Page 46 of Just One Summer with the Grumpy

But it did.

This moment felt incredibly significant, and I couldn’t even pinpoint why.

When my hero and his horse jumped over the fallen tree to reach the train, enabling him to leap onto the caboose and hunt his sweetheart down, I felt the same thrill I always did. Being loved like that—the idea of being so incredibly cherished that someone would risk their life to get you back—always made me a little emotional.

Chase leaned forward in his seat now, what remained of the popcorn completely forgotten on the coffee table, his eyes riveted to the screen.

“Wow,” he said softly. “That wasn’t even a stunt double.”

“They got that all in one take,” I told him.

“What are you doing here?” the heroine on the screen demanded, looking pouty on the screen as she rose from her seat on the train. “I thought I told you goodbye.”

“Maybe so,” the hero said, sweeping her into his arms. “But I never said it back. I’m not saying goodbye to you. Not now, not ever. Now, I won’t say you’re mine, because that’s up to you. But darlin’, I am utterly and completely yours.”

The couple stared deeply into each others’ eyes for a long moment as the music swelled. Then they both, together, leaned forward for a kiss more passionate than considered acceptable for the time. I’d analyzed this scene hundreds of times, and I still couldn’t decide who leaned in first. They moved as one, a mirror image, two hearts becoming one with a single, definitive kiss that would change the course of their lives and bind their futures together.

I don’t know how long I stared at the screen, feeling that moment change me as it always did, but when I looked back at Chase, I could tell he’d been watching me for some time. His expression was blank, completely and infuriatingly unreadable. But he couldn’t hide the emotion in his eyes. There, in their dark depths, I saw my own feelings reflected back at me. A different kind of mirror altogether. Not black-and-white on a screen between two actors, but something more real. Something that actually existed.

A terrified thrill swept through me now, like the nervous anticipation of boarding a roller coaster. Only this one wouldn’t end thirty seconds from now. I felt my future diverge into two paths—the one I’d always expected and a second that felt new and bright and full of potential.

Slowly, his eyes flicked to my lips. He leaned closer, millimeter by agonizing millimeter. I saw the imperfections in his dark eyebrows, the slight crookedness of his nose on the right side. How one side of his lips quirked upward while the other didn’t. The cleft in his chin that reminded me of a certain cowboy hero.

Chase Everett definitely qualified as a “distraction from my goal,” or whatever the horoscope had said. But destiny hadn’t met Chase Everett, or it would have shut its annoying little mouth.

As Chase’s face hovered just above mine, I felt his breath on my lips. At some point, I’d tilted my face upward and slightly to the side. Even if my brain panicked, my body knew exactly what to do. His lips looked so welcoming, slightly parted like that. His breath, despite the buttered popcorn we’d both devoured, held a hint of peppermint.

He started to close the distance—and then stopped.

I found myself holding my breath, my chest screaming for air, and my heart hammering in my rib cage, trying desperately to escape.

This had to be some kind of medieval torture, waiting like this. Maybe he expected me to go in for the kill myself. Some kind of chivalry thing.

I leaned forward.

He leaned forward—

—and turned his head to swipe a handful of popcorn from the bowl.

“No kissing,” he said with a wink, and shoved the kernels into his mouth.

Had he really just…?

Oh, it’s on.

I grabbed the popcorn bowl and plunged my hands into it, grabbing the biggest handful I could before launching the kernels at him. He rolled behind the couch just in time. The popcorn sprayed the room like fluffy machine gun fire.

Chase swiped a handful off the floor and tossed it in my direction. I used the side of the bowl to protect my face and hair before jumping onto the couch and dumping the rest of the bowl over his head—or at least, where it had just been. Chase was on his feet again, holding both our half-full cups and smirking.

I dove behind the coffee table just as the popcorn pelted the wood and glass.

Moments later, we both collapsed onto the loveseat, laughing. I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time. His laughter stopped long before mine did, though he still wore a smile as he watched me, examining every inch of my face. I almost wondered if he would move in again, for real this time.

“I saw your employee record,” he finally said. “You grew up in the Midwest. Does that movie remind you of home?”

“My farm? A little.”

“Do you miss it?”

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