did. “More than like you.”
Her eyes widened.
“I admire you.”
Her eyes dropped and her hair tumbled forward.
It was mid-morning and the sun was relentless, finding every crevice between the leaves of the tree canopy that it could, giving Jolene’s blond hair a dappled effect. She sighed. He was in awe of how beautiful she was and he suddenly realized about a heartbeat too late that it had sounded like he was about to confess he loved her. That had been a really poor choice of words. No wonder she wouldn’t look at him. Which made him think that maybe that type of confession wouldn’t be totally unwanted by Jolene.
Interesting.
But he’d been telling the truth. He did admire her. And he had very easily fallen in love with her. Still probably did love her. He cleared his throat.
She turned and gave him a dirty look. “What?”
“Nothing.” If he did love Jolene, he sure in shit wasn’t going to tell her with a stuck worm at his feet. He tossed his line in the water. “Though I was thinking about kissing you.” He glanced behind him. “I bet Dolly would approve.”
“Dolly could give two shits. So what stopped you?”
“I just wanted to look at you for a minute.”
“You’re being weird.”
She was uncomfortable, clearly, but not in a bad way. He had her off-kilter, and he liked that advantage. She had no idea what he was going to do. Maybe that was a little wrong of him but he was feeling nostalgic and relaxed and hard, and he wanted to put his growing erection to good use with the one woman who had given him a run for his money and maybe, just maybe, had gotten him to feel something akin to forever.
He hadn’t seen any photographers around when they walked to the pond, but if they were lingering beyond the trees, then he guessed Jolene was about to get her wish of having the media think they were back together because he couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her. Hell, he’d gotten what he had asked for– her naked– so he couldn’t begrudge her sticking it to the media. In fact, he’d welcome it. He wanted those photographers and the relentless online haters to know that he thought Jolene was beautiful. He preferred her with the extra couple of pounds. He felt like he could really sink in to her body without getting jabbed by a hipbone. It was a softer look, and that matched her personality more. She wasn’t the woman who lived her life with cunning and razor-sharp discipline, no matter what she said. She was a hard worker, willing to put in the hours, and that was different than a rung-climber. Totally different.
He was going to kiss her and that would be his statement to the world, his response to the trash talkers.
“What’s wrong with wanting to look at you?” he asked. “You’re breathtaking. I always knew that but I’m not sure how often I said that to you when we were dating.”
“I’m not sure we said enough of anything,” she murmured. “We were too busy feeling.”
He could have made a crack about what each of them had felt and taken it right back to sex, but for once, he didn’t want to shy away from genuine emotion. He just nodded. “That is true, darlin’. Now it’s time to talk about what we feel. We talked about having our songs go through the phases of a breakup. So that means anger, defiance, sadness, loneliness, then nostalgia, peace, reconnection. Am I missing any steps?”
Jolene didn’t speak for a heartbeat. “You forgot sex for old times sake.”
He laughed softly, tugging on his pole a little. Nothing was biting. “I’m not sure where that fits in the list.”
“Right between nostalgia and loneliness.”
“Is that where we are?”
“I would say so, since we’re both acting like our dog died, and last I glanced over my shoulder, she’s lying there snoring like a freight train.”
“I don’t feel sad.” He didn’t. “Do I sound sad? I am actually pretty fucking content right now. The sun is shining, I am getting to spend time with you, and I’ve got my dog. What could be wrong?”
“Maybe you’ve jogged on down the path ahead of me. You’ve reached nostalgia or maybe even peace and I’m still hanging around the bar in Lonelyville.”
That made Chance’s chest tighten. He didn’t want to think about Jolene being lonely or hurt. It shocked him to think that he’d never actually considered how she might