Chapter Five

For us, the Lookout was always about the journey.

The words echoed around Sinclair. Shane stood against the dramatic sky in his respectable white shirt and suit pants, with his hands in his pockets as if to suggest he posed no risk. No risk? Ha. The confident grin, the gleam in his eyes, and the assembly of hard, vital muscles covered by the facade of professional clothes told a different story. He was the very definition of risky. He always had been.

And yet, damn her, she was tempted to take the journey. His mouth on hers produced a complicated set of responses—a shockingly strong rush of desire. Curiosity. Caution, because old feelings left a painful weight in her chest, as if she’d swallowed too much of something. God only knew what was going on in her head. More than she could unpack right here and now, so she took another step back and gave him a deliberately obtuse answer. “What journey? We both know where this road ends.” He could interpret that any way he chose.

“You have a terrible memory.” He strode to the passenger side of the Rover and opened the door for her. “Get in, and I’ll refresh it for you.”

How should she interpret that? It wasn’t lost on her that he’d shifted the burden of clarifying things back to her. She walked over, her strides unhurried, but her mind raced back to another time—a time when the sight of him standing by his truck would send her shimmying down the tree outside her bedroom window, hurrying across the moonlit front yard, and flinging herself into his waiting arms.

She didn’t do that kind of reckless abandon anymore. These days she walked into things with her eyes open, and always, always, with a clear path for how she intended to walk out.

Maybe tonight wasn’t so different? She could walk in easily enough. No explanations necessary, and nobody had to know. He’d take care of the exit. Despite what he said, she had no doubt about that. Only one uncertainty remained. Sex was off the table, so exactly what was she walking into?

The flash of his smile dared her to find out, and she’d never been one to back down from a dare. Gathering every ounce of calm at her disposal, she stepped up into the SUV and settled herself in the passenger seat. He closed the door, came around, and climbed into the driver’s seat. And then, for a long moment, he just faced forward. She followed his gaze out the window. Lights in the valley below twinkled to life in the unfurling dusk. The top corner of the crescent moon shone from above a fringe of pine tops. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted.

The call seemed to spur him into action. Nature hadn’t been the soundtrack of their nights at the Lookout. He hit the button on the dash to fire up the battery, and then tuned the radio until he found a station. Sam Hunt flowed from the speakers and warned some unnamed girl he was going to make her miss him.

Shane turned to her, relaxed as could be with one arm braced against the steering wheel and the other resting on the back of the seat. Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he leaned in and kissed her again. “Remember now?”

Of course she remembered. She remembered kisses so long and deep and melding she felt as if they’d absorbed each other. She remembered yearning to be even closer. Crawling into his lap to make it happen, and sighing with gratitude when he’d undone her blouse, peeled her bra away, and touched her breasts. He’d been the first boy to see them, much less handle them, but he’d been so reverently gentle, and then so exquisitely rough, her body still reacted whenever she thought of it.

Another night, his hands had gone on to bring her another first. This one so overwhelming he’d had to muffle her bewildered cries of pleasure. And that had only been the beginning. His mouth…those patient lips and that tireless tongue, had driven her beyond pleasure. They’d introduced her to desperation right before they’d introduced her to an orgasm so shattering it had reduced her to tears. One of many. Nobody had ever made her lose herself the way he did.

Would he still? Her heart pounded hard at the prospect, but glancing around the burled wood and hand-stitched leather interior of the Rover offered a big, bracing dose of reality. They definitely weren’t kids anymore, and letting a guy get to third base in a car was the kind of insanity reserved for sixteen-year-old girls who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. “Are you serious? I’m twenty-six years old.”

“Is there an age limit on vehicular necking?”

“We did a hell of a lot more than neck.”

His smile turned downright triumphant. “See?” He leaned over and nuzzled her ear. “It’s coming back to you.”

Clean, expensive cologne teased her nose at the same time his lips teased her skin. “I’d do this…” He eased his body closer, surrounding her until he could run his thumb up and down her arm, brushing the swell of her breast in the process.

