do since this was her first picture with a guy. Josh had sat down on the tailgate of the truck and patted the place next to him. She eased down beside him, and he scooted over closer to her. Then he draped an arm around her shoulders and said, “Say cheeseburger.” She giggled but said the word, and Filly snapped half a dozen pictures of the two of them covered in dried mud.
“One of those will definitely send your mama into a cardiac arrest if she ever sees it.” Filly handed the camera back to her.
“Thank you so much,” Emma said. “Now, I’m going to go get cleaned up. I’ll be over to your house as soon as I get all the dirt and mud off me.”
Josh walked beside her to the end of the porch steps and said, “Thanks for being such a good sport about everything.”
“I was serious when I said this was an adventure,” Emma told him. “I never got to play in the mud when I was a child. Sophie talked about making mud pies, and she told me about her and Rebel taking off their shoes and wading through puddles. Yesterday and this morning have been the stuff dreams are made of, even if I am past thirty, and, Josh . . . ,” she started.
She glanced down at his lips and then back up at his eyes. He was going to kiss her, and her lips and face were still smeared with dirt and mud. She wanted him to kiss her, but her first kiss ever should be special—something that dreams were made of, not just the taste of dirt in her mouth when it ended.
“I know,” he said, and then brushed a soft kiss across her forehead. “I’ll give you the space to find yourself.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She floated into the trailer and went straight to the bathroom, wondering if it would be possible to clean her face without washing her forehead.
Chapter Eighteen
Josh had wanted to kiss Emma for days. He had envisioned all kinds of scenarios and hoped that he would have the nerve to actually kiss her when the opportunity arose. When it came right down to it, everything happened in a split second, but it did not take one thing away from the effect it had on Josh.
“I’m thirty-two years old,” he grumbled as he kicked off his boots on the porch of his trailer. He went straight to the tiny laundry area in the hallway and put his dirty clothes in the washer. “I should have kissed lots of girls before now. Kiss nothing—I should have had sex by now, too.” He continued to fuss at himself as he got into the shower. “But I’ve been afraid to even talk to girls until Em came into my life. Besides, it wasn’t a real kiss on the lips.”
Has any other woman ever made you feel like Emma does? The voice in his head sounded a lot like Filly.
“No,” he answered out loud.
His heart had quit doing double-time when he turned off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. He shaved, brushed his teeth, and grinned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “She makes me feel like a superhero, like I could move mountains and wrestle with a bear and win,” he whispered.
He dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a bright-blue polo shirt and combed his hair. He didn’t like going to the barber with all those other people around, so he cut his hair himself and kept it just long enough to slick back into a short ponytail.
He and Emma came out of their trailers at the same time. Josh stopped and watched her cross the courtyard to Filly’s place. She’d gained a little weight since she’d been at the park, and it looked good on her. Her dark hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, and the sun’s rays appeared to give her a halo.
She turned around when she reached Filly’s trailer and waved at him. The smile on her face made her appear even more angelic, and Josh felt like a king when he waved back at her.
Emma knocked on the door and then stuck her head inside and called out, “I’m here. What can I do to help? I’m hyper, so please give me something to do to keep me busy.” She truly felt like she was floating on clouds—Josh had kissed her on the forehead and Sophie was coming home.