Author: Jaci Burton

“Hey.” Gavin rose from the chair when she came outside. “Your hair’s wet.”

“I’m too tired to dry it.”

“I’ll be right back.”

He went inside. She shrugged and slunk into the swing, pulled her feet up and stared out into the darkness.

Gavin came back a minute later with a blanket. He’d turned the lights out inside, making it even darker outside. There wasn’t a moon tonight, so there was no light casting over the water. Just the sound of the ocean and her own black thoughts.

Gavin put the soft blanket over her and sat in the swing with her.

“Thanks.”

“It’s cold out here and your hair’s wet. Wanna go inside?”

“No. I like it out here.”

“Me, too.” He put his arm around her, and they sat there swinging and listening to the ocean, both of them quiet.

“Something bothering you?” He pulled her closer.

She didn’t want to be close to him. She should have gone back to Saint Louis, but something brought her back here. She had no idea what it was.

You know exactly what brought you back here, idiot. You’re in love with him, and he’s probably using you. No, he’s definitely using you. And he’s probably setting you up, too.

She sighed, feeling stupid. She hadn’t felt stupid in a long time. She’d vowed no man would ever make her feel like this. So why was she letting Gavin?

“It’s just been a long few days.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

He played with the ends of her hair. “Elizabeth, if we’re going to have any kind of relationship, you’re going to have to start opening up to me.”

She stilled, held her breath, afraid to move.

He’s playing you. Don’t trust him.

“Is that what we’re doing, Gavin? Having a relationship?”

“I don’t know. I missed you while you were gone. So maybe we are. Maybe I want to.”

He’d missed her? The giant hole in her heart filled up with longing and need. Part of her wanted to crawl up next to him, throw her arms around him, and tell him she loved him, that she’d been in love with him for years. The other part of her wanted to close off her heart and run like hell. “Don’t say things you don’t mean. This is just sex.”

He caressed her arm, letting his fingers trail up her neck. “I don’t say things I don’t mean. Not about this, anyway. I don’t really know what this is between us. I don’t have relationships with women, but I did miss you, so I’m pretty sure whatever it is that’s between us has become more than just sex. I kind of thought you had left for good.”

He sounded so sincere. She leaned back and studied his face, wished they weren’t shrouded in total darkness so she could read him better. “You did?”

“Yeah. I figured I pissed you off tying you up and asking you to talk about your past.”

“Oh. That. No. The sex was really good.”

He laughed. “Yeah, the sex between us is really good. But there has to be more.”

She looked out over the water, barely making out the whitecapped tips rushing toward the shore. “More sex?”

He made a low growl in his throat. “You’re trying to kill me. No, not more sex. If we’re going to take this any further, then there has to be more than sex.”

She wrinkled her nose. “More talking.”

“Yeah.”

“Talking’s overrated.”

“Now you sound like a guy.”

“That’s why you like me.”

“Because you’re a guy?”

She laughed. “No, because I’m not like your average woman.”

“You’re not at all like an average woman, Elizabeth. You’re not like any other woman I’ve ever known. That’s why I like you. You’re complicated. A giant pain in my ass most of the time. You frustrate the hell out of me. And I like that about you. But I don’t know anything about you, and that just doesn’t work for me.”

She swept her fingers across his goatee. “Mysterious is sexy, you know.”

He cupped her chin between his fingers and brushed his lips across hers. Everything inside her tightened as he took her mouth in a deeper kiss that lasted long enough that she thought he might forget about the talking part. She leaned into him, rested her palm on his chest, felt his heart rate quicken. But then he pulled back.

“Yeah, mysterious is sexy if it’s a one night stand. You’re not a one-night stand. You’re someone I want to get to know. Which means you’re going to have to open up and start talking to me.”

Once again he was heading down a track she didn’t want to follow. “You already know me, Gavin. It’s not like we’re strangers. You got a whole packet of information about me when you signed with me.”

He looked at her as if she’d just fed him bullshit. Which she had.

“Are you fucking serious? How dumb do I look?”

“What?”

“Your business portfolio is supposed to pass as getting to know you? I’m not talking about your bio, Elizabeth. I know where you graduated college and did your marketing internship. I know which sports agency gave you your start. But you didn’t start to exist in college. I want to know who you were before then. And if you don’t trust me enough to tell me—”

“Okay. Fine.” She pulled the blanket over her shoulders, wrapped her hair around itself, and pulled it into a makeshift ponytail. The wind had picked up, but the moody atmosphere outside matched her own. “What do you want to know?”

He tugged her closer and pulled the blanket over her legs. “Might as well start at the beginning. I want to know everything about you. You know everything about me.”

She did know everything about him. His family had become her family over the past five years because she had no family of her own.

