There was nothing on TV but old reruns and depressing news. She flicked the TV off and settled against the sofa. The nightmare had chased her from bed. While awake, she could rein in her thoughts, but sleep allowed her untamed mind to run wild. Now that she was wide awake, the quietness of the cottage haunted her.
It didn’t help that the smells and sounds of this house jerked her back to her past faster than the snap of a flag. Just being here made her feel like a lonely, motherless child again. She forgot sometimes that she was a full-grown woman with her own eleven-year-old child.
A knock sounded on the door, and she jumped. The clock read 11:32. Miss Biddle would have been in bed at dark, and Sam couldn’t imagine why Landon would come back. She slid her finger between the drapes and peeked out.
The porch was dark except for the little bit of moonlight, but Landon’s silhouette was easy enough to distinguish. She wondered what he could want.
Sam opened the door. “Hey.”
He looked up as if she’d interrupted his thoughts. “Hey. I know it’s late, but I saw your TV on. Can we talk for a minute?”
Sam glanced back toward the bedroom where Caden slept. “Sure.”
He stepped backward, allowing her to slip outside so they wouldn’t let the bugs in. The light flooding the window gilded his face. “I was wondering if you’d like to go somewhere next Saturday.”
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t this. “Where?”
“Anywhere.” He cleared his throat, then his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’m asking you on a date.”
The hollow spot inside her filled with something pleasant. Hope. For an instant Sam wanted to say yes. But just as quickly, fear funneled into the spot and washed everything else away. Her nerves clanged like pots and pans in the hands of her irritable mother. She wasn’t sure why or where the terror came from, but she didn’t need to understand it to react. She wanted him to take back the question, to set things back where they’d been.
“We’re just friends, Landon.”
He looked away, and the light from inside caught his eyes. When he looked back at Sam, she folded her arms across her stomach. “Come on, you know that’s not true.”
Her pulse skittered. Fake it, Sam. Come on, say something. Anything. She grabbed onto an idea like a drowning person to a life preserver. “Maybe you should ask Melanie out.”
He stared at her blankly. “Melanie?”
Sam shrugged. “You’re two of the nicest people I know, and I was thinking you’d make a nice couple.” Even as she said it, her heart squeezed. She told herself to hang tight. Stand firm. Soon she would be back in the safety of Boston, and this unsettling fear would be a thing of the past.
The way he was looking at her with those wounded eyes didn’t help. Like she’d just slammed a two-by-four into his head for no reason.
“I don’t want to go out with Melanie. I want to go out with you.”
He wasn’t making this easy. On either of them. She looked at the boards on the porch floor. “I don’t think so, Landon. It wouldn’t work.”
“How will you know until you give it a chance?”
Why did his tone have to beckon her like that? She hated the clash going on inside her. Fear of saying yes versus the pain of saying no. It wasn’t a fair fight. “I can’t.”
He studied her, and she shifted, crossing her arms.
“No reason?” His voice was steady and deep—just like he was. “Just ‘I can’t’?”
Sam looked at the dark fingers of the tree limbs reaching into the sky, at the bits of sand that coated the deck, at anything other than Landon’s face. Her mind emptied of any rational response.
His hand lifted her chin until their eyes met. “Still pushing me away, Sam?”
“No.” The word was a breath. Her insides quaked with the turmoil. She prayed her feelings weren’t obvious to him.
He let go of her chin, but his attention remained fastened on her. “What are you so afraid of?”
“Nothing.”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s written all over your face. Just like it was that day out on the boat.”
She didn’t have to ask what day he was talking about. She looked away. How could she tell him he ignited the fear?
He stepped back, and the distance left an empty spot that opened a chasm. Her shoulders sagged.
“You win.” His lips tucked in on one corner. “For now.” He turned and left.
Sam wrapped her arms around herself, guarding against the coolness of the night.
Landon paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again. Max watched him, his forehead scrunched. Max’s toy frog lay in the middle of the floor, and Landon kicked it. From his spot next to the recliner, Max watched it bounce against the table leg, squeaking as it hit.
“Too tired to chase, huh, boy?”
