion he’d been suppressing since the moment he’d returned to Last Stand.
Chapter Six
All week long,she’d tried to convince herself she hadn’t missed Nate. Hadn’t missed the closeness she hadn’t shared with anyone else.
Now, with both his arms wrapping around her—his good hand pressing gently against her spine and the injured one resting crosswise over her hair—Keely knew she’d been lying to herself. No place on earth felt as good as standing in the circle of this man’s arms. His scent, his warmth, his strength, appealed to her on every level. When he skimmed his fingers lightly over her cheek, stroking along her temple, shivers chased through her, making her skin tingle, her toes curl inside her boots.
