Chapter 12
Looking at the cookies, she couldn’t believe she’d made them…. Well, she and Dan had, but still. They didn’t look anything like the little turd balls she’d attempted to make many years ago. Maybe I can bake for Hudson?
Leah didn’t want to think about the fact that Dan had seen her panicking. Not only that, but he’d also been kind and gentle with her until she’d calmed. He’d helped her bake.
So far, avoiding him didn’t seem to be working.
“We found a table that needed a few nails but seems sturdy enough,” Zoe said as she stepped outside. “It may need a coat of stain as well.”
“I can do that,” she said quickly. “I have food and coffee ready for everyone,” Leah added.
“Cool. You go to the tree house, and I’ll tell the others.”
“Tree house?”
“That way.” Zoe pointed to the right, and Leah headed that way.
She found Sawyer, Dan, and Hudson.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“They’re making me a tree house, Aunt Leah,” Hudson said, smiling. “Isn’t it cool?”
Looking up, she saw a platform had been built above her.
“We’re going to have a rope ladder that I can pull up when I want to be alone up there,” her nephew added.
“But it’s not finished yet, bud. We need to make some sides too,” Dan said.
“You’re a lucky boy,” Leah said. “Now go wash your hands, because I have some food ready.”
“Coffee?” Sawyer asked, raising a brow at her.
“Yes.”
He nodded and walked away, following Hudson, who was making for the house.
“I’ll finish this,” Dan said.
“You don’t have to. I can—”
“I told Hudson I would do this for him, so I’m doing it.”
He was covered in dust and dirt, with leaves in his hair, and he looked good. Too good, she thought.
“He will love it. Thank you.”
A tree house for a little boy who needed every ounce of love she could give him. A smile tugged at her lips. Hudson would spend a lot of time up there.
“You must be proud of him. He’s a good kid,” Dan said.
“He’s like Cassie.” The words slipped out before Leah could stop them.
“I see a lot of her in Hudson,” Dan agreed, “but there’s some of you in there too.”
The reply lodged in her throat. She wanted to ask—desperately—what part of Hudson reminded him of her. But pride, fear, maybe even grief, kept her silent. Instead, she said, “You’d better grab that coffee before it goes cold.”
Turning away before he could read her expression, Leah crossed to the others, and Dan followed because she could feel him behind her.
They all ate together, seated at the table or on the grass. Ryder praised Leah and Dan’s cookies. The Dukes annoyed each other, like they always had, and she laughed. It felt good to be here with her old friends, even if Dan was close. Hudson was happy too. His small smile made her chest feel warm.
This, she thought, was yet another reason to come home.
When they were finished, Leah thanked them all for everything they’d done for her and Hudson that day.
“We stacked all the furniture you removed from the house beside the first barn,” Zoe said.
“Thanks. It’s not useable, so I’ll just get rid of it,” Leah said.
“Is it okay if we take Hudson with us, Leah? Ally asked if he could, seeing as we’re heading to Meadow and Hamish’s now. Mom’s meeting us there with Sadie,” Sawyer said.
“Oh…. Ah, we’ve never—”
“Could I, Aunt Leah?” Hudson said, appearing at her side. “Ally wants to show me her Nana Meadow’s chicken house and gardens. They have two dogs and other animals. They all wander over the property because they have no pens.” He looked excited.
“Are you sure you want to go?” Leah asked.
He nodded.
“Okay, well, head inside and wash your face and hands. Then pull on some clean shorts and a top. I’ll follow as soon as I’ve tidied up.”
“We’ll look after him,” Birdie said.
“I know,” Leah assured her. “It’s just he’s never been anywhere except school without me since Cassie died.”
“Well then, it’s time,” Sawyer said.
“Maybe it is,” she agreed.
When everyone had left, Leah headed back inside to wash the coffee cups.
“How are you feeling now?”
Leah whirled to find Dan standing behind her.
“I thought everyone had left.”
“Just working on the tree house,” he said, watching her. “You didn’t answer my question,” he added, moving closer to stop inches from her.