Under her sweater, nerve endings tingled. Muscles in her abdomen tightened as heat centered there and then seeped lower. She squirmed in her seat. “That was a long time ago. We’re both experienced adults, and adults don’t do this. It’s more all-or-nothing after a certain age.”

“Not tonight.” He switched his hold to the back of her neck and kissed the line of her jaw. “Tonight, we get reacquainted with everything in between. Starting here…” He covered her mouth with his and delivered another kiss—the kind of long, persuasive kiss that took what was offered and asked for more at the same time. The kind of kiss that said nothing was a foregone conclusion, because every moment was a destination unto itself.

The kind of kiss she could never resist. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, and kissed him back. He used his lips to part hers, but then her tongue set its own agenda, racing along the edge of his teeth until he bit down, deliberately trapping it. Other parts of her body tingled in anticipation of the same treatment. His taste filled her mouth. Past and present blurred while she drank him in.

Long, suspended moments passed while his mouth moved over hers. Eventually, he eased back just enough to let her breathe, but his hand at the back of her neck kept her close. So close their lips stayed in contact while she dragged in a lungful of oxygen. The touch-and-go brush of his mouth against her kiss-dampened lips took her back in time, while simultaneously holding her firmly in the moment.

They’d left “nothing” in the dust as soon as he’d pulled into her drive. She’d taken “all” off the table before she’d gotten in his car and figured that would be that, but he was proving her wrong. And she didn’t want him to stop.

He knew it. He sank his teeth into her lower lip, trapping it, bestowing a quick, hard bite and not bothering to hold back a growl of satisfaction when she grabbed two handfuls of his shirt front and silently begged for more. He gave her more, doling out similar treatment to her upper lip. A hungry sound snuck past her throat to reverberate around the confines of the car and brought his mouth slamming down on hers with renewed urgency. Need ignited her blood. She couldn’t keep still. Their kisses grew faster, hungrier, far less precise.

He skimmed his hand under her sweater and along her spine. Fingers followed the line of her bra, a question inherent in the touch.

Yes, some wild part of her responded immediately. She arched closer, hoping the gesture would be all the discussion required.

“Use your words, baby girl.” He traced the elastic again.

“Goddammit,” she muttered between kisses. She wanted more of this—the heat and the rush. What she definitely didn’t want was for him to say or do anything to slow things down and give her time to reconsider. Going with impulse, she tightened her hold on the front of his shirt and yanked.

Buttons ricocheted against the dash, and the fabric gaped to the middle of his chest.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he rasped. His hands came up to cover hers, stilling them as she prepared to take a second tug. Quickly, he pulled his shirttails free of his pants. “Go on. Do your worst.”

Her second effort got the job done, but she didn’t spare a moment on the accomplishment. She claimed her reward, running her palms over the hard expanse of smooth, warm skin. She didn’t know where to touch first but found herself visiting familiar highlights like the lines of his collarbones and the shallow channel between his pecs. She lingered there, spreading her fingers and raking her nails through the dusting of hair now shading his chest. Would it tickle her lips? Her breasts? Before she could contemplate the questions too deeply, her hands discovered other terrain and veered downward to learn every irresistible contour of his abs. They rippled under her touch, and her mouth went dry.

“My turn,” he growled and slid both hands under her sweater. The wool bunched up as he bracketed her rib cage. His fingers settled into the channel between her shoulder blades. His thumbs swept the smooth skin just below her bra. “Let me touch you.”

She might die if he didn’t. With his big hands supporting her, she hung on to his strong arms and arched her spine. Her head fell back. Her breath caught as he nudged her sweater over her breasts and lowered his head. Warm breath teased her nipple through the mesh of her bra. Her heart thumped in response, so loud the sound seemed to echo around them.

