seriousness.
“Wait.”
“And what do we do if they come?”
“Hadn’t decided on that yet.”
“You’re not going to confront them tonight, are you?” Annie’s eyes widened while a whole batch of less-than-comforting scenarios marched themselves out in 3-D, complete with gunshot sound effects.
“Depends on how many of them there are.”
“Jack!” Her one-word protest echoed disbelief.
“Can’t just let them get away.”
“You’re almost enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“It’s the cowboys-and-Indians thing,” he said, his dark eyes crinkled at the edges.
“Except they’ll probably arrive with a covered wagon full of shotguns, and we don’t have a single tomahawk.”
Jack laughed, and the sound of it sent a thrill of something deeply satisfying right through Annie’s heart. It pleased her, making him laugh. Something so simple and yet reaffirming, a check mark, audible proof of approval.
Sound played out in the night around them. Leaves crunching somewhere behind. A deer, maybe? A tractor from the dairy farm bordering the C.M. land. Cows calling out to one another, their moos plaintive and questioning.
Annie focused on the loading-dock parking lot in front of them, knowing, however, that Jack’s gaze was on her. Like marbles on a hardwood floor, anticipation scattered through her, decimating any strands of logic she might have been clinging to. Did he want to kiss her? Was that the source of the almost-tangible awareness hanging between them like thunderclouds full to bursting?
And she wished, deeply, for the answer to be yes.
“Annie?”
“What?” Her voice was so low she barely heard herself.
“I’d really like to kiss you.”
Gladness grappled for footing, elbowed reason out of the way. “Are you asking permission?”
“I’m asking permission.”
The request should have required, at the least, a little consideration on her part. Some mulling over of consequence.
“Permission granted,” she said, her voice again little more than a whisper.
Across the leaves he slid. Close enough, he angled his head, but made no further move to fulfill the request. Just studied her, long and hard. Annie had never been looked at in quite that way before. As if he were seeking to know her, really know her, take in some part of her she had never allowed anyone else to access. Under his appraisal, some part of her opened, wilted, weakened and out leaked admission of her own need for this, yearning so real, so bone-deep she had no hope of hiding it.
“Annie.” His voice sliding across her name confirmed it. He knew.
Her eyes closed, and he kissed her.
Annie opened to him, realizing, only in doing so, that she’d lived the past year of her life curled around herself like an early-spring flower bracing against one last reach of winter, and here it was at last, a true change in season, warmth, soft breezes, blue skies, a May afternoon.
And wasn’t this what a kiss was supposed to be? Saying a thousand different things at once, that it had been thought about, hoped for, long before it ever became reality.
Everything about it felt like a first, first bicycle solo—look, no hands!—first lick of a double-scoop ice-cream cone on a July day. First kiss. At its edges, relief that it was as good in reality as it had been in anticipation. And at the edges of Annie’s heart, amazement that she could incite such feelings in this man.
A truck growled up the road beside the factory, its descent in gears bringing them both back to the reason they were here. Lights flickered their way, and Annie craned for a glimpse of the gate at the factory’s entrance.
“It’s turning in,” she said.
“Looks like it,” Jack agreed.
There was disappointment in both their voices, the truck’s appearance toppling the walls temporarily erected to the rest of the world.
“Can I say something I probably shouldn’t?” Jack asked.
Annie nodded. Words suddenly seemed to require effort beyond her capability.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since the first night we met when you walked into that diner looking ten kinds of flustered.”
“It showed, huh?”
“A little,” he said, and his smile was amused, but in the way of a man who thinks something is adorable, not ridiculous.
And then she refocused on the first part of what he’d said. He’d been thinking about kissing her since then? Annie’s gaze dropped to her lap. What did she do with that? If she’d been conjuring up her own set of hopeful what-ifs, it would never have occurred to her to start with that.
“And one other thing,” he said, reaching out to tip her chin up, forcing her to look at him.
“What?”
“It was worth the wait.”
Annie wished for a quick wit, for flippancy, but