“What are you doing?” Leah was trapped between him and the counter at her back.
“Hell if I know, but I’ve spent the day watching you, and I can’t stop wanting to touch you.”
“No, Dan. We can’t—”
“We can.”
He kissed her then, easing her into his arms. He drank from her lips deep and long, kissing her like the years between them hadn’t happened—like the heartbreak, the silence, the bitter words had never been spoken. His mouth was warm, coaxing hers open, and Leah hated how quickly she responded.
But her hands were already in his hair, tugging, her body arching into his like it remembered everything she’d tried to forget.
“I don’t want to like you,” she whispered when he finally lifted his head.
Dan’s forehead touched hers, his breath ragged. “Good. Because I still haven’t forgiven you.”
His mouth returned to hers, rougher this time. No teasing now, no hesitation. His hands slipped under her shirt, skimming over skin beneath his touch.
“But I’ve never wanted any woman more than you,” he growled, backing her toward the kitchen counter.
She hit it with a thump and gasped as he hoisted her onto the cool surface, then stepped between her legs. His hands were everywhere now. On her waist, her thighs, her back, and it wasn’t sweet or playful. It was hungry and heated and messy, like the two of them had always been.
When his lips found the spot beneath her ear, the one that made her toes curl, she whispered, “This doesn’t change anything.”
Dan stilled. His breath stirred her hair. “No. But it means something.”
She didn’t reply. Couldn’t. Because he was kissing her again, and she was letting him. And when his hands slid down and tugged her closer, Leah stopped thinking altogether.
She clutched at his shirt, yanking it from his waistband, needing his skin beneath her hands. When her palms flattened against his stomach, she felt the jolt that went through him. The muscles in his abdomen twitched, and then his mouth was on her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder.
“We shouldn’t—” she breathed.
“Tell me to stop,” Dan rasped against her skin, his voice wrecked. “Tell me now.”
But she didn’t. Couldn’t. Her body betrayed her, pulling him closer, thighs tightening around his hips. She was already lost in the heat of him, the familiar scent of sweat and Dan, something that had always been just his.
His hands slid up her ribs, thumbs brushing the underswell of her breasts, and she arched into him with a gasp. He tugged down the cups of her bra and took her nipple into his mouth, sucking gently until her breath hitched.
“Christ,” she moaned, threading her fingers into his hair, holding him there. “This doesn’t mean anything.”
“You keep saying that,” he growled, moving to the other breast, teeth grazing her nipple. “But your body says otherwise.”
Her head fell back against the cabinet door as he kissed lower, dragging his tongue along the center of her stomach. Then he dropped to his knees on the tiled floor and looked up at her, face flushed, eyes dark.
“You always liked it when I took my time,” he said, fingers finding the button on her shorts.
“Dan—” Her voice was a warning. A plea. A dare.
He slid the zipper down slowly, eyes never leaving hers, and when he peeled the denim from her hips, followed by her underwear, he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh.
She trembled.
“You’re shaking.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Still a liar,” he murmured.
And then his mouth was on her. Hot, unrelenting.
Leah cried out and grabbed the edge of the counter to keep from sliding off as his tongue did a sweep of her damp folds.
Her thighs trembled against his shoulders as he worked her with the kind of focus that made her dizzy, his teeth grazing the hard nub between her thighs.
She hated him. She wanted him. God help her, she still loved him.
When she came, it was with his name on her lips and years of tension behind it. He rose then, his mouth wet, eyes satisfied and dark with need.
“I hate that you still know my body,” she whispered, breathless.
“I hate that I never forgot it.”
He kissed her again, raw and hungry, and she reached between them, finding the hardness straining behind his fly. He groaned, low and guttural, as she undid the button and reached inside, wrapping her fingers around him.
“No condom,” she said between kisses.
“I’ll pull out,” he rasped, already pushing his jeans down.
“I’m on the pill.”
That made him pause, but only for a heartbeat. He caught her face in his hands and kissed her hard.
