Page 28 of Her Pretty Words

She wipes the corner of her eyes. After a deep inhalation she says, “I’m ready.”

My eyes widen and my heart speeds. “For?”

“To keep running.”

My eyebrows shoot up. For a second, I thought she meant she was ready to kiss me.Only in a fool’s dream.She darts past me into a sprint, and I chase after her like muscle memory. Once I’m running into step beside her, she speeds up. “First one to the stop sign!” she calls out.

I add to her sentence. “Earns a favor from the loser.”

“Fine,” she calls over her shoulder. “Nothing dirty.”

“Can’t make any promises.” I grin. She’s about a foot in front of me. I kick it into high gear and shoot past her, winning by a couple of inches.

She grips her knees, and damn, I’m winded too. We take a few moments to breathe normally.

“You’re good,” I tell her honestly. “Like if a grizzly bear was chasing you in Idaho, I think you’d have a pretty good chance.”

She laughs and my heart stammers. “I’ve never encountered one, but I’m relieved to know that if I ever do, I mightnotget mauled to death.” Her shoulders sag slightly. “I have a feeling a grizzly bear is faster than you. And I just lost our race.”

“If we keep running together, you’ll beat me. Easily.”

She bites her bottom lip, I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it. “That’s a tempting thought.”

“Same time tomorrow.” I head in the direction we came.

“Maybe you’ll see me. Maybe you won’t.” She grins, and as though my vision goes straight to my heart, it skips a beat.

“Trying to keep me on my toes, Mace?”

She shrugs.

“I’ll save the favor you owe me for a rainy day.” I wink and she shoots me a glare.

She’s right on time the next morning. We run side by side and she makes it farther without stopping than she has the last two days. Once we make it to the space where our yards connect, she turns to me with a grin and then shoots off toward the ocean.

I have to push myself to reach her, and once I do, I grab her around the waist and spin us in swift circles.

She claws at my arms when I drag us both into the biting water. I laugh into her vanilla scented hair and release her once we are shoulder deep in the ocean.

She faces me, her jaw unhinged like she’s shocked by my audacity. Or maybe it’s the cold. I tilt my head back and laugh, swallowing a mouthful of salt water when she splashes me in the face.

She dunks her head beneath the surface, and when she comes up, her hair is down from the ponytail she wore, like she took the blue band out underwater. The strands drip down her shoulders like silky fabric, reminding me how she looked after the sprinklers went off in the bar.

“Thought for thought?” I ask.

Her gaze is searching and I’m afraid she’ll deny me but instead she nods.

“I like running early in the morning because I enjoy the quiet, but I never realized how lonely I was until three days ago, when you started running with me.”

She pushes away a patch of seaweed that drifted to her before she gives me her thought. “I broke off my engagement.”

It would be wildly inappropriate to smile right now. “Oh?” I say like it’s a question.

“I did it over text,” she admits.

“Atext?”

“And then I blocked him before he could answer.”This just keeps getting better and better.

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