Chapter Three
THORN
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FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I park behind the town hall’s back entrance. A heavy silence followed us out of The Enchanted Ballroom. It followed us down the elevator, into my truck, and the short ride to town.
“Flora—”
She climbs out of the truck without a word and slams the door shut. Her floral dress whips in the winter breeze and her boots slap angrily against the pavement.
Shit.
I resist the urge to slam the steering wheel and instead shove open my door with extra force.
I laid it on too thick, too fast, and in front of the entire event committee. What the hell is wrong with me?
My boots hit the ground and even my long strides don’t get to the door before she lets it slam in my face.
Double shit.
Inside, I follow the clatter of metal, the crinkle of plastic, and the sound of boxes dragging along the floor. I round a corner and see her ripping plastic wrap off a tightly secured eight-foot skid before wrestling an awkward jumbo plastic candy cane.
“Let me help you.” I reach above her.
“No. I have it.”
“You don’t have it.” I catch the top of a second candy cane that almost lands on her head. I place my other hand firmly on her backside.
“I do not need your help. You’ve helped plenty already today.” She spins. Her front brushes mine, and she flattens her back against the decorations to distance us. It doesn’t work. We’re locked tight, and I won’t budge.
“I’m sorry.”
Her mouth clamps shut, and a whirlwind of emotions plays in her eyes.
I seize the opportunity. “I got ahead of myself. I saw you, and all the good sense god gave me flew out the damn window. I hadn’t intended on delving into any of that, and sure as hell not in front of an audience.”
She presses her lips together in that adorable way as if she wants to appear mad, but she can’t. “Being the target of gossip in this town was the one thing I didn’t want to happen. You know that and made me the bullseye.”
“That wasn’t my goal.” My fingers tighten around the plastic candy cane I hold above us to keep from touching her. “You do something to me. You always have.” I also didn’t intend for these words to come out in a low, husky growl, but here we are.
“Oh, don’t worry. The entire town knows I do something to you, and now everyone is wondering why Thorn Slater is all wide-eyed over Freak Frame Flora—”
“Hey now, don’t call yourself that—” My free hand reaches for her, and she slaps my hand away.
“No. We’ve done enough touching. This entire weekend is going to revolve around the townspeople watching, wondering, and debating our past to figure out what they missed.”
“It’s none of their damn business.”
“You made it their business!” Her cheeks flush with her outburst.
“What can I do to fix this?”
“Stop telling everyone you miss me and that you plan on stealing my heart, or marrying me, or anything that involves me.”
“Alright. Done.” I don’t promise not to unload all my ten-year-plus pent-up feelings to her.
“No touching.”
“Hands to myself.” I stuff my free hand in the pocket of my denim.
Her face softens with relief. “Thank you.”
She shouldn’t have to thank me. Good lord, I shouldn’t have put her in this situation.
“And help me load your truck so we can finish our display sooner than later.”
I smile. “Absolutely.”
She turns, and the candy cane heaves upward, knocking into the misaligned rickety mound. The collection shudders before it buckles, and the colossal mountain of vintage blow molds crashes on us.
A gasp-like scream escapes Flora. I fling myself over her, creating a human shield between her and crashing objects. These candy canes, snowmen, and candles might be made of plastic, but they sure give a forceful blow when they hit me square on the back and strike my leg.
A sudden slip forces her to grab handfuls of my clothes, and somehow I lose my footing. We topple over each other, landing in a clumsy heap on the floor. She lays safely beneath me as the rest of the pile rains down on us. When the last snowman plays a round of plinko off every surface, including me, I prop up on my arm and lift my head to meet her hazel eyes, wide with shock—the golden flecks shimmer as they lock with mine.
Lord only knows how much I’ve missed her between long days of tirelessly exerting myself like a workhorse determined to get my dad’s ranch back off the ground and passed out most nights the second I hit the mattress. Then back up before the sun. But there have been moments when the scent of wildflowers would pull her back into my thoughts so vividly it felt like she was right there with me. Even a casual dip in the creek to cool off would evoke memories of water fights between us. Water fights that led to kissing, then lovemaking on the bank. A man can’t jerk off in the middle of a creek, but damn, it got to the point where I avoid creeks.
Now, I gently tuck a strand of hair from her face. “I guess we both could have used some help.”
A smile breaks through her cold-stone expression. Her gaze flickers over the chaos before laughter bubbles up her chest. I missed this sound and her smile—the genuine one she doesn’t share with everyone.
A grin spreads across my face, and my chuckle turns into hearty laughter.
“Thomas is going to hang us by our boots!” Her broken and chopped-up sentence further ignites an eruption of laughter between us.
“He’ll call a town meeting with our relatives to discuss the consequences,” I roar.
“And force us into a mandatory program to prevent future incidents.”
“At this rate, I’ll be seeing a lot more of you.”
Her boisterous laugh recoils into an uneasy silence. She swallows hard, and I try not to notice the neckline of her dress dip with the rise and fall of her chest. Or my leg firmly wedged between hers, with only my denim and the thin material of her dress between us.
“It was one summer, Thorn. You don’t expect me to believe you’ve been waiting all these years for me?”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re Thorn Slater.”
“That’s my name.” I squeeze my hand into a fist to keep from cupping the side of her face and running my finger along her luscious lower lip.
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
Her heavy sigh kisses my skin. “Don’t pretend I was your only countryside tryst that summer.”
“I don’t have to pretend.”
She all but rolls her eyes. “You’re Thorn Slater.”
“I feel like we’ve already established my name.”
“Why do you want me to say it? Everyone knows. Everyone talks. It runs in your family. All the men are—”
My blood chills at her implication. “All the men are what?”
She bites on her lower lip, but I’ve lost my appetite to taste the depths of her further. “Promiscuous,” she finally says, and her unflinching expression reinforces her conviction.
My insides harden. Of all the people in this town, I thought she knew me. But clearly, I was nothing more than her summer fling before college.
“You mean stud. Or Casanova. Or manwhore.” The terms grit out of my rigid jaw. “And I could go on: ladies’ man, skirt-chaser, hound dog—”
“I am not judging.”
“Are you sure? Because if you spent the summer assuming I had a lineup of summer flings, your perspective of me was purely judgemental.” I push off the floor, but before I stand, I add, “I never put you in the little box the rest of the town did. I never confined you to their narrow-minded perspectives. I knew how that box felt, and you just jammed me inside.”
I shove off the floor and kick my way through the decorations. I fish the stupid candy cane out of the mess and march away. “Make a pile, and I’ll load it,” I shout, regretting volunteering for this gig. Regretting all these years, I did fucking wait for her.