AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She tried not to react to the way he said “friend.” She’d almost lost this race because of the inappropriate thoughts she’d been having about her “friend.”
As though he knew she needed a subject change—Palmer could always read her mind—he said, “So, you’re really back for the whole summer?”
“Yep.” She kicked her legs up and propped her cowgirl boots on the handlebars, leaning back on her elbows and lifting her face to the big North Dakota sky. “There’s not a sky in the world that compares to ours.”
She heard him shift, but he didn’t answer. He never seemed to care that she left for long periods of time since they’d graduated from high school. They texted all the time and facetimed weekly—they joked about their Saturday night “facetime date.”
She’d been to the Olympics, to the Himalayas, to all fifty states, and to seventeen different countries. She’d studied abroad, been runner-up in the Miss North Dakota contest, and worked in the corporate world as a marketing exec. All that time, Palmer had been a rock. Stuck on the farm. Content, apparently, with the short North Dakota summers and long, dark, frigid North Dakota winters.
“Working at the C Store?” he asked after a few minutes of them lying with their faces to the sky. That was the nice thing about Palmer. They didn’t need to talk. And it didn’t matter how long she’d been gone; they always picked right back up as best friends and buddies. It was never awkward. She wasn’t even as close to any of her girlfriends as she was to him.
“Yeah.” Her parents owned the only convenience store in Sweet Water. After coaching the junior world biathlon team all winter, she’d applied for and was now on the short list for a plum broadcasting job at a sports channel located in LA. She’d never lived very long anywhere since she’d left Sweet Water, and she was hoping to get that job and put down roots in the city.
“Staying this time?” he asked casually.
She didn’t open her eyes or sit up. They’d talked about it when they were younger but hadn’t had the conversation in a while. The one where he believed she would eventually come back and settle down, and she denied even liking North Dakota, let alone wanting to live here.
“No way.” Her lips turned up in a grin, and she didn’t even open her eyes. She knew what it took to set him off.
Only he didn’t take the bait this time.
The silence between them stretched.
For the first time ever, she was uncomfortable with nothing between them, like if she didn’t have words to anchor him to her, he’d drift off and she’d lose him. So she opened her mouth. “I told you about that job I applied for in LA. You ready to travel to California?”
The sun warmed her face and neck. She felt the heat through her jeans. But she felt the silence of her friend even more.
“Nah,” he finally said. “Thinking I’m gonna get married.”
Her eyes popped open. Her heart thudded to a stop, and her lungs froze.
She called on her Olympic training to keep from jerking up. Instead, she moved slowly, leveling her gaze at him before dropping her boots to the footrests and sitting up. “We text every day, and you didn’t mention you had a girlfriend?”
Why wasn’t she happy for him? Her brain felt scrambled, and she couldn’t dredge up any good feelings at all. Which was weird, because she’d had two girlfriends in the past ten months announce their engagements, and Ames had been over the moon for them. Why wasn’t she happier for Palmer?
He hadn’t propped his feet up, but he was leaning back on his elbows. His thin white t-shirt allowed her to see, quite plainly, that his abs were well-defined. Her heart did that abnormal flip, and a thread of attraction wrapped around it. He lowered his eyes from the sky and looked at her under hooded lashes. “I don’t.”
Her stomach whipped back like she’d been hit in the midsection with a bowling ball. “Oh, my gosh. You’re gay.”
He grinned. Slow and easy, the grin she loved. The one he didn’t use on anyone but her. “You think?”
She ran her eyes over his face, down his broad shoulders and deep chest, down to his waist where his jeans sat low on his hips. Her eyes flew back to his.
Why was she suddenly breathless?
“No, I don’t. I guess we’ve never talked about that, though.” They never talked about relationships. She’d not really had any. One didn’t become an Olympic-caliber athlete by hanging out at bars, trying to pick up a date. Not that she’d even want to date a guy who didn’t have anything else better to do with his time.
She decided to call his bluff. “So you have a boyfriend?” Her words didn’t come out quite as confident and flippant as she wanted them to.
He did the slow grin on her again, and her heart flipped twice. When had Palmer gotten so handsome? And muscular?
“Nope.”
“How long’s it been since I’ve been home? Have we started a new tradition in Sweet Water where people just up and get married?”
“It’s been eighteen months since you were here,” he said. Answering her first question, but leaving her second one unanswered.
It had been winter. Palmer would have had a beard, and she probably wouldn’t have seen him in anything less than a flannel shirt and lined vest. Insulated jeans and boots.
