Chapter Twenty

The football sailed through the air and hit Cam on the forehead. His brother, the NFL quarterback, had given him the side with the sun in his eyes because, to quote, “I’m older than you.” (A ridiculous reason and he was only three months older.) So Cam lost sight of the ball and it conked him on the head before it fell into his arms for a catch.

Take that big brother.

He ignored the sting between his eyes and passed the ball between his hands until Reese came into clearer view to his right. They had a triangle game of catch going on in a large grassy area beyond the swimming pool.

“Nice recovery!” she shouted, swaying from side to side in her athletic shoes, black leggings, and form-fitting T-shirt as she readied herself to catch his throw.

“Ready?” he called out.

“Ready!” This was just what they needed. A game of catch away from their computers and phones, and with Nash around so they weren’t tempted to flirt with each other.

He threw the football, aiming straight for her. She caught it, wiped some hair that had slipped out of her ponytail off her face, and threw it to Nash. Nash made a run for it, but the throw was short and wide and not even someone with pro athlete speed could get there in time.

“Oops! Sorry!” She picked up the bottle of water at her feet to take a drink. She’d made plenty of decent throws, and a few terrible ones, but she enjoyed every one of them, given her infectious smile.

“It’s okay.” Nash scooped up the football and grabbed his water. They all took a drink under the cover of a giant maple tree.

“All right, I’m ready to try that throw again,” Reese said. She motioned for Nash to give her the football.

He underhanded it to her. “Let’s do it.”

They resumed their spots and played some more, switching things up and throwing the ball to whomever they wanted. After a few minutes, he threw to Reese. She threw back to him. And to mess with his brother, he passed the ball back to her. She caught on, and sent a pretty good spiral back to him.

“You guys don’t want me around, all you have to do is say so,” Nash said.

He and Reese exchanged a look as he threw her the football. “So,” they answered simultaneously. “Just kidding,” Reese added right on the heels of her “so.” She threw the ball to Nash.

Nash stared Cam down and let fly a fast, hard pass. Cam caught it against his chest then did a fancy little spin and lobbed the ball to Reese. She reached up over her head, the tips of her fingers connecting with the hard leather before it slipped through her hands and landed on the grass behind her.

A split-second later, she gripped her right hand in pain, elbows digging into her sides. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

Cam rushed over, Nash right beside him.

“You okay? What happened?” Cam asked.

“I think I jammed my finger.”

“Let me see.” Nash took her small hand in his much larger one. “Yeah, it looks like that’s what happened.”

Her middle finger turned red and swollen as they stood there.

Misery wove through Cam. His heart sank. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she promised him.

“If it helps, you’ve definitely got some skill with the football.” His compliment had the desired effect and she smiled.

“Can you bend your finger?” Nash asked.

She did, with anguish lines creasing her beautiful face. “I can, but it hurts like a mother.”

“Like a mother?” Cam asked, amused by her choice of words.

“Yes. Got a problem with that?”

“No. No problem.” He fought a smile.

Nash worked to gently move her finger. “Ow!” she shrieked again.

“Sorry,” he said, “I wanted to be sure it isn’t out of the joint. The proximal interphalangeal in the middle of your finger absorbed the force of the blow and now the ligaments in your finger are stretched.”

“Thank you, Dr. Radcliffe,” she said sweetly.

“You’re welcome, but the credit goes to Dr. Choi in the next town over. He gave me that explanation the last time I was in Windsong. I tripped over a fallen tree branch, if you can believe it, and when I reached out to break my fall, I jammed my finger. It happens to the best of us.”

“He was staring at Savannah, Dr. Choi’s nurse, as she walked down Main Street when it happened,” Cam said.

“And I’d do it again.”

Cam relieved Nash of Reese’s hand and held it protectively atop his palm instead. “Let’s go ice it.”

“Ice for fifteen minutes every hour to bring down the swelling,” Nash said. “And if the pain persists, take a couple of pain relievers. It should feel better in a few days.”

“A few days?”

Nash retrieved the football and gathered the water bottles. “Yeah. Try to use it as little as possible and it will heal faster.”

She groaned and her shoulders slumped. Cam let go of her hand and rubbed the middle of her back. “At least it’s not broken,” he said.

“I don’t think I’ll finish my screenplay now.” She gave a cute little scowl. “And it’s going to take longer to type up my script notes, too.”

“Do the ice thing right away,” Nash called out with a wave over his shoulder, leaving Cam right where he wanted to be: alone with Reese.

He walked her back to the guesthouse. The gentle breeze carried her strawberry scent right to his nose and damn if that didn’t make him want to make her feel better with tactics unbefitting a best friend.

“It’s not fair that I can’t type easily,” she told him.

“You could use your left hand and press the letters with your finger.” He mimed typing with just his pointer finger, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked with a huff. “It doesn’t.”

He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are. You always get grumpy when you don’t feel good.” They reached the guesthouse and he opened the front door for her before steering her to the couch. “Take a seat and I’ll grab the ice.”

“Not always,” she amended.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’ve got to have at least one flaw.”

“You think that’s my only flaw?”

Small bag of ice cubes in hand, he returned to the couch. “I think I like everything about you.” She put a pillow on her lap, placed her hands atop it, and applied the ice.

“That’s not true.” She put her feet up on the coffee table and kicked off her shoes so they fell to the floor. “You hate when I leave dishes in the sink to do later rather than when I’m finished eating.”