The noise came again, louder. Thump. Thump. Thump. Shane let out a curse, and that’s when she realized the noise really was echoing around them. Before she could process that realization, he tugged her sweater down and dropped her into her seat. She was still trying to catch her breath when he lowered the fogged driver’s side window just enough to reveal Sheriff Kenner standing on the other side, the grip end of his flashlight raised to tap the glass again.

“Is there a problem?” Shane asked, sounding more irritated than contrite.

Kenner took them both in and rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer, seeing as how you’re both old enough to tell time. Get a room”—his calm, seen-everything stare switched to her—“or a barn. Just get. The park closed at sunset.”

“Yes, sir,” Shane answered and started the car. Defrost blasting, they buckled their seat belts. Kenner backed up a few steps, waiting in the glare of the Rover’s headlights as Shane put the Rover in reverse. He executed one of those quick, efficient three-point turns that took a Y chromosome to pull off and steered the SUV past the thank you for visiting sign.

Thank you for visiting, and don’t forget to retrieve your better judgment on the way out. When they hit the main road, she released a breath. “Well, that was fun.”

Shane laughed and shot her a knowing look. “You had fun.”

His rumpled hair, open shirt, and bad boy grin got the better of her. She felt her lips lifting. “Maybe a little.” Which sounded stingy when, in fact, she was a woman who liked her fun. She’d had plenty—with the chef in Manhattan, or the advertising exec in Los Angeles, or the photographer in Charleston—she simply preferred to keep her fun at a safe distance. Recent growth notwithstanding, Magnolia Grove was still a small town at its core. Gossip spread like wildfire, and people weren’t shy about stating their opinions. She liked her private life private.

Lucky for her, she was an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of girl. Shane had been the one to teach her that lesson, and it had been a killer, coming from him, but since then she’d worked it to her advantage. She enjoyed Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Charleston on her terms, left with a smile on her face, and a call me next time you’re in town ringing in her ears. She didn’t inspire anything deeper from men, and she wasn’t looking for it. Casual and long-distance suited her perfectly, because she didn’t need Kenner, or Mrs. Pinkerton, or least of all her parents, calling plays from the sidelines of her love life.

“I had fun, too.” He kept his eyes on the road but absently reached over and took her hand.

She watched like a bystander as he threaded his fingers through hers and then rested their joined hands on the center console. Hers looked small and delicate cradled in his larger, stronger palm. Holding hands—another one of those pastimes that somehow got left by the wayside in the transition from teenager to adult. The men she had fun with these days weren’t expecting to hold her hand. Or go for a drive. Or languish for an evening exploring the agonizing wonderland between all-or-nothing.

His fingers tightened, giving hers a quick squeeze. “The fun doesn’t have to be over. There are a thousand detours on this journey. We haven’t even gotten close to some of my favorites.”

Her hormones bounced and clapped at the thought, but a glance at the glowing numbers on the dashboard clock forced her to tell them to simmer down. “Yeah, it does. My dad’s coming over tonight to help me change the furnace filter.” Of course, she’d had an ulterior motive when she’d accepted her dad’s offer. Having to be home by eight ensured a hard stop on her tour guide duties for the evening, but now she grappled with a troubling mix of want and disappointment she hadn’t counted on. Jesus, her head was a mess.

“I know how to change a filter.”

“And how would having you do that help my dad escape the house while my mom hosts the monthly meeting of the Magnolia Grove Historic Society?”

“Ah. I see your point.” Surprisingly, he didn’t disentangle their hands. “Next time.”

Now would be the opportunity to restore some order to her messy head, and a woman who knew what was good for her would take it. She cleared her throat. “Um. About next time…”

“Watch what you say. You made a deal, baby girl.”

“Don’t ‘baby girl,’ me. I agreed to show you around, not—”

“And you have. I’m trying to get reacquainted with the town, as well as gathering knowledge I need to do my job. That was always the plan.”

“This town isn’t the only thing you’re trying to get reacquainted with.”

