Book Lovers(50)

WE AMBLE DOWN the dark road in near silence, but the air hums with an electric charge between us.

“You don’t have to walk me all the way to the cottage,” I finally say.

“It’s on my way,” Charlie says.

I cast him a disbelieving look.

His head tilts, streetlight lancing his face. I’m not sure anyone on the planet has nicer eyebrows than this man. Of course, I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed a man’s eyebrows before, so it might just be that my general under-stimulation during publishing’s slow season has forced me to find new interests. “Fine,” he relents. “It’s not far out of my way.”

At the edge of town, the sidewalk gives way to a grassy shoulder, but tonight I’m wearing sensible shoes. On our right, a narrow footpath winds into the foliage. “What’s through there?”

“Woods,” he says.

“I got that much,” I say. “Where does it go?”

He runs a hand over his face. “To the cottage.”

“Wait, like a shortcut?”

“More or less.”

“Is there a reason we’re not taking it?”

He arches a brow. “I didn’t take you for the hiking-in-the-dead-of-night type?”

I push past him.

“Stephens,” he says. “You don’t have to prove anything.” His faintly spicy scent catches up to me before he does, so familiar and yet surprising, notes of cinnamon and orange that are much stronger on him than they are on me. “Let’s just go back and follow the road.” Overhead, an owl hoots, and he ducks his head and throws his arms over it protectively.

“Wait.” I cut him a glance, stop. “Are you . . . afraid of the dark?”

“Of course not,” he growls, starting down the path again. “I’m just surprised how far you’re taking this small-town-transformation thing. And just so you know, those bangs do not make you more approachable. You just look like a hot assassin in an expensive wig.”

“All I just heard,” I say, “is hot and expensive.”

“If I showed you a Rorschach blot, you’d find hot and expensive somewhere in there.”

My gaze catches over his shoulder. Just beyond the trail, a stream funnels over a small waterfall, massive rocks jutting up like teeth on either side of it to form a swimming hole. A break in the tree cover lets moonlight pool on its center, turning the frothy water into a landscape of shimmering silver spirals.

“Number six,” I exhale.

Charlie follows my gaze, his brow furrowing. “There is absolutely no way.”

The urge to surprise him surges like a tidal wave. But there’s something else too. In college, I was always the Party Mom, the one who made sure no one fell down stairs or drank anything they hadn’t seen poured. With Libby, I’m the doting-slash-worrying older sister. For my clients, the hard-ass who argues and presses and negotiates.

Here, I realize abruptly, I’m none of those things. I don’t have to be, not with obsessive, organized, responsible Charlie Lastra. So I step onto the nearest boulder and kick off my shoes.

“Nora,” he groans. “You’re not serious.”

I peel my dress over my shoulders. “Why not? Are there alligators?”

I look back at him in time to catch his eyes cutting up from my underwear, instinctively snagging on my bra for a split second before launching to my face with a clench of his jaw.

“Sharks?” I ask.

“Only you,” he says.

“Leeches? Nuclear waste?”

“Regular waste isn’t bad enough?” he says.

“I’m not making you get in,” I say.

“Not until you start drowning.”

I sit on the rock, dangling my legs into the cool water. A shiver breaks across my shoulder blades. “I’m a very proficient swimmer.” I slip into the stream, suppressing a yelp.

“Cold?” Charlie says, tone self-satisfied.

“Balmy,” I reply, wading deeper until the water reaches my chest. “I would have to try very hard to drown in this.”

He steps up to the ledge. “At least the bacterial infection will come easily.”

“I would’ve thought this was some kind of Sunshine Falls rite of passage,” I say.

“Do I seem like the kind of person who would honor local rites of passage?”

“Well, your boots are Sandro and I’ve seen you wear luxury cashmere at least thrice,” I say, “so maybe not.”

“Capsule wardrobe,” he says, like this explains everything. “I only buy things that can be worn with everything else I already own, and that I know I like enough to wear for years. It’s an investment.”

“Such a city person,” I sing.

He rolls his eyes. “You know this doesn’t count for number six, right? Maybe in Manhattan they consider this skinny-dipping, but in Sunshine Falls we’d call that getup ‘a glorified bathing suit.’?”

Another challenge.

I’m a woman possessed. I sink beneath the water, unclasp my bra, and hurl it at him. It thwacks against his chest. “Closer,” he allows, lifting the dainty black lace strap to examine it in the moonlight. “All this,” he says seriously, “wasted on Blake Carlisle.”