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“Okay, how about this then? When you’re in my territory, you’re my responsibility and I’ll take care of you.”
“When will I be in your territory?”
“When you come to my farm to drive the tractor.”
“Deal.” She nods, but it’s easy to tell she doesn’t think that will ever happen.
She rests her cheek on my chest, and my heart pounds against it. As a nursing student, is she going to question my rapid heartbeat? Will she know it’s pounding because I’m holding her tight, or will she blame it on our cold dunk?
I clear my throat. “This boat has that new boat smell.”
“It’s pretty new,” she says, her voice tight, like she’s bracing for something. Does she not want to talk about the boat?
“Do you have siblings?” I ask, changing the subject.
“No, it’s just me. Do you?”
“Yeah, older sister and two younger brothers.” Her eyes light up as she smiles up at me.
There’s a longing in her voice when she says, “That sounds amazing.”
I laugh and it comes out sounding rough and labored, thanks to the way she’s running her fingers down my back. “Not as amazing as you’d think.”
“Oh.” She frowns, and I hate, absolutely fucking hate, that I somehow disappointed her.
“I love them and would kill for them. I’m just saying…family. Sometimes they can be a pain in the ass, you know.” I shake my head. “No, I guess you don’t know.” She goes quiet, and the water grows cooler, but I’m not ready to leave the shower. I like being in here with her. It’s warm, comfortable and intimate in ways I’ve never experienced before. “You wanted a brother or a sister?”
She snorts out a laugh. “I would have loved either. Mom and Dad were just always busy. I barely saw them growing up,” she says, and I get the sense that she’s telling me something very important, something very close to her heart. She snorts out a humorless laugh and looks around the posh bathroom. “I mean, I had material things, I just never had them.” Her eyes go wide. “Ohmigod, I sound like—”
“You sound like someone who missed her parents.” She swallows. “Were they nurses?” I ask.
“No, surgeons, actually.”
“Ah, I see.” She goes quiet and that’s when I understand why I sensed loneliness in her. She might come from wealth, might even have been judged on that, but the neglect created hurt and longing inside her. “How about this? If you do visit the farm, my family is your family. They love to sit around the table at dinner time, and they’re big and loud and will likely tell you horrible stories about me that aren’t true, simply to make me look like an ass. They get a kick out of that.”
Her grin wraps around my heart. “Fabricated?” She laughs. “Your family sounds amazing, and not at all like the kind of people who’d get a kick out of telling fake stories about you. There must be a shred of truth in them.”
I arch a brow, and in my best serious voice ask, “Would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know, Jesse.” She smiles and it creates a new, deeper intimacy between us. “I don’t know you very well.”
“Yet here we are, nearly naked in the shower.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, the water getting colder by the second but neither of us seem to be in a hurry to move. “But no big deal, right?”
Since my cock has a mind of its own, it thickens between my legs and presses against her body and in the close quarters, there is absolutely nothing I can do to hide it.
What the fuck was that I just said about no big deal?
“I bet they’re really proud of you,” she says, so quietly I’m not even sure I heard her right.
“They are. I bet yours are proud of you too.”
A noise crawls out of her throat and it’s laced in sadness. “Yeah, they are.” A beat of silence and then. “They would have preferred it if I followed in their footsteps. To them, nursing is a support role.”
“Nurses do all the work, Josie. I have a huge respect for nurses.”
Her smile is soft. “Thanks, but it’ll never be good enough in their eyes.” Under her breath she adds, “I’m always the sidekick, coming in second. Never anyone’s number one.” A heartbeat later, she opens her eyes wide and shakes her head. “I don’t even know why I’m talking about this with you.”