“Well, let’s see. I was born and raised in Harrison, Arkansas. No brothers or sisters. My dad worked as a laborer, so he was in and out of work. My mom was a secretary, so she held down the full-time job. She was always working. I went to school, got decent grades. I was very lucky to get the scholarship to Brown—”

“Wait. We’re already on college? You skipped everything.”

“My childhood’s pretty boring, Gavin. I went to school. Not much to tell.”

“Did you have friends?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about them.”

“I had a couple of girlfriends. They lived on the same block as me. I wasn’t allowed to hang out with them until the weekends so I didn’t get to—”

“Why not?”

“What?”

“Why couldn’t you see them until the weekends?”

“Oh. My father wouldn’t allow it. I had chores to do after school and dinner to put on the table. Then I had homework at night.”

He frowned. “But in the summer . . .”

“In the summer there were chores during the day. And I got sent to my grandparents’ farm a lot, so my parents didn’t have to wonder what I was up to during the times my dad was working.”

“The farm, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Bet that was fun.”

Her lips curled up remembering times on the farm, some of the best—only—good memories of her childhood. “It was, actually. My grandpa taught me to ride a tractor, and they had horses. My grandma taught me to bake pies from scratch—’ ”

He sat up straight and turned to face her. “Aha! You can cook.”

She laughed. “That was a long time ago, Gavin. I don’t remember.”

“So you say. I’ll bet you could remember. How many summers did you spend at your grandparents’ farm?”

She tilted her head back, trying to remember. “I first remember going there when I was about five. Last time I went I was sixteen.”

“So eleven years. That’s a lot of pie making.”

Her lips lifted. “Sixteen was a long time ago.”

He leaned back again, drawing close to her so he could nuzzle her neck. “Would you make me a pie, Elizabeth?”

She nudged her shoulder at him. “You’re out of your mind. I don’t cook. You’re supposed to cook for me, remember?”

“I’ll make you dinner if you bake a pie.”

“I don’t cook for anyone.”

“But you’ll bake for me, right?”

Sometimes he was like a kid. Exasperating. But it was one of the things she loved most about him. “We’ll talk about it.”

“No, we’ll settle it right now. You’re the great negotiator. You taught me that one yourself. We settle the deal while it’s on the table.”

“Bastard. And here I thought you never paid attention. Fine. I’ll make you a pie. Or I’ll try to remember how to do it. No guarantees. I might end up poisoning you.”

“I’ll take my chances. So, back to you being a kid. You got to see your friends on the weekends, right?”

“Yeah. I had two best friends, Lindsey and Denise. I got to swim in Lindsey’s pool in the summers.”

“Nice.”

“It was. We used to do everything together. Sometimes I’d get to sleep over at their houses but not very often.”

“Why not?”

“My father wouldn’t let me. Said my place was at home with my family.”

“Your father was strict?”

She snorted. “That’s an understatement. He ruled our home with an iron fist. My mother had to report in every second of her life. Where she was going, what she was doing, who she was seeing. God forbid she wasn’t at her desk if he happened to call her office. He’d go off into a tirade about that.”

“Why?”

“He had to be in control. His whole life was about controlling people. Controlling her, controlling me. The world would stop turning if he didn’t know what we were doing every moment of the day. That’s why he didn’t work much. How could he work and manage us at the same time?”

Gavin didn’t say anything. Dammit, why had she offered up so much information? She’d only meant to talk about Lindsey and Denise, and the fun they had. She’d meant to keep it light. But, oh, no, she’d just had to talk about her father.

“I’m sorry about your dad. That must have been hard on you.”

“I avoided him, defied him when I could.”

“And your mother?”

She pressed her lips together, determined not to talk about it.

“Elizabeth? What about your mom?”

“She did whatever he told her to do like the good robot she was. He told her to be home at a certain time, and she was. Canned goods had to be organized in a certain way in the cabinet, and they were. Towels had to be folded just right, or she had to do it over again until they were. She had no friends, because why did she need friends when she had him to take care of, and God knows he was a full-time job. She was supposed to spend all of her time with him.”

He reached under the blanket and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry. That’s no life for a kid. There must have been a lot of tension in the house.”

She shrugged, tried to pull her hand away, but he didn’t let go. “It wasn’t that bad. I managed just fine.”

“It sounds like it was a nightmare.”

She didn’t want to answer, but something compelled her. “It was hell.”

“But you survived it. And knowing who you are now, I’d bet he couldn’t control you.”

She laughed. “No, he couldn’t. I wouldn’t let him. He tried, and he did when I was younger, but by the time I hit high school, he was too busy managing every second of my mother’s life and had to choose between her or me.”