He stopped by the window and looked across Miss Biddle’s yard at Sam’s cottage. He couldn’t believe she’d suggested he ask Melanie out. He wasn’t interested in Melanie. He only wanted Sam.
He’d wanted her a long time, since that last summer. Before that, if he was honest with himself. Ever since Scott had dated her during their sophomore year.
His friend had wanted to ask Sam out for weeks, and when Sam told Landon she was going out with Scott, something happened inside him. He wouldn’t define it as jealousy, more like protectiveness. Scott was a good friend, but he was fickle when it came to girls. Sam had been hurt enough, and the last thing she needed was someone toying with her.
Scott and Sam went out on two dates, and it was after the second that Landon heard Scott pulling into Sam’s drive. It took everything in Landon not to get up off the pier, cross into her yard, and see if Scott was kissing her good night on her front porch. A full eight minutes passed before the old Ford rumbled away.
A few minutes later, Sam had joined him, sitting beside him, her feet dangling in the water. Even in the moonlight, her face was flushed. She sat quietly, chewing her lower lip, still nervous from the date, he supposed. He didn’t know why that rankled him.
“Have a good time?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He hadn’t realized how weird it would be to have Scott dating Sam. Weird wasn’t even the word. He didn’t like it at all.
Sam leaned back, her arms supporting her weight. At fifteen, she’d grown into her long legs, and she’d filled out in a way that made hugging awkward. He’d bet it didn’t feel awkward to Scott.
He shook the thought. He was tired of thinking about Scott and Sam and tired of analyzing his feelings. “Emmett home?”
She lifted her foot from the water and brushed a strand of seaweed off with her other foot. “Nope.” A breeze blew in over the water and lifted her hair off her shoulder. She pushed it behind her ear.
It occurred to him that she’d shed her ponytail for the date. He wondered if Scott had run his fingers through her hair the way Landon longed to now.
He scooted back, taking his feet from the water. “You’re quiet tonight.” She didn’t say anything for so long, he thought she’d let it drop.
She lay back against the boards, looking up at the stars. “Have you ever kissed anyone?”
He realized where the question was coming from, and his stomach tightened. “Sure.” He’d kissed Maddie Franklin in the second grade during recess. Elena Schwartz laid one on him on the bus during a field trip to the whaling museum in fifth grade, and he pecked Camy Smith on the lips at a football game in the sixth grade.
“You’re not counting Maddie, Elena, and Camy, are you?”
He smiled at her, watching her expression change as she realized he was. She jabbed him in the ribs, straight-faced. “I mean a real kiss.”
He twiddled his thumbs, suddenly feeling very juvenile. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had the opportunity. There just hadn’t been anyone . . . kiss-worthy. “Not yet.” He watched the moonlight twinkle on the surface of the water.
“Scott tried to kiss me tonight.”
He looked at her then. Her head was cradled in her arms, the moonlight caressing the elegant curves of her face. “Tried?”
“I turned away. Like I didn’t realize he was about to kiss me.”
Now, there was the best news he’d heard all week. He worked to stop the smile. A stab of guilt tweaked his conscience. Scott was his friend, after all. “Why?”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you must know something, or you wouldn’t have turned away.”
She pulled her feet up from the water, her square knees poking skyward, her stomach flat.
He looked away.
“I guess I was afraid.”
He looked back at Sam. If Scott had done anything to hurt Sam, the guy was in for it. “Afraid of what?’
She sat up rabbit-quick, facing him and folding her legs beneath her. “What if I did it wrong?”
“Did what wrong?”
“Kissed. What if I’m bad?” Her eyes softened, their vulnerability tugging at him.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re not gonna be bad, Sam.”
“How do you know? I’ve never kissed anyone, not even in grade school.” She pulled at her lip with her teeth. “What if I do it wrong and he laughs at me?”
“Scott wouldn’t do that.” Are you trying to talk her into kissing theguy, Reed?
“But what if he stops liking me? I don’t want to make an idiot of myself.”
A good one-liner popped into his mind, but he knew better than to tease at a moment like this. Besides, she was looking at him with those fawn-brown eyes, and he forgot what he was going to say. She was normally so self-assured, he didn’t know what to think of this insecure Sam except that it made him want to protect her.
