him, the man who’d made it hard for me to trust any other man alive.
Shane settled back onto his chair and stared into the flames. “You know, I was hurt real bad once, by my high school sweetheart. I thought we’d get married. Thought we’d have kids, the whole thing.”
Here it was—Shane’s wound, whatever had stopped him in the past from committing to anyone. “What happened with her?”
“Found out that she cheated on me. With my best friend.”
“Ouch.”
“You could say that.” He picked up a piece of kindling and broke the small stick in half before tossing it into the fire. “It crushed me. I had bought a ring and was this close”—he pinched his fingers—“to proposing.”
A little sympathy whimper escaped my throat. Shane’s gaze landed on me and he smiled. “I got lost after that, didn’t know what to do with myself. So I sold everything and moved here, to Peachwood, the place of second chances.”
I shivered.
“Cold?” He handed me a flannel blanket to lay across my legs.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “But what makes you say that, that Peachwood is the place of second chances?”
“Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? A place where folks move in order to forget their past. I mean, maybe you didn’t come here to escape something or find something else, but I certainly did.”
Wow. In all the time I’d known Shane, we’d never had this deep of a conversation. But since he’d dished up his history, it was only fair that I did the same thing.
“Well,” I said slowly, trying not to let the crushing feeling of hurt overwhelm me as I spoke. You would think since it had been years since all of it happened, that I would have dealt with it by now. But some trauma, no matter how deep in the past it lay, still lived as a spot sore to the touch well within my heart.
I cleared my throat and started again. “There was a guy who I trusted, foolishly, and he did something that really hurt me.”
Shane’s face tightened with anger. “He didn’t, um…did he?”
I quickly put his fears to rest. “He didn’t assault me, no. It wasn’t anything like that.”
The truth was, what happened was impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t like me. They wouldn’t understand. I’d moved to Peachwood to escape magic and everything it held. I was one of the few witches in the world who didn’t want to live around other witches. All the trust I had for my own people had been lost.
That’s what happens when a wizard attempts to steal your powers.
“For what it’s worth,” Shane said, “I’m sorry that whatever it was occurred. If you ever want to talk about it, you can. I’m a great listener.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. I may take you up on it sometime.”
In spite of the fact that we sat in front of a fire drudging up our painful pasts, I found myself smiling. This was good. This was what I needed.
My stomach filled with butterflies, the kind that whirl around your belly when you know that you like someone. How I wished that Shane and I had done this before, gotten to know one another.
Better late than never, right?
Lady reappeared from the grass that she’d dived into forever ago. She padded up to me slowly, and I laughed at how exhausted she looked.
“Come here, girl.” I scooped her into my lap and smiled at Shane, only to find him staring at me.
A tendril of hair had fallen onto my face, and Shane tucked it behind my ear. A shiver ran down my spine. “I’ve had a nice time tonight.”
“Me too,” I said breathlessly. We were sitting so close. The distance hadn’t seemed so small before, but now, with his fingers lightly touching my ear, I realized that really we were only a few heartbeats away from each other.
He studied me, and I felt myself become heavy under the weight of his stare. “We should do this again.”
I nodded, hypnotized by him. “Yes, we should.”
Shane started to lean in, and here it came—the kiss! We would kiss, and it would be awesome.
Behind him, down off the bluff, I saw lights—a lot of little lights dancing on the ground. My heart clenched.
Magic. Someone was working magic.
I jerked my head up, away from Shane’s lips.
“Oh!” I said.
Concern filled his eyes. “Everything okay?”
Oh no! Oh crap! Panic clawed at my throat as a sea of small orbs lit up the forest below. I could not have Shane