Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)(86)

He’s fucking lickable.

Too good to leave behind, that’s for sure.

“No, pal. I don’t think I am. Not permanently, anyway. I think I’d miss you too much. Is that okay with you?”

His round face softens, hair flopping onto his forehead as he nods. “Yeah. I’d miss you too. And I think my dad would be really lonely without you.” With a sweet little smile, he turns and scampers through the front door, like he didn’t just leave Cade and me out here with watery eyes.

“Did you talk to him?”

Cade rubs a gloved hand over his eye. “No. Figured I should talk to you first.” He sniffs.

“You okay? Did I overstep?”

“Not at all.” He clears his throat. “Just got dust in my eye.” He rubs again.

“Cool, cool. Me too,” I say, giving him an exaggerated watery wink.

“How was brunch?” He digs again, arms flexing as he does.

I never knew a man digging out a spot for a sidewalk could be an aphrodisiac, but here I am, admiring the way his shoulders bulge against his T-shirt and the tendons in his forearms ripple in the sunlight.

“Good.”

“You actually going to stay?” he asks, without looking up at me. Instead, he tosses a shovel full of dirt behind himself and keeps working.

“You really going to keep working while we have this conversation?”

“Yup,” is his gruff response.

“Yesterday you were all Me Cade. You woman. Stay here. Eat pussy every day,” I say in what is a sad attempt at some sort of Tarzan impersonation.

He doesn’t laugh though. “Well, today I’m more worried you’ll be thinking straight and will realize you belong in the city doing whatever fancy shit you do.”

“Manage a bar while slinging beer? My glamorous lifestyle truly knows no bounds.”

“Listen”—he shoves the shovel into the ground like he wants to hurt it before finally looking up at me—“if all this out here isn’t enough for you, I’d rather you just go now. I wasn’t joking about what I said yesterday. And it feels like a lot. I . . .” He glances away, wiping the back of his arm over his forehead. “I don’t want to live my life scared anymore. But I also don’t want to be made a fool of again.”

That painful twisting sensation is back in my chest. The heavy rock in my gut. This man deserves so much better than what he’s received.

“Cade, look at me.”

His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t look my way, opting to stare down at the ground he’s dug out.

So that’s where I go. I sit down in the dirt right in front of him.

“The fuck you doing, woman?” he grumbles as I tip my chin up in his direction.

“Trying to get your attention.” I stretch my legs out in front of me and lean back on my palms, feeling the cool damp dirt beneath them. It smells like earth, and flint, and pine needles.

It smells like home.

“You’ve had my attention since—”

I roll my eyes and wave a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah. Since I dropped my panties at your feet.”

“No. Since I first heard you laugh.”

That shuts me up.

“In the coffee shop. I was standing behind you and couldn’t stop thinking about how incredible your laugh was. All fucking light and warm. It made me want to laugh too.”

My tongue darts out over my lips as I regard him.

“I’m—fuck—I’m scared, Willa. I’m scared you’re too young. That you haven’t lived enough. That you’re too far out of my league. I’m scared I won’t be enough for you and you’ll walk away. And I’ll be stuck here in the shambles again. And so will Luke this time.” His free hand swipes at his hat, shifting it on his head as he looks away again.

“I’m scared too,” I blurt out. “But not too scared to try.”

He stares at me. Hard. It’s unnerving really. And then he rasps out, “Yeah, me neither.”

I beam at him and see a ghost of a smile on his lips before he starts shoveling again.

“I’ll call my brother and quit. That will be fun.”

“If you need to go back to the city for a while, that’s fine. You might want to take your time.”

“And what? Pretend we haven’t been living together for almost two months already? Should I go live up at the main house with Harvey?”

He doesn’t even flinch. “That might give us a chance to date properly. Maybe a little distance is good for you to be sure about everything. Or we could commute.”

I roll my eyes and cross my feet. “Shut up, Cade. Stop being so mature.”

“Someone has to be,” he grumbles, tossing another shovelful of dirt over his shoulder and looking mighty sexy as he does it.

“Hey, you know what this yard needs?” I press my index finger to my lips as I make a show of examining the property.

“What?”

“A real good blow job.”

Cade barks out a raspy laugh and shakes his head. “Lord help me, what have I done?”

We spend the rest of the day like that. Him digging. Me making fun of him. And eventually Luke comes out and plays us a song he made up.

For once, I feel settled. Like everything in my life is where it’s meant to be.