Page 11 of Mountain Man's Summer Drift
“I’m not making the face.”
“No. You’re not.”
“Sunnie.”
“Yes.”
“I’m thirty-five. I’ve been with women. I’m not going to pretend I haven’t. None of it is the same as this and none of it ever felt like what’s happening right now.”
“On a rock.”
“On a rock.”
The corner of her mouth twitched again, but this time it actually went the rest of the way. Then she laughed. It was a small laugh—a startled one. Like it had surprised her on the way out.
“Tell me what you want,” I said.
She looked at me for a long time.
“I want to find out what this is,” she said.
“All right.”
“I don’t mean tomorrow. I don’t mean over time. I mean now.”
I held very still.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“No. But I want to.”
“Those are different things.”
“I know.”
I took her hand off her knee and held it in mine. Her fingers were cold from the water bottle. I closed my hand around them.
“If you change your mind at any point, you change it,” I said. “I drive you back to the cabin and we figure out what happens after. There’s no version of this where you owe me anything.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“Ross. I know.”
I lifted her hand. I turned it over and ran my thumb across the inside of her wrist where the skin was thin and I could feel her pulse going. It was going fast.
“Where’s Suri tonight?” I asked.
“The river.”
“All night?”
“I don’t think she’s planning on coming back to the cabin. She won’t miss me.”
“All right.”
I kept her hand. She let me. We sat on the rock for another few minutes while the river moved past and I made myself slow down, and she made herself slow down. On the bank, a fish broke the surface and a heron lifted up out of the brush and skimmed low across the water before it climbed.