He shrugged.

“And you hate that I don’t fill up my gas tank until I’m running on fumes.”

“That’s a safety issue,” he countered. He liked to gas up when his tank was a quarter full. Running out of gas on a stretch of the 101 Freeway in the middle of nowhere at two AM, with no cell service, had taught him that.

“How about—”

“How about you accept the fact that you’re my favorite person, so I overlook certain things?”

That took the wind out of her argumentative sails. She relaxed into the couch. “You’re my favorite, too.”

“My good looks and charm are hard to resist,” he teased.

“Shut up.”

“How about we go do something to take your mind of your finger?”

“Cam.” She cast a serious look at him and held up her hand. “You need to get back to writing.”

“I can write all day tomorrow.”

Her nose crinkled. “Are you sure?”

“Yep.” His mind was spinning with ways to smooth things over with Leo and the studio and some fresh air would help. Not to mention, he didn’t need to stick to a schedule anymore. The freestyle approach Reese had inspired was working and he’d finish the screenplay, no problem.

“Okay.” She lifted the bag of ice off her finger. “Would you mind putting this in the freezer? My finger is sufficiently numb.”

“Sure.” He’d swear she checked out his ass as he walked to the kitchen, her eyes darting to the floor when he turned back around.

“What do you have mind?” she asked.

“Some sunshine therapy.” He helped her put her shoes back on, grabbed her some Tylenol, and made a splint with a nail file to keep the finger in place. “This should help with any pain while we’re out.”

Ten minutes later, they parked the car at Rustic Lake. Adjacent to the town square, the historic reservoir offered boat rentals, picnic tables, and walking paths. He took Reese’s good hand and led her toward the pedal boat rentals, well aware that friends didn’t hold hands, but damn, if he could stop himself. She wrapped her fingers tightly with his, holding on like she never wanted to let go and it wrecked him for anyone else. The simple feel of her soft hand turned his palm into an erogenous zone.

“Please tell me we’re going on the Swan boat.” The spring in her step told him she liked the idea.

“Okay, I won’t tell you.” The Swan pedal boats were a popular attraction, especially in the summer, and lucky for them his family owned one for spur-of-the-moment occasions like this. Typically, whenever Reese visited, they took a ride.

“Yes!” She swung their arms in joy, making him glad he’d brought her to the lake.

They bypassed the rental shack and walked down the dock to their boat. Cam grabbed the two life jackets tucked in the back behind the seats, handed one to Reese, and when they were both fitted for safety, they sat down.

He let her pedal first, picking up on her rhythm after a few cycles.

“Hold on!” She put her good hand around the steering handle between them and thrust it forward. The sudden force jerked the boat to the right.

“Easy, Nitro.” He covered her hand with his. “Remember you have to drag the handle slowly to turn.” He helped pull the handle back.

She looked down at his hand enveloping hers. “I didn’t forget how to do it, you know.”

“I know.”

Attraction crackled between them, the air around them full of electricity, like this time their hands were magnetized, reminding them of the pure enjoyment they gave each other. Only now it reached a new level. A level he didn’t think he could back away from. He rubbed his thumb across her fingers, hoping she felt the same flash of intensity he did. When—because at this point there was no more if—they got their hands on other parts of each other, he had no doubt the contact would change him forever.

The chemistry between them didn’t just flicker, it blazed.

They quietly tooled around the lake in perfect pedaling sync. Her ponytail swayed like she had a song in her head. And with a perpetual happy lean to her full lips, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. They’d pedaled together many times before, but as they’d already discovered, this summer was different.

“If you get tired pedaling, I can do it alone,” she teased, steering them toward the middle of the lake.

“Any pedaling you can do, I can do.”

“I could probably go all day,” she countered, her mood much better than it had been after hurting her finger.

“Me, too.” And then, because even without them touching anymore his body still burned for her, he added, “And not just in pedal boats.”

A sexy as hell flush crept up her neck. She batted her lashes. “Maybe I’ll let you prove that to me sometime.”

He was ready to turn their boat around and prove it to her right now. “It would be my pleasure.”

“And mine.” Her breathless tone had his pulse pounding.

“100 percent. Multiple times,” he promised.

Her teeth sank into her plush lower lip, drawing his eyes there. She stopped pedaling. Stopped steering. “We can’t let this go, can we? Not until we do something about it.”

He slid her ponytail over her shoulder. “I’ll follow your lead, Ree. This is your call.”

“I don’t want it to ruin our friendship.”

“Agree wholeheartedly. What if…”

“What if what?”

“We follow our attraction for the next week. See where it leads us. It doesn’t have to end with us in bed. Maybe it’s more kissing. Maybe it’s skinny-dipping. Whatever it is, we don’t question it. We go with whatever we’re feeling and at the end of the week we go back to being just friends.”

“You think we can do that?”

“Yes,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. He’d do whatever it took to preserve their friendship.

She studied him. “Promise you won’t break my heart?”

“I promise. Promise you won’t break mine?” That was definitely the more likely scenario. He’d had these feelings for much longer than she had, and he decided that one week would be better than nothing.

“I promise.”

He leaned closer. Closer still. Giving her time to change her mind. To tell him kissing each other again would be too big a mistake.

A mistake that would feel so good.

She gravitated closer. Her lustrous blue-gray eyes dipped to his mouth, inviting, urging, solidifying her consent. “What are you waiting for?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”