The Water Keeper(108)

“I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I thought about hiring someone to teach me dance lessons so the next time I saw you and you asked me to dance, I wouldn’t stumble around like such an idiot. I just know that I’m really tired of walking alone, and I’d—”

She pressed her finger to my lips. “Shhh.”

“I’m trying to talk to you. I’ve been rehearsing this for—”

She dried her face and smiled. “I know. It’s cute.”

“But—”

She spun around me, tracing the lines of my shoulders with her finger. Never losing touch with her partner. Sizing me up. “If you want to do that thing you do where I ask a direct question and you change the subject, you can. Anytime is fine.”

I tried to recover. “I don’t know what life looks like from here, but I think it looks like . . .”

She raised her eyebrows and nodded knowingly. “Turn around.”

“What?”

She spoke slowly. “Turn . . . around.”

“But—”

“Turn.”

“Why?”

“You live your life bouncing between variables. Constantly prepared for the what-ifs. It’s one of the things I love about you. It’s why there’s a town in Colorado populated by girls and their mommas who dream and laugh and . . . these girls are safe. I know. I live among them. But not you. You choose to live alone in a slave chapel where you are reminded daily that evil is real. Not letting your guard down.”

She traced her finger again along the lines of my shoulders. Stopping at each scar. Her fingertips barely touching each. “I—” She paused. Stared at my back. Slowly traced the letters. Finally placing one palm flat across the back of my heart. The other around my waist. She pressed her cheek to my shoulder. We swayed. She whispered, “I want to read you.”

I turned. “I added four names.”

She lifted my hoodie and studied my back. “Where?”

“You can’t see them?”

“No.”

“It’s this new kind of tattoo. Permanent ink but tough to see with the naked eye.”

Her confusion changed to playfulness. “Oh yeah?”

I placed her hand flat across my heart, which was pounding like a drum. “I wrote them here.”

She pressed her face flat against my chest.

“Nothing can erase the ones written on the heart. Ever.”

We swayed, my first dance lesson. She listened to me breathe. I marveled at the scent of her. Her tenderness. How every movement was a shared interaction. She even let me lead. Not wanting me to be embarrassed, she wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “You have good structure.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. “Is that a compliment?”

She laughed. Then with little notice, she pulled me to her and kissed me. A long kiss. One she’d been holding. When finished, she stood back, stared at me, and kissed me again—only this time she placed her hands inside my hoodie, flat against my skin. Her hands were warm, and her fingertips traced the lines of the scars on my back.

Laughing, she pushed away from me and tried to hide the fact that her face was flushed. She grinned. “Air sure is thin up here.”

“Yep.”

She let go of me, walked to the door, and said, “Dinner is served in fifteen. Angel’s cooking her favorite. Basil pesto pasta. Fried chicken. Sautéed spinach. You don’t want to let it get cold.”

It struck me again that the table had been set for four. “How’d you know?”

She smirked. “I’m a woman, not an idiot. I have my ways.”

“Evidently.”

Summer kissed me again and said, “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re glad to see me.”

“I’m glad to see you.”

“Not like that. Like you mean it.”

I held out my left hand, shoulder high, and she placed hers inside mine. I wrapped my right hand around her waist, and she followed my steps while I led her counterclockwise around the room. Dancing under a blanket of firelight. I raised my hand, and she twirled and came back to me. I raised it again, she twirled and twirled, and we ended up wrapped around each other. Intertwined.

She smiled, closed her eyes, and pressed her forehead to mine. “That works.”

She walked to the chairlift, saying, “Fifteen minutes,” then caught the first chair down. I walked back out on the porch and watched her ride solo down the mountain. If I had come here wondering what my feelings were for Summer, I had my answer. I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.





Chapter 54


I had intended to shower and maybe even change my clothes, but when I turned and headed back into my small cabin, I found Bones. Standing in front of the fire. Warming himself.

In the month and a half since Marie’s death, we had not talked about what he knew, when he knew it, and why he’d not told me. And while part of me was happy to see him, part of me wanted to put my fist through his face.

I figured we’d skip the niceties. “You owe me an explanation.”

“I do.”

“Well?”

“Won’t do any good.”