He squeezed her hand again. “No, it’s not, but you knew that going in. You assumed you wouldn’t have any trouble managing my interest, but you didn’t count on having interests of your own. Granted, there’s more here than either of us bargained for, but the Sinclair I know was never a coward.”

Okay. That irked. Maybe she wasn’t a free-spirited teenager willing to blindly follow her heart wherever it led, but that didn’t make her a coward. It made her mature. Responsible. Grown-up.

“Before you throw the word coward around, ask yourself which one of us left—”

“Shit,” he said under his breath as they passed the Whitehall Plantation, following the curve of the road that eventually led to the turn for her driveway. He withdrew his hand from hers to hold onto the wheel as he turned to look at the gracious antebellum structure set back from the road, surrounded by walking oaks.

The furrow in his brow suggested he’d moved on from the topic of her alleged cowardice. “What?”

He faced front again, eyes narrowed, as if solving an equation in his head. “If they fortify the creek banks up here, overflow once handled by the flood fringe will be funneled downstream.”

She was no expert, but it seemed logical to her. “I guess so. But there’s nothing much downstream. The Pinkerton Family Trust owns the land, and Mrs. Pinkerton wants the natural beauty preserved. Whenever developers come sniffing around—including those in her own family—she throws down the veto. Thanks to her, it’s pretty much all woodland, except…”

Her words trailed off as he took the turn to her house. He finished for her. “Except your barn.”

Small seeds of concern took root in her stomach. “It’s barely a creek down here. A four-year-old could wade through it half the time. I’m not worried.”

He shook his head. “That’s not the standard we use. Statistically, the area is part of a hundred-year floodplain. Our engineers calculate the displacement and look at the impact of all that water coming downstream.”

The SUV bounced to a halt in front of her barn, and she saw him give the strip of land to the left of her driveway a measuring look—a strip carved over God knew how many years, by the creek that still meandered there, rippling between the bases of tall pines and the branchy trunks of river birch. After a moment, he went on. “I don’t need the engineers to tell me that little bank isn’t enough to hold back a concentrated influx of water from upstream.”

The roots of concern in her gut dug deeper. “Well, what’s the solution?”

“The Pinkertons own this land?”

She nodded. “Yes. I own the barn, but it sits on a land lease. Like, a ninety-nine-year land lease. For all intents and purposes, it’s mine.”

“No, you own the right to peaceful enjoyment of the land, which they won’t be able to deliver if the golf course goes in. They’ll have to buy you out, and you can use the money to purchase another property.” He lifted his phone from the console and began tapping out a note to himself.

“I don’t want another property.” The concern twisted into anger. “I want this property—my barn. It’s not model two of phase three of the latest development, interchangeable with half the houses on the market right now. It’s special. I can’t turn around and find the exact same thing a mile down the road.” She turned in her seat, muscles tensing as if ready for battle. “The resort will have to extend the fortification down past my property, or the city can put in drains, or something.”

Without looking up from his phone, he said, “There’s not enough frontage to build up the bank, and a new drainage system isn’t economically feasible. I don’t see anybody giving that option serious consideration when there’s only one property at stake.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded, for a full minute. He sat there, so rational and unperturbed, oblivious to how he’d just upended her world. “Well, then, they can’t have their golf course. This is my home, dammit. Maybe you can’t understand the concept, since you seem to prefer living out of a suitcase, but I’ve invested my time, money, and my heart in that place—every board and stone—and I’m not walking away because somebody decides it’s the most economically feasible course of action. My home isn’t about economics.”

He put down his phone and turned to face her. “That’s not up to me, Sinclair.” His voice remained maddeningly even, but she detected a degree of frustration in the set of his shoulders. “My job is to identify the risks and offer solutions. The city decides which applications to approve or deny. What I can tell you is the simplest option usually wins the day.”

“Not this time.” She shoved the door open and scrambled down. “I’m not accepting a buyout, and Ricky Pinkerton is about to be advised of that fact in no uncertain terms.”