Page 108 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

“It’s lovely. I am a southern girl, though. How cold does it get in winter?”

“It’s bitter. I won’t lie. But we have our ways of coping.”

“Do you?”

He chuckles. “I plan to install floor warmers in the master bedroom of the homestead. That’ll help.”

“That does sound nice.”

“Then there’s always other things.”

The cart slows, and one of the horses snorts in the dark.

Randy faces me. “Is it all right if I kiss you, Kelsey?”

“It is.”

He leans in, his mouth gently finding mine.

Third base. I’m supposed to know by now how I feel. It’s the great crescendo of the movie. There should be a soaring soundtrack.

And I like it. I do. His mouth is warm and gentle, like he’s got all the time in the world.

I scoot in closer, to see if he’ll take it deeper. And he does, his tongue sliding along my lips until I part for him.

It feels right,I keep saying to myself. It’s a good kiss. A perfectly wonderful, normal kiss between two companionable people.

We kiss a little longer, slightly jostled by the cart’s slow progress, until the lights of the homestead invade the darkness, and he pulls away.

“I’m glad you came to Glass, Kelsey,” he says.

“Me too.” I fit my head in the space between his neck and shoulder. I’m jolted to another moment, another shoulder, another neck. Zach’s arms, around me as I sobbed. He’d touched me so deeply, further inthan I let anyone go, other than my mother in the emails I write but cannot send.

Zachery got me there. He reached that inner part of me I never let heal. Have never wanted to heal. I want to miss my mother all my life.

I’ll just tuck the memory of Zach in there with her. I have to. He is not for me.

And I like Randy’s kiss.

And the cart ride.

Really. I do.

It’s all perfectlyfine.

It’s not particularly late when I head up the stairs of the homestead.

Zach’s door is open. He’s sitting against the headboard of his bed in casual shorts and a T-shirt.

“Knock knock?”

He looks up. “How was the hayride?”

“Good. Really nice turnout. Should have made decent money.”

He sets his phone aside. “Any progress with the husband?”

I sit on the far corner of his bed. I don’t dare get any closer, not after the direction my thoughts took earlier.

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