“I’m sure you’ll be—”
“Will you do me a favor?” She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “I wouldn’t ask, but . . .”
“You know I’d do anything for you.” For a fearful moment, he realized how true it was.
She breathed a laugh. “This is kind of above and beyond.” Her gaze ricocheted off his.
“Name it.” Maybe she wanted him to talk to Scott. Tell him she was sorry or something. He could do that.
“Will you help me practice?”
She couldn’t possibly mean it the way it sounded. “Practice?”
She gave a wry laugh and lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “I know it’s stupid and weird and everything, but I just thought . . .” She wet her lips, looking away.
He caught a whiff of her perfume, something light and fresh smelling, not sickeningly sweet like the perfumes other girls wore. “It’s not like I’m an expert or anything.”
“You have more experience than I do.” She looked at him. “I wouldn’t ask, except—I’m really worried about it.” She looked afraid, her eyes wide, her shoulders stiff. She straightened and rubbed the back of her neck.
His heart clawed its way up his throat and throbbed there. He could do this. It was just a kiss between friends. No big deal. He shrugged. “I’m all yours.” Somehow the words came out level even though his insides rocked like a rowboat in a gale.
Her shoulders drooped. “Okay.” She wet her lips again. “Okay. What if you just kind of leaned over, you know, like you’re Scott and you’re kissing me good night.”
He couldn’t believe this was happening. “All right.” He looked down at her lips, awaiting his. She closed her eyes. He leaned forward.
“Wait.” She pulled back, her eyes popping open.
He wondered if his heart was going to stop then and there.
She folded her feet under her. “Let’s stand up. I’m not sure what to do with my hands.”
He stood, wondering if he’d lost his mind. “Just put them on his waist or his shoulders. If the kiss lasts long enough.”
She stood inches from him, his shadow hiding her expression. “How will I know if it’s going to last long enough?”
“You’ll know.”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
His mouth went dry. “You might not want to say that to him.”
“I won’t, you doofus. I was just saying it to you.” Her face had lost that fearful look, and her hands hung casually at her side.
Before he lost his nerve, he took a tiny step forward and leaned in until her breath tickled his face. His lips closed on hers, touching gently.
He felt her timid response and cupped her jaw with his fingers. Her lips danced with his, slowly, softly. Excruciatingly.
Her hands settled at his waist, just above his belt. He deepened the kiss. His other hand found her waist, and he pulled her closer until he could feel the heat of her body through his T-shirt.
She was soft and pliable, and he feared she could feel his heart thudding through his shirt. He pulled back, ending the kiss.
Her eyes opened, and her mouth, still moist from his lips, curved slowly. “How was that?”
About an eleven on the Richter scale. Maybe a twelve. “Not bad.” He cleared his throat.
“Not bad?” She lifted her chin. “I rocked and you know it.” She was practically glowing.
“You were adequate.”
She waggled her head. “I was awesome. And Scott’s going to beg for more.”
It was probably true. “I liked you better when you were unsure of yourself,” he teased.
“Bull. You probably like me more now. After my fabulous kiss.” Her smile was infectious. “Don’t go getting the hots for me now.” She shoved his shoulder.
Too late. “You wish.”
She laughed and backed away as the wind tousled her hair. “It’s getting late. I’m going in now.”
Landon tucked his hands into his shorts pockets. “See ya.”
She turned and walked down the length of the pier. When she reached the grass, she turned. “Hey, Landon?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” She smiled, then turned and disappeared into the yard’s shadows.
No problem. Except that he was quivering from the inside out.
Now, Max curled up at his feet, nudging his leg. He leaned down and petted the dog, the memory of that kiss still on his lips. It was the first time he admitted to himself that his feelings for Sam had completely evolved. Somehow he managed to keep it a secret from Sam—until the summer before he went to college.
He looked out the window toward her cottage and realized afresh that she wouldn’t be around long. Once she went back to Boston, his chance would be gone. And the thought of life without her wasn’t a possibility he wanted to entertain.