Page 35 of Coming Home

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t want to disturb you all, but Natalie, can I borrow you for a minute?”

“Sure,” Nat said, ignoring Summer’s chilly expression. “Be right back.”

She needed to talk to him about the boyfriend label. Kiss aside, the last time she checked, she’d not signed up to play the role of girlfriend.

They headed outside and his hand found the small of her back. Its heat almost burned, guiding her down the street. Rather than stopping at the empty sidewalk, he ushered them around the corner.

“Umm…what is going?—”

Duncan’s lips crashed against hers. The kiss not only stopped but stole her words. The force of his body propelled her against the firm brick wall of the building.

Finding purchase against his chest, she shoved him off. “What the hell, Duncan?”

“I’m sorry.” His fingers raked into his hair. “I saw you with Noah, and I got jealous.”

“We were sitting at a bakery with friends. It wasn’t like he had me bent over the table.”

“I know. It was just the way he was looking at you and kept touching you.” Worried lines creased his face. “How can I compete with him?”

“This isn’t a competition,” she said through gritted teeth.

The truth in that statement sunk in. Even if she were a prize to win, Noah would never compete for her.

“I’m trying to play this whole thing cool, but I’m failing.” Those bourbon eyes beseeched hers. “I never stopped loving you.”

“What?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I wish I had no heart, it aches so…”~Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Had Duncan just said he was in love with her on a street corner? With frantic blinks, Nat tried to will this away. This was all wrong.

So. Very. Wrong.

“I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since we were seventeen.” He grimaced as if the admission pained him.

Did loving her hurt him? The expression was akin to that of someone accidentally slamming their thumb with a hammer while hanging a photo. He didn’t look any more pleased to be saying it as she felt hearing it.

Leaning against the cool brick wall, eyes closed, she proceeded with trepidation. “I didn’t know.”

It was such a poor response to such a big declaration, but the truth often was. The scrapbook of their eighteen months together held no page dedicated to their firstI love yous. No picture existed of them staring with adoring eyes as little red hearts fluttered between them. No memory of her belly twistedin girlish delight when he tugged at his blond hair with a bashful confession of love. No image of her raised to her tiptoes, smile broad, with anI love youin return.

“I never said anything.” His gaze fixed on hers.

Clumsy silence stretched between them. She fiddled with the frayed hem of her denim cutoffs. The blizzard of her thoughts was drowned out by the rapid thump of her heart. Her eyes flicked to Main Street, where people meandered down the street with reusable shopping bags filled with produce from the farmer’s market.

It was a typical mid-August Saturday morning in Perry—except it wasn’t. Duncan said he loved her, and her response was to blink it away like it was a bad dream.

“Duncan—”

“Natalie.” He twisted to face her, his eyes pleading. “Please, don’t say it. Give us a chance. Arealchance. This time at least.”

“This time?” Her head tipped up to him.

Duncan stepped close. “You never gave us a chance back then. You always held me at a distance.”

“That’s not true.”

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