smile rides on my lips. I admit the fact Rex doesn’t come across as your textbook dumb jock does please me on a cerebral level. In the least, it makes the time I’m forced to spend with him a little less painful. I’m sure his mother is proud of the fact he’s both well-mannered and erudite. I’m sure his father is pleased with his all-star jock standing, and perhaps his standing—or lying down as it were—with the cheerleaders, too. Too bad they couldn’t combine their pride and stitch back together that family they ripped asunder.
“Did you ever talk to your dad? What does he think of my father stepping on his terrain?”
“His terrain?” His chest bucks with a silent laugh, and he leads us closer to the railing. The sun lies silent over Hollow Brook, whitewashing it like an Impressionistic painting. “My father has relinquished my mother into the wild. Those who chose to can devour her at will.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Are you saying my father is a wild animal?” My father is anything but. He’s a gentle soul, one far too kind to ever step on any other man’s terrain. Too bad my mother decided to turn a blind eye to his wonderful attributes.
“I’m saying your father is a nice guy.” He winces as if it pained him to admit it. “As much as I want to find fault with him, I can’t seem to. He’s been pretty great to my mom and pretty great to my brother, sister, and me.”
“Wow. I feel like an ass now. I haven’t exactly made a secret of how I feel about your mom. I mean she’s cordial to me. Sabrina and Lawson really seem to like her, too, but”—a mean shudder drills through my spine—“I don’t know. I think I’d better stop while I’m ahead.”
“No say it.” His hand finds its way over the small of my back, but in a rarity for Rex Toberman the act seems anything but sexual. His gaze presses into mine as if I’ve come to the precipice of some dirty family secret of theirs, and he’s beckoning me to fumble my way into it.
“Oh—I can’t.” I shake my head, glancing around at the diminishing crowd. Half of the guests have already left for the Black Bear. The sun is beginning to set as the wedding party poses at the distal end of the cliffs for those last few romantic shots of the day. My lips play with the idea of a smile. “Look at that,” I whisper. “Wedding pictures are the kind of things that haunt hallways and living rooms for decades to come.” I glance down at the ground, suddenly blinking back the tears already clinging to my lashes. “My dad finally took his down last summer, right around the time he started dating your mom. It felt like the final painful incision—his way of extracting my mom from our lives for good.” My chest hiccups with grief. “Of course, she’s eight years deep in a brand new family. My sisters, Chrissy and Gini, are pretty great. I just don’t really know them like I do Sabrina and Lawson. I would definitely trade Sabrina for them, though.”
We share a laugh.
“I’m sorry.” He leans in until we’re a breath away. There’s something about the manly girth of his body that makes me crave to wrap myself around him.
“What in the world do you have to be sorry for?”
“That you’re hurting.” He wipes the lone tear that’s managed to fall with his thumb and presses it to my lips. My stomach cinches like a tension wire, and my body catches fire from that small, kindhearted act. Our eyes seal over one another as if there were a magnetic force securing us, and there’s not a place on this planet I’d rather be right now than lost in Rex Toberman’s river blue eyes.
“Excuse me,” a photographer calls to us, breaking the spell, and we look past him to see the entire wedding party making its way in this direction.
“I guess I’ll see you at the Black Bear.” I blink myself back to life as I struggle to find Cassidy in the crowd.
“I guess you will.” Rex pulls me in a moment with his strong, thick arms. His cologne blankets me like a testosterone charged reassurance. “It’s all going to work out,” he whispers directly into my ear. “I promise.” He takes off before I can respond, before my body can fully clamp on to his