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Afteralongnightof good burgers and listening to an old man brag about his daughter, Ava manages to wrangle out a price for the mansion.
“It’s not that I don’t want to sell it,” Clancy drawls as he takes another swig of beer. “It’s that I don’t want it falling into the wrong hands is all.”
“I understand,” she says. “Believe me, I do. If my client does get the property, I’ll draft up a contract that says the integrity and spirit of the house must be maintained.”
“Exactly,” he nods. “My old man got married in that house. My wife gave birth to my daughter in that house. I don’t want anyone breaking it down or turning it into some dumb lake house.”
“Yup. No lake houses. Got it,” Ava says, then glances toward me with a wink.
Of course, it’s only the first step to actually buying the house, but it’s farther than I thought she would get when I first saw Clancy.
So, I’m impressed. Of course, I’m not really surprised, though. The old man likes her, I can tell. It would be difficult not to.
At the end of the night, Ava insists we give him a ride to his home, which he’s barely sober enough to direct us to. After getting him home in one piece, we end up taking a different route home, one that has us happening on a stream that stretches down wet open grassland, climbing up into the hill.
“This must have been what Patience meant,” Ava murmurs in her seat.
I glance at her, noting the softness in her expression as she stares out the window. I don’t know if it’s the beer she had in the restaurant or the long conversation, but her entire body is relaxed her eyes curious. Seeing her like that makes me forget entirely what I was about to say.
“Patience told me that there’s a lover’s pond around here,” she explains. “It’s supposed to have the magical power of making you get married to the person you’re with within a year.” She rolls her eyes as she says it, as if it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.
Probably because it is.
I’ve never been a superstitious person nor the marrying person, so I don’t believe that’s going to happen for me either.
But something I can’t explain has me slowing to a stop as I pull the car to the end of the road.
Ava’s face shows her surprise. “What are you doing?’
I feign a careless shrug. “You’re supposed to be taking pictures of all the mystical stuff for Chloe, aren’t you?”
“Oh . Right.” She reaches in her bag and grabs her phone, opening the camera app and aiming for the pond. She zooms in and frowns because it makes the image blurrier. Then she shakes her head. “I’ve got to get closer.”
She opens the door to get out, and I open mine too.
She glances at me. “You’re coming?”
“Yes.” As much as my Armanis are going to hate me for it. “There’s all kinds of coyotes in this side of the country. Wouldn’t want you to get attacked.”
“There are coyotes in California?”
No clue. “Sure.” I say, then get out. The marshy ground clings to my loafers and I can already feel the mud soaking into the material. Damn. Oh well.
I walk around the car to her, taking her hand as she picks up her feet. She glances down at our joined hands, but says nothing, although I feel her pulse jump in her wrist.
I ignore the urge to do something stupid like drag her to me and kiss her right here. I focus instead on the feel of her hand as it clutches mine, leaning on me slightly as she struggles to walk through the mud.
We’re both quiet as we walk closer to the pond, getting halfway before she stops.
“I think this is a good spot,” she says and takes out her phone again. I say nothing as I watch her take pictures, noting the way she bites her lower lip in concentration, the way she swallows when she’s nervous.
She’s nervous because I’m watching her, but I can’t stop.
“Doesn’t seem very magical to me,” she says after a minute. “But it is beautiful, though, isn’t it?”
She brings the phone down, looking through the pictures as the sunset turns her hair into a fiery gold.
“Yes,” I say, but I’m still looking at her. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
