Page 76 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bargain

I drop my head, trying hard to wipe out the images of what she just did to me in that bedroom. How shepushedright over that imaginary line we had drawn between us. “She does, Pops, but not the way you’re thinking…”

“I’m pretty sure it’sexactlythe way I’m thinking it is, Dalton.”

Damn him.

Slowly lifting my head, I meet his green gaze. “And if it is?”

I raise a brow at him, and the corners of his lips twitch into a little half grin.

“I’d be happy for you and for her, but there are a lot of complications there.”

“No shit.”

She’s not in any position to offer me something that belongs to another man, nor am I in any to offer her something when I don’t have any idea how togiveit to her, even if she said yes.

We should have just left things as they were—as friends.

Stuck to the bargain we made to help each other and nothing more.

But instead, I’ve gone and fucked everything up by falling head over sanity for Camille Bower.

* * *

CAMILLE

Tension at the dinner table made me shift restlessly in my seat and push the food around on my plate rather than actually eat much of it. Every second, I could feel Dalton’s eyes on me, watching my every move, the heat of his gaze igniting parts of me I’m too embarrassed to think about even now that I’ve escaped the James homestead and any possibility of him cornering me to discuss what happened.

Did I really do that?

The flutter between my thighs and my still-damp panties confirms I did. Yet I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I actually shut down all those reasons we shouldn’t have to act on my attraction to him.

It was reckless.

Thoughtless.

Selfish.

It’s only going to end one way—with one or both of us getting hurt.

Even Davey’s continued excited chattering about fishing with Pops as I drive us home hasn’t been enough to quell the worry that I might’ve ruined everything. That I might end up pushing away the only person in my life I’ve actually been able to count on since Dave died.

The only personinmy life, really.

“And then we saw the two men—”

I glance up at him in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, kiddo, I didn’t hear you. What were you talking about?”

He releases a little exacerbated sigh that can only come from a four-year-old who thinkseverythingis excruciatingly important. “Fishing!”

“You just said something about two men…”

He nods, grinning. “They were at the lake.”

My hands tighten on the wheel, and I try not to let panic seep into my next words as I peek at him again. “Did Pops recognize them?”

Davey shakes his head. “Don’t think so…”

I return my focus to the road, relieved to see how close we are to home. “Did he talk to them?”

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