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When the wine was open and the sauce bubbling away, Ben practiced his wind-up to throw a strand of spaghetti against the wall, claiming he was going to use the trick to test for doneness, because when else was he going to be in a kitchen where pasta sticking to the wall wouldn’t throw the homeowner into a tizzy?
Cocooned in the warm glow of the cabin and the sweet, sharp smells of the simmering sauce, Casey couldn’t believe she was laughing this hard. She was perfectly happy for him to have taken over the cooking—it was certainly going to be a better meal than anything she’d have come up with on her own.
He, though, was far more interested in asking about her than he was in talking about the infinite varieties of cheese being drilled into his head this semester.
“Your painting,” he said, putting the lid back over the sauce and fixing her with a piercing stare.
“What about it?” Casey tried to keep her voice casual, but underneath she felt suddenly on edge. Careful. Guarded. Her painting was private—hers and hers alone. She didn’t want anyone coming in and poking around inside her, saying what was good and what wasn’t, criticizing her for wasting her time. Criticizing her the way Nick had done.
“Do you sell your work? I mean, around here? Or in the city?”
Casey shook her head no. “It’s just for me.”
“I only saw a little bit, but from what I did glimpse, it’s amazing. You’ve never thought about making your work more public? I’m no expert, but I definitely think it could sell.”
Casey took another sip of wine to buy herself time. She’d never imagined someone praising her like this—she’d already accepted that she didn’t have real skill. But Ben seemed to think she actually did. Even so, how could she explain the way she felt when she sat on the rocks with a brush in her hand... And then the sickening twist inside when she imagined that same work on display hundreds of miles away, divorced, disembodied, separated from her in some fundamental way?
She doubted whether Ben would even understand.
But then she thought about his dream of opening a café and wondered if she was underestimating the things they had in common, deep inside.
“I’d thought about it,” she surprised herself by saying. “A long time ago. After college, when I was living in New York, trying to make ends meet, trying to paint. But it wasn’t happening.” I had bills. She wanted to say. Things you probably never have to worry about.
But that wasn’t the only thing that had stopped her. There was Nick. And her own uncertainties. All the things she wished she could go back and change.
Except that they were the very challenges that had led her to Bonnet, and she wouldn’t give that up for the easiest life in the world.
“I bet you could make it happen. It you wanted—I’m not saying you have to. But you definitely could.”
“It doesn’t matter how good you are. Lots of people are good. Way better than I am, that’s for sure. I don’t have real formal training. I never did an MFA.”
Ben shook his head. “You don’t need one. Up here, you’ve had time to paint and develop. Those paintings you did today by the lake—I could already see your touch. Being up here probably allowed you to fine tune your own approach away from other influences.”
“That’s a nice way of thinking about life as a recluse.” She laughed, and Ben threw a dishtowel at her to show that wasn’t what he meant.
“Spaghetti’s done,” he declared. “But seriously, you should consider it.”
“I have. But this is my life here. I don’t know if I could go back to anything else.”
“You don’t have to give anything up. I’m just saying, if you wanted to—hell, you could do whatever you want. I’m sure of it.”
Casey refilled their wine as Ben drained the spaghetti over the sink. The steam rushed about him as he shook the colander and dumped the spaghetti back in the pot. Who was this boy and how did he wind up in her cabin, making her dinner on a Sunday night in May, telling her she could do, have, be anything—anyone—she wanted?
There was no way to explain all the reasons why she’d turned away from a career as an artist. She was happy with that decision, or at least accepted it as the inevitable course of her life. His words prodded her, though, making her wonder if there weren’t other parts of her that she’d pushed to the side as she’d taken that first long drive up the highway from the city and let the mountains claim her.
She couldn’t wonder about second chances though. She was too focused on Ben and how gorgeous he was, and the small miracle of how he’d wound up in her kitchen that night. Something kept making her smile, and even when he caught her eye and winked, she couldn’t stop.
She turned the heat off under the pot of simmering sauce and checked Ben with her hip to push him aside. She was stirring the sauce into the long strands of spaghetti when he came up behind her. His hands were warm and soft as they pulled her hair over her shoulder, exposing the side of her neck. His fingers rested lightly on her skin and then traveled down her back, holding her securely around her waist as he gently pressed against her.
“Casey,” he whispered, his lips on her ear, her neck, his fingers pulling her loose sweater to the side to kiss her shoulder before grazing his lips back along her neck and up to her ear again. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
It made her shiver all the way down her spine. How could such a simple touch affect her that much? She couldn’t keep her eyes open, could barely keep her legs under her. She dropped the wooden spoon in the pot, bracing herself against the stove as he pressed harder against her, his chest against her back, his hips against hers. She turned within his embrace so she was facing him, looking up at his liquid-brown eyes. He gazed at her with such intensity, she thought she might catch on fire under his touch.
