Chapter 11 #4
“But he came back.”
She nodded. “He wants to give it a try. I’m not sure that’s what I want.” She looked out to where the lake rolled into deep, dark forests. “The words you said the other night resonated. If I want him back, if he’s the one, then why aren’t I over-the-moon happy?”
Thank baby Jesus.
“Have you told him?” he asked, his voice raspy.
Her eyes narrowed. “Still thinking, Trafford. I owe him that much.”
Dane swallowed, not wanting to ask the question but knowing he had to. For his own sanity. “Are you still in love with him?”
“What’s love? I’m not sure I know.” She shook her head.
“But no, I don’t think I ever was, not properly, not the way I should be, I guess.
He just made me feel safe, like he was the one person I could count on, who I trusted not to leave me behind.
” She waved her hand, as if trying to wipe the pain away.
Until he did, by falling in love with someone else, Dane thought, folding his arms, his eyes darting between her face and the big screen, where the opening credits of the film flickered.
Music blasted from the massive speakers and rolled across the water, and everyone in front of them turned to face the bank.
Dane spotted Hayes and Hadley in a boat together; Hayes refused to let Hadley watch the movie on her own or with friends—he didn’t want to have to deal with her nightmares later—and Dane thought that was a good call.
Not far from them, Colt was on a raft with some friends, and he glanced over and gave him a friendly wave.
Dane lifted a hand in greeting. Luna, the town’s head witch—Ann?
Andy?—and Madame Calliope each sat in a chair-like inflatable, in a perfect row in the middle of the lake, and the three queens passed a bottle of red wine back and forth.
It was small-town life, and judging by the greetings he and Wren got, both as a couple and individually, it seemed he’d somehow become part of this community.
Not what he’d planned when he first set foot in this town.
Dane cleared his throat and turned to Wren. “For what it’s worth, when you tell him that you’ll only ever be friends, don’t do it over a text message or on a call. Face him, look him in the eye, show him that you are strong enough and brave enough to wish him well.”
He’d done that with Clare, and it had healed some of his wounds.
“Once you do that, it won’t feel as big, as constricting, so life-defining.”
“I still haven’t decided, I still need to think about it some more,” she reiterated, her spine straight. He hid his smile, thanking God, thanking every saint in every damn religion, that she wasn’t running back to Alex with open arms and a forgiving heart.
But the words think about it some more sat in his chest like a volcano on the edge of erupting. Because thinking about it implied possibility; thinking suggested that she still had one foot in his world and the other in the past. Thinking suggested that she could change her mind.
Stop, Trafford. If he carried on like this, he would drive himself crazy.
She was here, with him, legs and arms touching, his nose filled with her enticing scent. Alex was in New York City. Dane would be solidly moronic if he didn’t use that to his advantage—to push the man out of her head. And out of his.
He wouldn’t give the guy’s return any more thought or emotional energy; he refused to allow him, present or not, to be the third wheel in this—whatever this was.
He’d never been a man who wasted time on what-ifs.
He was good at the now, at being in the moment.
It was how he lived his life. Dane looked at Wren, taking in her stubborn chin, her sexy mouth, the pain-tinged intelligence in her eyes.
He didn’t need forever. He didn’t need promises. She was here, he was here … it was enough.
Feeling on more solid ground, he released the air he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Why don’t you shift your pretty butt and come sit beside me?” he suggested. “You can hold me when I get scared.”
She changed positions and settled herself into his side. It felt like she belonged there. “Do horror movies scare you?” she asked, resting her head on his collarbone.
He slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. “They are terrifying,” he murmured in her ear. “You’d better hold me tight.”
She laughed, and Dane looked at the screen, thinking that nothing supernatural came close to the horrors he’d seen in the field, the damage nature could wreak on humans and humans on each other. Nothing could scare him as much…
And as they watched the opening scene, neither noticed the three inflatables lined up in a perfect row directly behind them.
* * *
Behind them, Ruby lifted her hand for Lila to slap.
It took Lila a while to work out what she was supposed to do, but eventually their hands passed through each other.
“Forced proximity, baby,” Ruby crowed, drumming her feet in delight.
“I’ve read enough romance novels to know that it works every time! ”