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“Doesn’t matter. I could have been with someone an hour before and you’d still be in a category all your own.” He let out an uneven breath of his own. “But it’s not only about that with us. I swear, it’s not. I wanted to take you out.”
“Wanted?” I hated the uncertainty in my tone.
“Wanted. Want. And I didn’t tell anyone I didn’t want to wife you, whatever the hell that means. Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“Stacey asked me if you were angling to be the next Crescent Cove baby mama and I said absolutely not.”
“Angling? As if I tried to get you to knock me up?” I let out a dry laugh. “As if that’s even necessary around here. Pretty much as soon as sperm even goes anywhere near egg around here…” I trailed off, my horror growing. “You don’t think…”
“No,” he said sharply. “You don’t honestly believe all that hokum.”
“Uh, considering both my brothers have made unplanned babies this year, yeah, I kinda do.”
“Brady’s vasectomy didn’t work.”
“You heard about that?”
“Everyone heard about that. And Mav didn’t use a condom with a woman who wasn’t on birth control.”
I stuck my arm outside of the shower to grab my towel off the rack. I was pretty sure I hadn’t soaped every bit of myself, but it was going to have to do. At least I’d washed and rinsed my hair. “It’s really disconcerting how much people know about other people’s sex lives in this town.”
“They’re my colleagues and people talk. Get used to it. Only way to get around it is to never breathe a word about your past to anyone. That works. Only thing that does,” he added under his breath.
“So what haven’t you breathed a word about to anyone then?” I’d meant the question to be flippant, because he was talking a hell of a lot.
Not about secrets, true, but just in general—and I’d never seen him speak much at all.
Maybe there really was more between us than sex. I wasn’t sure how it could happen so fast, but connections happening in a New York minute was something else the Cove was known for. It had just never happened to me.
“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. I’ve never told anyone.”
I swallowed hard. “Does it have anything to do with that flask?”
He took a moment to answer. “Yeah, but not the way you think. I had a difficult phone call. And instead of facing it, I grabbed the flask. Not something I’ve done before and I don’t intend to again. I walk the straight and narrow, Honey. Even when it’s fucking impossible.” He paused. “The only times I slipped…”
“When?”
“Seventeen years ago,” he said softly, “and Monday night.”
Shock wound through me on a slow, circuitous route. “Seventeen years ago, I was in second grade.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Just saying.”
“You’ve got a big mouth.”
“So shut me up. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
“Time and place, baby girl. I’ll be there.”
My pulse raced as I chewed on my thumbnail. “Brothers Three Orchard, how’s six? They have a hayride. It’s one of the last weekends of the season.”
“You want to get railed in a horse-drawn wagon?”
“The idea has merit, but I’m not really an exhibitionist.” I rushed ahead when he made a sound of doubt. “Also, you didn’t specify railing. You just mentioned shutting me up. And those hayrides are in the dark so if we wait for a sparsely attended one and you pick the right seat, I could just kneel down and help you with your zipper.”
