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“So, you’re still doing too many things for other people, huh?”
“What are you even talking about? You don’t know me.”
“You should have told her no. You couldn’t even bend your arms, and by the looks of it, you couldn’t see, either.”
No, she couldn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. “I don’t need you looking out for me,” she snapped. “We both know how that turned out the last time.” Her head thundered. Why, oh why had she brought that up?
His Adam’s apple bobbed, like maybe she’d actually hurt him. “That was a long time ago. You were drunk. I was trying to help.”
She didn’t remember all of it, but she remembered enough. Showing up at the pit party at sixteen and being handed a drink. Then two. Maybe three? Music and dancing until Grayson showed up and practically dragged her to the car.
“I was fine.” She closed her eyes to block out the swirling grass and sky. She’d been fine that night until she’d given in to that crush. Kissed him.
His jaw flexed. “I never should have kissed you back.”
She remembered the touch of his lips, soft and sweet on hers, and then being pushed away. Rejected. “You humiliated me.” The spinning wouldn’t stop. She took a staggered step. “I don’t feel well.”
“Beth, I—”
A siren screamed on approach. Her legs gave way, and arms—Grayson’s arms—lifted her. Carried her.
He smelled like soap and fresh cotton, and in a moment of weakness, she let herself succumb to the safety of his arms before the darkness.
three
Grayson should have gonewith his first instinct to flee from town. Instead, he found himself pacing the emergency room waiting room twenty minutes later, waiting for Beth’s brother to arrive. If only Noah didn’t need him as much as he needed the camp income.
He wished he could rewind the day—the past two days, even.
A nurse in animal-print scrubs rushed by with a lab cart, vials clattering down the small hospital’s corridor.
At least he’d been able to assure Dylan over the phone that Beth was doing fine now. She’d had him worried when she’d gone limp in his arms.
Man, he hadn’t even seen her the last time he’d come through town, so it had been…what? Eight years?
He’d tried to give her space, not knowing exactly how to bridge the gap between them. How to make amends for trying to do the right thing and having it go completely sideways.
One more reason he didn’t belong in Deep Haven.
She’d grown out her light-brown hair so it fell past her shoulders. Petite, athletic build, with soft green eyes that could still pierce his soul.
Still in Deep Haven.
Still living with her dad, from what Dylan said.
He’d always expected Dylan’s tree-climbing, book-toting sister to have had a full-ride scholarship to the college of her choice.
Grayson sat down on a vinyl seat and picked through four-month-old magazines strewn across the side table. He thumbed the pages, scanning the articles.
Pretty potluck pies, retro-eighties home decorating on a budget, or the beginner’s guide to quilt making.
No, no, and definitely not.
He tossed them back onto the table and set his hat down on the seat next to him.
The intercom crackled to page a doctor.
He rested his head in his hands. The camp, the horses, the lot. Robin. His grandparents. Beth. Too much for him to process.
