Chapter 42

She exhaled, made a helpless gesture with her arms. He caught her in his arms and kissed her forehead, her cheeks. “Come on. Let me win.”

She pretended exasperation, but her full, sexy lips were trying very hard not to smile. “Okay. If they don’t need me yet. A few days only.”

“Thank you.” He let out a breath, pointed to a seagull perched on a beach towel, and when she turned to look, allowed himself a silent, high-fisted yes-s-s behind her back before he started them walking again to the north, where the beach curved and the best view of the city would rise behind them. “You have my camera?”

“Of course.” She dug it out of her bag. “Hold still.”

He put a hand in front of his face. “Not me, a picture of the city.”

“I will. But I’ll want pictures of you, too.”

“You’ll forget me otherwise?”

She gave him a sassy grin over the camera. “In a heartbeat.”

“What if you had me every day to look at? In the flesh.” He stood for another picture, hands on his hips, wondering how far she’d go, if she felt as deeply as he did, loathing his vulnerability as strongly as he was determined to keep her here.

She took a step back, focused her lens. “What, you’re going to move to Rosehill, too?”

“No. You’re going to stay here.” He smiled. The camera clicked.

“You think so?”

“Quinley is your home. Rosehill is torturously hot eight months of the year. Quinley is only torturously cold for four.”

“Where did you make up those statistics?” She circled around him, taking more pictures.

“I saw them online.”

“Yeah? What site?”

“Madeupstuff.com.”

“Ah.” She clicked the lens again, walking backward while he advanced on her.

“And Rosehill has cockroaches the size of Kilbrough.”

“Those are palmetto bugs.”

“They’re cockroaches. Friends of mine who lived in Langford had slimy slug trails on their living room walls every morning, frogs hopping around the house, crickets, lizards. When they moved, there was a menagerie of death under the piano where the cat had chased them all.”

She stopped taking pictures. “Ew, really?”

“I swear.” He made an X over his heart. She clicked the camera. “And there’s no bratwurst, no custard…”

“No shoveling, no icy roads.”

“Black ice. They have that. And horrible traffic.”

“Year-round barbecues.”

“No me. No us.” He lunged forward, stopped her walking away from him. “Only Quinley has us.”

She kissed him as eagerly as he kissed her. The part of his brain that could still think remembered what her grandmother had said about her and Michelle being more alike than they thought. Beneath Michelle’s passion there must be a practical streak, because certainly beneath Candace’s practical streak there was passion. And how. He wanted to unearth all of it, push her to the border of what she could handle, sexually and emotionally. He couldn’t bear the thought of any Rosehill guy making those incredible discoveries.

“Let’s take a picture of both of us….” She dropped to her knees, beckoning him to join her, put her bag on the sand and adjusted the camera until she could get the shot she wanted. She set the timer, hurried next to him, and slid her arm around him the same time he slid his around her and hauled her close, mugging for the camera even as his body registered how good hers felt next to him.

She fit him. Better than his friends, his family, better than himself. She brought out the fun in everyday doings that he had lost track of, that he’d spent the past months trying too hard with too little success to capture after he quit his former life. Most valuably, she’d inspired him to look to his future with something other than pressured disinterest.

Candace was good for him. Other women had been nice companions, pleasant lovers, but he never felt any of them belonged in his life the way he felt Candace did.

“One more.” She reset the timer, posed again, then broke her radiant for-the-camera smile with all-out laughter when he tickled her. “Hey!”

She brought up the picture in the viewer, studied it and handed the camera to him, her smile turned more serious. He looked. Shook his head, handed the camera back. “You ever see two happier people?”

Candace looked again, biting her lip. “No.”

“You won’t know anyone down there.”

“I’ll make friends.”

He shrugged, pretended to let it drop. He’d gotten her to stay another few days or so, and had planted the seed of forever. He gestured to the lake, to the greenery lining the shore, to the city skyline a mile to the south.

“Take more pictures. So when you move to Rosehill you can take Quinley with you.”

“I’d like that.” She stood for a moment facing the city, the sun heading toward the west for its eventual night’s rest glowing on her face, lighting her eyes, which were slightly troubled. It was all he could do to keep himself from saying it, and in the next second he forgot why he shouldn’t and gave in, throwing common sense and pride to the winds.

“Candace, I love you.”

___________

Nolan’s summer place was beautiful, nestled among firs, oaks, maples and birches at the edge of the small lake, which, with the surrounding land, belonged entirely to the Carrington family. The house was a cozy little six-bedroom—just the thing for a casual weekend away from their other cozy six-bedroom on the Lake.

So maybe she was a little awed and a little bitter. It was hard to imagine having this much room to move around in without inflicting yourself on anyone else. Not another house in sight; the lake, vaguely kidney-shaped, might as well have been in the wilds.

Which for this evening suited Candace just fine. How long she’d stay in Quinley before making the trip to Rosehill she didn’t know, but a huge weight had lifted when Nolan convinced her to stay these few extra days…not that he’d had to work too hard to change her mind.

How long since she’d taken a vacation? Too long. She’d worked with Grandad year-round, through summers, through college, then taken the week between graduation and starting her job in Drakoria to move and get settled.

“I’ll show you around.” Nolan grabbed the cooler from the trunk where it had thudded back and forth during their hour’s drive from Quinley.

“I’d love that.” She got out of the car and inhaled the warm woodsy air, slapped at the mosquito trying to welcome her.