on the floor. Mick was curled up on top of them, snoring happily away. “She kept those towels there for quick cleanups. I’ve been noticing that Mick likes that spot.”
“Wow. It looks like your mother was just here.”
“Yeah, I haven’t touched it.” He moved past her. “Check this out.” He pointed to a tiny unused easel on the floor next to her main one. “She got this for Jude.”
“Oh,” she breathed. He felt her looking at him. She was checking to see if he was okay, facing this memory of his dead mother and his dead son.
Oddly, he was okay. “He was too young to use it, obviously, but she had this whole plan to convert him. She always said my brother and I took after our dad too much to be any good at art, and I think she was right.”
“Well, I don’t know. All that carpentry. All those paint jobs. You have an eye for beauty.”
Maybe so. Because Nora, her face flushed and her hair messed up, was surely a sight to appreciate.
“I mean, this place, too. The lake. You definitely have an eye, even if you’re not an artist per se.” She shook her head as if rousing herself. “I should go.” She shot him an almost shy smile. “I should get out of your hair.”
He wanted to tell her that she wasn’t in his hair. Or that if she was, he was happy to have her there. He wanted to grab her hand and literally tangle it in his hair again.
But that was just his body overreacting to the end of the long dry spell.
He held her coat for her and went hunting for his shirt. “Hang on. I’ll walk you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Nice try.”
“Should we wake Mick and have him come with us so he can get some exercise?”
“Nah. He ran around all day.”
“Jake Ramsey.” She put her hands on her hips and adopted a mock scolding face. “You are going to spoil my dog. What’s he going to do when I find a place to live and he has to go back to spending days by himself inside? What’s he going to do when I move back to Toronto?”
“He’ll be fine,” Jake said firmly. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself.
As they set out across the beach, he was hit again with the strong desire to take her hand. Unlike on the way in, he even had an excuse. It was a moonless night, so it was pitch-dark and she didn’t know this beach like he did. But they’d said no romance, so he needed to be disciplined here.
“So, uh, I have something to tell you.”
The way she said it, all trepidatious, gave him pause. “Okay.”
“I mean, I should have just said something earlier. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
Oh, crap. Something was wrong.
“I’m, uh, actually on the pill.”
“Okay?” He was trying to figure out where she was going with this.
“Rufus was super worried about pregnancy. Like, super, irrationally worried. Which was annoying in a way because it wasn’t like it was his career that would have been threatened by an unplanned pregnancy. So I was on the pill and we used condoms.”
“Okay.”
“Which means I was always having safe sex, even though I was apparently sleeping with a lying philanderer for at least part of the time. And just to be sure, I had STI testing done and it all came back fine.”
Oh. Holy shit. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
“Have you had STI testing since Kerrie?”
“I have.” He was glad it was dark. She couldn’t see his face flush with pleasure. “So what are you saying, Doc?”
“Oh, crap, I forgot the boots.”
They had reached the end of the beach, the spot at which they needed to wade out to get around the outcropping.
He’d forgotten his boots, too. She made him forget stuff. But no matter. He kicked off the flip-flops he was wearing and swung her into his arms. This was better than holding hands anyway.
She shrieked and laughed and said, “Don’t do that! It’s freezing!” But then she settled, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“So what are you saying, Doc?” he asked again, his pulse thrumming.
“I’m saying maybe third base is sex without a condom. Though I’m pretty sure that home base is, like, ‘full sex,’ as the kids would say. But anyway. My point is just that maybe we don’t need condoms.” She paused and laughed nervously. “If you want to