She wrapped her legs around him, urging him closer and into her body.
Dan lifted her off the counter and carried her the few steps to the kitchen table, where he laid her down with a tenderness that cut through the heat.
Then he sank into her, slow and deep, and everything else disappeared.
The hurt, the years, the reasons they shouldn’t.
It all burned away in the heat of their bodies colliding, over and over again, until they were nothing but breath and sweat and a past they’d pushed aside…
for now. He drove into her again and again, and she felt the delicious tremors of another release building inside her.
“Leah,” he moaned low in his throat. “Come for me again.”
She did, arching up and into him as he drove deep. Dan followed one thrust later. Then he slumped on top of her.
The sound of a phone ringing and the words “Uncle Asher calling” filled the kitchen.
“I need to take this,” Dan said, easing off her body.
“I know,” she said, and she did. He was a cop, and this could be an emergency. Leah wondered why she was suddenly cold, as if all that lovely heat she’d felt when he’d touched her had turned to ice.
She got off the table, her limbs feeling heavy, and reached for her clothes as he pulled his phone out of his pants.
“Uncle Asher.”
She dressed while he listened and then said, “Okay, I’ll head in soon.”
She’d pulled on her shirt when he said, “Leah—”
“Just go, Dan. Your uncle needs you.”
“I don’t need to go now. He wants me to stop in on the way home to look at something he’s found.”
“We both know this shouldn’t have happened.” She couldn’t look at him.
“I don’t know that, and we need to talk.”
He was pulling on his clothes now, covering up all that wonderful muscled flesh.
“No, this would complicate things, and I have Hudson to care for.”
“And you think I’d stop you doing that?” He looked hurt at her words.
“I can’t do that with you again, Dan. Can’t be with you. Not after—”
“We need to talk about what happened seven years ago, Leah.”
“Just go, Dan.”
His phone rang again.
“Just go now, please,” Leah insisted.
“We’re talking, and soon. That happened because we still have—”
“Don’t say feelings because I can’t have those for you again. Please leave.”
He looked at her, and she saw the frustration in his eyes. He then closed the distance between them before she could retreat and kissed her hard. “This is not done between us, Leah. You need to understand that.”
Seconds later he was gone, closing the door softly behind him.
She sank into a chair, giving herself five minutes to breathe—and to remember how it had felt to be with Dan again. The warmth, the connection… the danger of wanting more.
Reality pressed back in. She couldn’t let it happen again. He’d hurt her before, and now she had Hudson. Her nephew had to be her focus.
But God, it had felt incredible. The strength in his arms, the heat of his body, and the way he’d moved inside her. Powerful, more intense than it had been between them before.
He was stronger now. Time had carved him into someone sharper, harder, and impossibly more irresistible.
And sitting there, her body still humming with the memory of his touch, Leah realized with a jolt of terror how easy it would be to love Dan Duke again.
Too easy. For seven years she had lived on the lie that he’d betrayed her, that he’d shattered her heart without hesitation.
She had fed her rage like it was oxygen, because hating him was the only way she’d survived.
But seeing him again, with his family and Hudson, she knew the kernel of doubt was growing inside her, that the man she’d made into her villain had only been doing his duty.
That the real betrayal, the unforgivable one, had belonged to her father.
And with that truth came the jagged grief of everything she’d lost: the years without him, the nights she’d cried herself empty, the love she had buried alive and sworn never to dig up again.
Leah dragged herself upstairs and showered.
Once she was dressed, she knew that tonight, she would be putting on the performance of her life because what she really wanted to do was go to bed, pull the covers over her head, and never leave it again.
But now she had Hudson to think of, so that wasn’t an option.
Plus, she was about to watch a movie with Dan’s family.
Another bad decision, Leah. I wonder when you’ll ever stop making them, she thought.
Her mind went back to what she and Dan had done. It had always been good between them, but now, as adults, it had been so much more.
You messed up, Leah Reynolds. The problem was, now what did she do about it?