The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(48)

“Yes,” he finally said against her lips, voice gravelly. “But I’m not sure there will be any sleeping involved, and it won’t be tonight.”

Disappointment chased arousal through her veins. “No?”

“I want you, Brynn. I can’t even begin to hide that, but I’m not going to be another mistake or disappointment. I want to be one of the very best things in your life.”

Given how she felt when he kissed her, she could guarantee he would be. Standing there, sandwiched between the lean hard muscles of his body and the cool wood of the door, she felt some of her bones go squishy. She could feel the heat pulse from him, enclosing her in a cocoon of warmth and desire. “Maybe,” she said, “we should just jump in with both feet.”

“Yeah?”

Before she could say hell yeah, Kinsey yelled from behind the bathroom door. “Oh, for God’s sake! Either go fuck each other blind or shut up and go to work!”

Ignoring her, Eli kissed Brynn again, then reluctantly pulled back. “We’ll finish this later.”

She hoped that was a promise.





Chapter 16


From fifteen-year-old Kinsey’s summer camp journal:

Dear Journal,

Okay, so I never did throw you in the lake. But if you tell anyone, I’ll dump you into the hazardous waste bucket in my hospital room.

Yeah, I’m back in the hospital. Had a kidney transplant. From what I overhead, I guess it didn’t come a day too soon. There was a community fund-raiser, which brought a lot of people to the clinic to get tested to see if they were a match for me. Eli got himself tested again. He hates that he isn’t a match, but he doesn’t understand how much it means to me that he tried. Or that he won’t go to camp without me.

A kid at my school was a match. I can’t believe someone I barely know is willing to do this for me. It’s kind of a miracle, the first really great thing to ever happen to me.

Maybe I’ll stop being sick all the time now . . .

Also, I don’t hate you anymore.

Kinsey

ELI GOT HOME from work and was jumped by an exuberant Mini, who was thrilled to see him. Because no one else was home, he exchanged his clothes for board shorts and went for a long swim. When he was too exhausted to go another stroke, he floated on his back in the tide, staring up at the sky.

Thanks to spider-gate and the ensuing hot make-out sesh in the hall with Brynn that morning, the day had started out with a lot promise. But it’d gone to hell pretty quickly. A coalition of environmental groups, including the one he worked for, had sued the state for granting permits to seismic-mapping companies. The permits allowed the companies to harass and harm marine animals while blasting deafening sounds underwater in the Pacific Ocean in search of oil and gas deposits.

The court battle was tying up most of his days lately, making him crazy. And today he had missed a call from the funeral home. He’d been calling them every few days for months to no avail, and then the one time they try to get in touch with him, he’d missed the call. They hadn’t left a message and had closed by the time he called back.

He’d tried everything he could think of to track down his mom over the past few weeks. He’d left messages, DMed her, snail mailed her, made Max try as well, and . . . nothing. Not even his dad had been able to help.

His mom was really going to just let his grandma’s ashes remain at the funeral home indefinitely. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around that fact. So he swam. And swam.

When his legs began to tremble with fatigue, he headed in, surprised to find Brynn sitting on the beach at the water’s edge, Mini at her side, clearly waiting for him.

When she saw him coming out of the water, she stood, shook out the towel she’d been sitting on, and handed it to him.

“Thanks.” He swiped it over his face and bent low to love up on Mini, who’d melted into a puddle at his touch, wriggling on her back in the sand like she was the happiest dog on the planet.

“Rough day?” Brynn asked quietly.

From his crouched position at her feet, he looked up and took in the very welcome sight of her in a candy-apple-red sundress and no shoes. “It’s getting better now.”

She gave him a look.

“Seriously,” he said. “You’re the best thing I’ve seen all day.”

She smiled, but it was pensive, and then suddenly she thrust a piece of paper into his hands.

“What’s this?” He skimmed the document and stilled.

“Remember when I told you that I’d worked some odd jobs during college?” she asked quietly. “Well, one of them was at a funeral home.”

Without taking his eyes off the document, the one that said his mother had granted permission for him to handle his grandma’s remains provided she was clear of financial obligation, he let out a shaky exhale.

“It was a temp thing,” Brynn said. “But I’ve still got a friend who works there. I called in a favor. She called the funeral home where your grandma’s remains are and got the contact information your mom had left them. Then I, um . . . made contact.”

He looked at her. “She picked up your call?”

“She did.”

“You . . . called my mom and she picked up.”

“I called her as an employee of a funeral home . . .” She grimaced and started talking, getting faster and faster as she went, like she was really nervous. “And I’m hearing my own words and realizing what a huge invasion of privacy this was, but I just wanted to help. I knew you weren’t getting through to her. When I called, I sort of left out the fact that I’m really an ex-employee . . . and apparently she also spaced out on the name of the funeral home being different from the one where your grandma’s cremated remains are. Anyway, I got her to digitally sign the release. Which means you can arrange for your grandma’s remains to be blessed by her priest—which I get isn’t exactly how she wanted it, but I figured it was better than nothing, and then she can be put in her church’s cemetery.”