Page 79 of The Hometown Legend

“So people had to manufacture something, because there’s not anything wrong with you, and there never has been. People are just so damned insecure. Ridiculous.”

“Well. There were the poems,” she said.

He looked at her, his expression stoic. “Then they hated you because you had passion they didn’t have. You were never boring.”

“Did you...did you read them?”

He nodded slowly. “I did. And I didn’t laugh.”

“I was...”

“You were young. If you’d been my age... Hell, I think I...”

Everything stopped, for just a moment. Because Gideon had been so nice, defending her from everybody, but she had never assumed the poems might have actually been nice for him to read. Or that he even liked them.

Or her.

He straightened, and the spell between them was broken.

“After you do a little working out. After I teach you some technique, I’ll tell you more about my stuff.”

“Okay. Agreed.”

But she was going to be pondering all of that for a long time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AFTERTHAT, she spent every day at his obstacle course. She would lift some weights, which she was dubious about being effective, considering she was only going to work with them for a week or so, and she only did a few reps at a time.

But he demonstrated the rope climb for her.

The first time he did it, she just about swallowed her tongue.

He was wearing shorts, which he at some point called Ranger Panties, and they wereshort.

She could see the edge of a scar on his left thigh, and she wanted to keep staring at it. Figure out exactly where it extended to. How bad it was, how deep.

But then she got distracted by the rest of his thighs. And the muscles.

And his butt.

He was so beautiful.

All of him.

When she was a girl, she had liked things like his square jaw, his blue eyes, the way his dark brown hair swooped gently away from his forehead. Now his hair was a bit too shaggy, and he had a beard.

And she liked it.

She appreciated things like his muscular thighs, and that they were a bit hairy.

He excited her in ways that were not juvenile.

Not at all.

He made her wish, just a little bit, that she knew more about sex.

And in fact, it made her want to educate herself, just a bit.

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