Nathan was home from college and he’d brought her here, to “their spot.” He had talked about school, what he was doing, who he was meeting, and all she could do was look at him, storing up image after image in her mind so that when he left again, she wouldn’t feel so alone.
They’d had a picnic, right here. Nathan had positioned his car so that the headlights shone down on them and the car radio had provided music. They’d talked and laughed and made plans for a misty future neither of them could fully imagine.
And then they’d made love, right here, beneath the stars, for the first time. Everything had changed for them that night. She could still remember his face, as he rose over her, as she took him inside her. The surge of love, of need, filled her now as it had then and had her turning to look at the man beside her.
“What are you doing, Nathan?”
“Remembering,” he said, his gaze fixed on the scene laid out in front of them. Then he turned those eyes on her. “Since you’ve been back I’ve been doing a lot of that.”
“Me, too.”
“And you remember what happened here?”
“Not likely to forget,” she said with a lightness she didn’t feel.
“Good,” he said and took her hand again, drawing her toward the scene so meticulously laid out.
It really didn’t matter, but she heard herself ask, “Who did all of this?”
“Louisa,” he told her just before he eased down to the quilt and drew her down beside him. “She probably had Henry drive her out here and help, but she packed the cooler and set everything up.”
Louisa Diaz, the housekeeper at Battlelands. She’d been running that ranch house for twenty years. Of course Nathan would go to her for help. “Wasn’t she curious about why you wanted this set up?”
“If she was, she’d never admit it,” he said, opening the cooler to draw out a bottle of chilled white wine. He poured two glasses and handed her one. “We’ve got strawberries and whipped cream and some of Louisa’s famous pecan cookies, too.”
She stared at the golden liquid in her glass. She was still off-kilter. He’d gone to so much trouble, setting all of this up, it made her wonder what was behind it all. Just memories? Or was there something more? “It seems you’ve thought of everything.”
“I think so.”
“The question remains,” she said. “Why?”
He sighed heavily, impatiently. And suddenly he seemed more like the Nathan she’d been dealing with since returning to Royal rather than the younger man she’d given her heart to.
“Does there have to be a reason? Can’t we just enjoy it?”
Enjoy it. Reliving a memory that was so cherished it still haunted her dreams? Remember a time when she’d had the world at her fingertips—only to lose it a year later? Pain floated just beneath the surface and Amanda had to fight it back. If she knew what he wanted, expected, maybe this would be easier. But because she couldn’t read him, she was left to stumble around in the dark. She took a sip of wine, letting the dry, icy flavor ease the tightness in her throat.
Silence blossomed between them and seemed to grow unchecked for what felt like an eternity before Nathan spoke, shattering the stillness.
“There’s no great plan here, Amanda.” His voice was deep, and each word seemed to rumble along her spine. “I just wanted to bring you to a place where we could talk.”
“And you chose here.”
A flicker of a smile touched his mouth then faded almost instantly. “You’re not the only one who remembers, you know. This was a good spot for us, once.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her own voice sounding strained and rough. “It was. But Nathan—”
He shook his head. “But nothing. We’re here. We’ll talk. Have dessert. Relax, Amanda.”
Relax?
This from the most tightly wound man she’d ever known?
She looked into his brown eyes and tried to see beyond what he was showing her. But he’d clearly gotten more adept over the years at hiding what he was thinking, feeling, and Amanda was left to take him at his word. Dangerous? Maybe.
But she couldn’t ask him to take her home now. She’d look as though she were afraid to be here alone with him and she wouldn’t give him that much power. Besides, she could consider this a test of her own resolve. If she and Nathan were going to live here in Royal together, then she had to get past the desire that swept through her every time he was near. She could hardly live her life in a constant state of expectation.
“Okay,” she said at last, taking another sip of her wine. “We’ll talk.”
He gave her a quick, disarming grin that jolted her heartbeat into a thundering gallop and she knew that for her, at least, there wouldn’t be any relaxing happening tonight.
“I came better prepared this time, too,” he said and reached behind the cooler for a small, battery-operated radio. He turned it on and a woman’s voice soared into the shadows, singing of love. “Remember the battery on my old truck died that night? Left the radio playing too long and we had to use the ranch walkie-talkie to get Henry to come out and give us a jump?”
She remembered. She also remembered the knowing look Henry had given the two of them. But the ranch foreman hadn’t said a word. He’d only gotten Nathan’s truck running again and then left.
“That was embarrassing,” she said with a sad smile.
“It was,” he agreed, then gave her another quick grin. “But it was worth it.”
Her hand tightened on the slender base of the crystal wineglass. Nathan was pushing past all of her defenses, one smile at a time.
She turned away from him and looked out over the river. At its widest point, it was no more than six feet across, but it was a wild river, fed from the distant mountains and left unchecked. The water frothed on the surface, slapping against the banks and over rocks worn smooth over time. While she watched, a trout jumped from the water only to splash back down. Wind sighed through the trees, rattling the leaves.
It was perfect.
A summer night, with the stars overhead. Soft music playing accompaniment to the roar of the river and the man who had been the great love of her life at her side. How many times had she wished for just this over the years?
She looked at Nathan as he reached into the cooler and pulled out two cookies. Handing one to her, he smiled and said, “You always did like Louisa’s pecan cookies.”
Her heart fisted in her chest. He looked so damn…harmless. And he so wasn’t.
“You’re evil,” she said, nipping the cookie from his fingers and taking a bite.
He nodded. “You used to like that about me.”
“There are a lot of things I used to like.”
