Lib Novel Page 37
“It was,” he told her. “He didn’t just take me to teach me how to fish. It was more than that. I think he knew how much I loved the peace of it, even though I was what the teachers called a high energy kid.”
She nodded again, looking like she was trying not to smile.
“We went there when I was a teenager too,” he went on. “We would just… talk. He was a good listener and he told me things too, about his own life. Some of my favorite memories are by that creek.”
She nodded again, her eyes glistening a little now.
“And it’s where I’ve gone to remember him since he passed,” he said gruffly, not wanting his own tears to fall. “I go there and sometimes it’s like I can hear him talking to me again in the sound of the water over the stones.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know that before I put up the fence,” Cora said softly after a moment.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know about Sylvester’s asthma before I yelled at you for it,” Jared replied. “I understand why you don’t want him going back there by himself. He’s a really special kid.”
He stopped himself, feeling he might be overstepping if he told her how much he personally cared about Sylvester’s safety.
“He’s also pretty good about following directions,” she said, smiling up at him. “I think I can trust him to stay out of the woods now that we’ve been here a little while.”
Jared blinked at her, unable to believe what she was saying.
“The time I’ve spent here,” she said, “it’s taught me that it’s okay to let my guard down a little. After I lost Arthur, I guess… I’m just so scared I’ll lose Sylvester too.”
Suddenly, tears were spilling from her eyes and he was moving to her without thinking, pulling her into his arms and wishing he could keep the whole world at bay so that she and Sylvester would never experience another moment of fear or pain.
She relaxed against his chest, sobbing silently.
He held her close, breathing in her delicate scent and trying to absorb her pain, wishing he could take it all into himself and leave her feeling as light as air—as light as he felt every time she smiled at him with her gray eyes dancing.
After a few minutes, her sobs subsided.
She pulled back and he released her, keeping his hands resting lightly on her shoulders, in case she needed him again.
“You can put a gate in the fence,” she told him, wiping her eyes and then looking up at him, her eyes luminous.
On the surface, she was offering him what he had wanted in the first place, access to the old fishing hole. But he knew instinctively what this really meant.
Maybe she wasn’t exactly tearing down all her walls. But she was offering him a chance to forge a path into her heart.
Please don’t mess this up, he begged himself inwardly.
“I’ll tell you what,” he told her carefully. “I’m going to get your house all taken care of first. We’ll get bookshelves up in Sly’s room, and I’ll smooth out all the patches throughout the house and touch up the paint. Then, if you still want me to, I’ll put a gate in the fence.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes on his.
In spite of all his good intentions, his gaze fell to her mouth, and he felt the sizzle of heat in the air between them and a pull like nothing he had experienced before in his life.
Without meaning to, he slid one hand from her shoulder up to cup her face in his hand, marveling at the softness of her skin.
She tilted her face slightly, as if inviting him to do what he already wanted so badly to do.
He leaned down, ready to seal all his promises with a kiss.
But the high whistle of the tea kettle split the air, breaking the spell between them.
Cora stepped back and turned, laughing nervously, and Jared thrust his hands in his pockets, furious and grateful all at once for the well-timed interruption.
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CORA