She reached up and brushed the hair from his eyes, like she’d wanted to do since he first walked into the office that night. It was as soft as she’d imagined. His skin was smooth. He radiated heat. She ran her fingers through his hair again, but this time, she didn’t let go. Wrapping her hand around the back of his neck, she drew him to her, her lips seeking his, needing this, before she could stop and think and change her mind.
Because there was no thinking now. His kiss was warm and insistent and nothing existed except their bodies touching and the sweet, acid taste of red wine on his tongue.
She had forgotten how amazing it could be to kiss someone. The first exploration, when every touch was new and electric and the tiniest graze of his hands on her back sent pulses of need through her body. She felt like one single circuit of connections that did nothing but respond.
She held him close, tracing the muscles in his back. She slipped one hand under his shirt to stroke the soft skin around his hips, across the line above his jeans that she’d been dreaming about for two nights straight. Her other hand stayed the back of his neck, teasing his hair, drawing him closer.
Some part of her was aware that there was dinner on the stove, and cups of wine that they probably shouldn’t knock over, and the curtains were open, and he was twenty-six, and she was thirty-four, and she was supposed to be alone, and a hundred other things that were right and practical and just. But all she really knew was that the kiss was still going on, and she wanted more and more and more of it.
She pressed against him to shift away from the knobs of the stove digging into her and before she knew it, she was pushing into him, pushing him back so that now he was the one leaning while she pressed her body forward, pinning him against the fridge. Her hands were in his hair, running down his cheeks, over his torso, grazing the muscles in his chest and his lean, wiry arms. She wanted desperately to feel him, every inch of him. But she was also trying to make it last, knowing she would never get this moment back again. This first exploration, when every second brought a new and welcome surprise.
He pushed back against her, pressing his hips to meet hers, and it was like being in a pinball machine, bouncing from side to side in her narrow kitchen. She was up against the cabinet, then the stove. Now he had her pinned up against the small stretch of counter by the sink, lifting her so she was perched on the edge. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him into her. Her fingers started the long, slow dance down to his belt.
But when she reached his stomach, grazing the skin above his jeans, the kiss began to lessen and then—there it was, unmistakable. He began pulling away.
“Is this okay?” Casey murmured, wondering at the sudden change.
He kissed her again, but it was a shorter kiss this time.
“I’m just worried that I should go,” he said softly.
She turned her face gently away from his lips, but her legs were still wrapped around him, their arms intertwined.
“Go?” she echoed as if she hadn’t heard him right. They were both breathing hard and she could barely think, let alone form actual sentences.
“My friends are waiting,” he said apologetically.
“Your friends?” Casey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her heart was still beating fast. Deep inside her, an ache was beginning to curdle into pain.
“It’s our last night camping. I told them I’d be back.”
Casey unclasped her legs, releasing him from her grasp. He stepped away. She searched his face, confused.
“You brought wine,” she said, not understanding.
“I’ll come back.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry?”
The hurt was a cut slashed across Ben’s face.
“Don’t come back.” Casey shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I guess you don’t, either. So let’s not bother. Go have fun with your friends—you deserve to have a good time. Go back in the morning and forget it.”
“I’m not saying I want to forget it.” The sad, puppy-dog look was killing Casey. He was the one who said he should go, right in the middle of what only passed as the best kiss of her life because it was even longer and more intense than the first kiss they’d shared. And now he was acting upset?
“Then what are you saying?” Casey hopped off the counter, embarrassed by how quickly she’d let herself go, surrendering to the sensations that flooded her when they’d touched. She should have kept her wits about her. She never should have let him in.
“I... I only told them I was going to the bathroom,” he finally admitted.
“And then you went out and got wine?” Casey was incredulous.
“It’s been a long bathroom trip.”
Casey barked out a laugh. This was totally ridiculous. Trust that the one time she’d actually started to like someone, to let him in, it would turn into some kind of comic affair.
“Go.” She forced a half smile. “Let them know you’re not in the throes of some horrifying intestinal distress.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, draining his cup of wine and leaving it in the sink.
Casey nodded, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the edge of the counter, trying to hold herself up.
“Me too,” she whispered as he closed the door.
As much as she wanted to be someone who was strong and brave and making it on her own, the truth was that sometimes, things hurt. The moon brushed the trees outside with silver. In the morning, instead of going swimming, she sat in her bathrobe and cried.