Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,19

goes to her hair, the feature of hers I’ve been most enthralled with since the first time I saw her. It’s soft and thick under my fingers, falling through them like silk. I stare down at her gorgeous, dainty face, which is tipped up to watch the slow descent of my mouth to hers. Her tongue pokes out, wetting her lips, and those clover-green orbs are locked onto my lips.

The heartbeat slamming out erratic rhythms in my chest sends reverberations to every part of my body, and I’m so anxious I could almost jump out of my skin. But at the same time, I’m as calm and steady as I’ve been my whole life about the path I’m on … and Presley is the next illogical, improbable step.

Our noses brush, and the current of electricity bending between us could level a city. We’re two opposing magnets trying to push through the repelling force and almost succeeding.

“Keaton …” Presley’s voice dashes all of my hope in a nanosecond.

Her hand comes up between us, gently pushing my chest back. “I’m not ready for it.”

Shit. I told her next time I asked to kiss her, I’d make sure she was ready. Not only had I not asked her, but I hadn’t made sure she was ready. I wasn’t lying when I said this woman turned all of my plans to mush.

I straighten, coughing through the embarrassment of yet another rejection from Presley McDaniel, and try my hardest not to adjust the uncomfortable erection now screaming to be released from the zipper on my jeans.

“Honestly, I’m not sure that I even like you, yet.”

“Jesus, that’s harsh,” I choke out, my insulted ego becoming even more injured.

Presley tries to grapple for her thoughts, using her hands to talk. “No, no, that’s … I like you, Keaton. I think you’re a good person and you were such a gentleman tonight. But … we are just very different. For everything you say that I agree with, there is another idea or opinion of yours that I find myself disagreeing with. And I think it’s the same for you. I could have let you kiss me, wanted to even, but I’m trying to do this thing where I think before I act. Because that usually gets me in trouble. And you’re just so different from me, I’m not sure I’ve figured out what I think about this, yet.”

A beat of silence passes as I digest her words. She’s thinking more like I usually would than I have in the last hour.

“I’ll get you home, then.” My voice is gravelly as I walk just a step ahead of her back to the car.

Let me rephrase my earlier statement. This was the best date I’d ever been on.

And now I highly doubted I was going to get a second one.

11

Keaton

My house is a neat split-level two streets over from Main, in a neighborhood near the elementary school.

It’s quiet, like the rest of the town, but I like that the cluster of houses had a sidewalk where I could run if I didn’t feel like going to the park. When I purchased my house, it was a total gut job. I bought it three years ago … back when I thought I’d be sharing it with a wife and our children. I renovated the entire place, from bathrooms to bedrooms, and even taught myself how to install a tile backsplash, which was a bitch and I should have hired someone to do it for me.

The house was an investment in the future, and my longtime girlfriend, Katie Flint, Gerry’s daughter, had helped me pick almost everything out. Maybe it’s why I never felt like this was my home … that everything in it was matched with the taste of a ghost, a person who no longer lived here.

But I stayed because that’s what I did best. For a while, I was the fool waiting for her to come back. And when I realized she wouldn’t, I was the fool who stayed here as part of some spiteful plot that she didn’t even care about.

“So, when were you going to tell us you had the hots for Hattie McDaniel’s granddaughter?” Forrest makes himself right at home, flipping on the television and turning right to the baseball game.

At least he hadn’t put on one of his sci-fi shows.

“Or that there was fresh meat in town?” Fletcher asks.

“Don’t refer to her like that.” He’s already pissing me off.

“Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen