That she had always wanted to be. She had proved that in spades: by turns playful, demanding, ferocious, giving, gentle.
It was the second part of her statement that a better man would have paid attention to.
That maybe the right person had never come along before. Jonas was well aware he was no one’s right person.
He waited for panic to set in, and the self-recrimination. What the hell had he done? He hadn’t even been drunk. And neither had she.
But intoxicated, yes. On her laughter. On her wet body in that little black dress pressed against his, on the look in her eyes.
And oh, yes, on the taste of those incredible lips.
But, oddly, no sense of recrimination came.
Krissy stirred and then her eyes opened and then opened wider. She didn’t look upset; she looked the very same way he felt.
Happy to be waking up beside him in the same way he felt happy to be waking up beside her, as if something that had been missing from their worlds—without their awareness—was suddenly there.
She came fully awake and was suddenly shy. He couldn’t resist cupping her face in his hands and kissing her on the lips with all that tenderness he was feeling toward her.
The dog whined.
“I think he needs to go out,” she whispered against Jonas’s mouth. “Why don’t you take him?” she suggested. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”
There were many things on his mind besides the dog and breakfast, but she was right to put the brakes on this thing unfolding between them before they were both so swept away with it that not one other rational decision could be made. Hopefully a walk would be a great way to get his head back on straight. He put on his crumpled clothes and went out the door. Instead of getting his head back on straight, Jonas found he couldn’t wait to get back to her and couldn’t stop thinking about her. He stopped and plucked a flower from a garden that bordered the walk.
When he got back, Krissy was showered and dressed in a pair of yoga pants and an oversize T-shirt. She was very focused on making pancakes. He let the dog off the leash and went up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in the sweet curve of her neck.
When she turned into him, he gave her the flower.
“Oh,” she said, blushing crimson, “how lovely!”
That blush reminded him of what he was dealing with. It had been a long, long time since he had been with a woman who blushed.
It was a little late for this, but Jonas realized he needed to take things slowly. He was dealing with grief. He knew from experience how intensely vulnerable she was right now. He should just give her—and himself—some space.
“We should—”
She turned and looked at him, and he saw what she was expecting in the sudden vulnerability of her expression.
If he asked for space right now, she would not see it as being for the greater good of both of them. She would see it as a brush-off.
“We should go get that ring today,” he heard himself say.
What? a voice inside him asked, shocked.
“What?” she asked, shocked.
“There’s a jewelry store in a little town north of here. It’s close to one of my favorite hiking trails. Have you got sturdy boots?”
* * *
Krissy stared at Jonas.
He’d brought her a flower. Snatched from someone’s garden, but a romantic gesture nonetheless.
Now he wanted to go ahead with the ring? The whole time she had cooked breakfast she had thought he would arrive back with the dog and a zillion reasons to bolt out of here.
She had a zillion reasons she needed him to leave. This was all becoming exactly as he had predicted! Terribly complex.
For instance, she couldn’t even look at him without wanting to touch him, kiss him, drag him back down the hall… Shop for a ring when she was feeling some dangerous hope zinging in the air between them. Wouldn’t that be utter madness?
Still, he had put ring shopping into perspective really quickly. For him, the ring shopping was a casual outing—it had nothing at all to do with what had transpired between them last night. In fact, it could combine with a hike! Sturdy boots, indeed!
That was the proper outlook.
“Can I use your shower?” he asked. “And maybe pop my clothes into the dryer for a bit to loosen the wrinkles?”
Krissy gulped.
Jonas Boyden had been in her bed. Now he was going to be in her shower. Part of her longed to be as bold as she had been last night and get in that shower with him.
But another part of her held back. They barely knew one another. Wasn’t this how her parents had gotten into such difficulties? They had hurried into a relationship when they didn’t even understand each other’s core values. Their legacy had been that Krissy grew up fast and learned to depend on herself from a very young age.
She had to take this lesson now and back this thing up. It felt as if it would be way too easy to start depending on Jonas. Already, her safe and tidy little cottage felt as if it would never be the same, as if some part of Jonas would linger here tantalizingly, so could you go backward once you had gone there?
She heard the shower turn on. She imagined the water sluicing over that gorgeous body that she had owned last night. But then she also heard the dryer thumping.
Was this a man who was accustomed to waking up in a strange bed? He seemed very practiced at getting wrinkles out of clothes that had been left in a hurried heap by the side of the bed.
Tell him to go home, Krissy ordered herself. But already she wasn’t that strong; already she was prepared to ignore the lessons life had given her. She wanted to spend the day with him. She wanted to see where
