He frowned a moment and then grunted as the pointed comment hit its mark.

“You’re welcome,” she responded not just to his compliment about the dog, but the reminder, too.

He gave Loopy the cheese and then one of the jerky treats he’d brought along, as well. She did need protein just like humans did.

“Almonds. Hummus. Carrots and some dried apricots.” She put out a bunch of little containers and they had a wonderful feast out there where the air was clean and full of nothing but sounds of nature. No planes overhead even.

After she packed the food back, he brought her to the sheet before she could stand up. “Wait a minute. I have a few more things I’d like to get a taste of before we start back.”

She met his lips, parting hers to allow the sweep of his tongue. He nipped her bottom lip, meandering into the kiss at his own pace and she let him. The pride of that burned in his belly.

“Now I feel like I can make it back.” He rolled off and up to his feet a few minutes later.

She took the hand he’d extended and he pulled her to stand.

In just a few short minutes he’d applied more sunscreen to his nose while she packed up and they were headed back to the house.

“How’d you find this place anyway? What a fantastic location for a house. I’d never want to leave if I lived up here. Well, actually maybe in the winter I’d think differently.”

“There’s another trail, it heads in pretty much the same trajectory as this one but it’s a little farther down the hill.” She pointed. “So we were on it and I saw this trail and I wanted to know where it led. And it led to the backyard of the house, which was empty but had a sign out front with the number for the rental agency. We came back for my birthday the next year and we’ve returned each year since.”

He wondered if Eric had been there. Had held her for the meager hours of sleep she allowed herself in that big bed in the room under the eaves.

“How long now?”

She turned to face him. “He never came up here. I discovered it after. Is it weird for you?”

He lengthened his stride to catch up. “Is what weird?”

“That I was married. That I loved someone else. That he died. I don’t know. It’s weird to me sometimes.”

“It’s not weird. It’s... I never expected to feel this.”

He stopped and she did as well, though she gave him a little space as she watched him. Her features were blank but her eyes told him she was nervous. Hell, he was, too, he supposed.

“I’ve been alone a long time. You make me less alone. Sometimes that might even be because I can look into your eyes and see ghosts. You loved someone before me. Okay. I don’t care about what happened before me. It made you a better person I’m sure. That you were married? Also not weird. But I’m working on how I feel about it. Mainly it happened before I knew you. It happened at a time my life was a hot mess and I had to rebuild myself minute by minute, day by day. Sometimes I think you might know how to do this thing—” he waved a hand between them “—better than I do. Which to be fair isn’t hard because I don’t know what I’m doing at all. I just know I really like to be around you.”

* * *

TUESDAY SUCKED IN a breath and then let it out slow. Wow. He was so emotionally vulnerable to her right at that moment and she didn’t want to ruin it.

Humbled, she licked her lips and finally spoke. “I like being around you, too. And maybe I don’t know how to feel about it, either. Not all the way. Mainly it’s that you’re charming and sexy, handsome—you’re really good in bed and you like doing the same things I do. It’s easy to like being around you.”

He stepped closer, filling the gap she’d deliberately left in case he felt the need to escape the discussion.

“Is it weird? That he died? Well that part sucks. I’m sorry because if you loved him he had to be a pretty rad dude. And I’m sorry because you lost someone you loved. Sometimes I don’t quite know what to do with all this history. Like I want to ask but I don’t want to stir you up and hurt you. You’re important to me and that happened to me while I wasn’t looking. I’m off balance. Hell, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

“And you don’t like that. Not being in control of every single thing.”

“There was a time in my life when I thrived on chaos. I embraced it. And you know how that turned out.”

That was it right then. He was scared. She had her own baggage to carry on her back, but Ezra was scared of failing and of ever being what he’d been when he was addicted.

Scared of liking something too much? Needing it too much?

“Unforeseen isn’t the same as chaos. So you didn’t plan on me. Big deal. You don’t plan for what this is.” She flapped a hand. “This...draw I feel every time I’m around you. I could deal with it if it was just physical. Fuck you out of my system and then we could be friends because we have chemistry.”

She took his hand. “But we have that sort of supersizzling zingy thing. You know what I mean. We click. You can’t plan for that. That’s not how this works. Important people come to you when you aren’t expecting them.”

He slid his palm around the back of her neck. “I find that I need you. I don’t know how to need like that anymore. Not healthily anyway.” There was so much anguish in his tone,

She tiptoed up and touched her forehead to his. She wanted to tell him it was okay to crave her. But she needed him to understand it on his own first. She kissed him and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as they stood quietly for some time while they both remained in their thoughts.