Page 26 of Wishes on Wildflowers
Her elbows jammed into his ribs, and he took an inadvertent step backward as she whirled around. Not so far back that he couldn’t close the slight gap before she escaped.
“Jasmine.”
Her hands hitched up onto the counter behind her, but she did not meet his gaze. “Please move out of my personal space?”
If only she sounded like she meant it, but her voice had caught just slightly on the words.
Nathan cupped her cheek with one hand, feeling her jaw tremble under his touch. “I’ll take that dance in an hour or two, if I may.” He said the words so quietly he wasn’t sure she’d hear.
Her eyes jerked up to meet his, wider now than they been before.
“We were good together back then, Jasmine. I think we could be again.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. Fireworks exploded from his mouth to the extremities of his body, rocking him to the soles of his feet. Oh, yes, they could be good together again. He leaned in to give her a real kiss, but both her hands came up and shoved him hard in the chest. He stumbled backward, barely regaining his balance before he hit the fridge.
“If I’d wanted to dance with you, Nathan Hamelin, Iwould have done so last night. I didn’t want to then, and I don’t want to now. Please believe my words and leave me alone.”
Nathan took in her stance. She didn’t seem to be kidding around. But hadn’t she felt that jolt of lightning the same as he had when he kissed her? He examined her face, but there was no evidence she felt a thing other than disgust and anger. He held up both hands. “Okay, sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I’ll leave now and return in a couple of hours, if that’s okay.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You’re still coming back?”
Nathan swallowed hard. “I said I would, and I’m a man of my word. Unless you tell me you’re comfortable with Pansy without a second opinion.”
She stared at him as she sucked in her lower lip. “Thank you for coming, but Pansy and I will be just fine. I don’t need any more of your drama in my life, Nathan Hamelin. You need to understand that.”
Oh, he understood, all right. She still hadn’t quite convinced him that she meant what she said, but he needed to respect her words.
11
The crunchof a vehicle’s tires on gravel alerted Jasmine a couple of hours later. Sitting in Eden’s living room, she froze. Was it simply Logan returning to the house next door? The driveways were side-by-side, after all. The engine cut out and a door slammed then footsteps came closer. Not Logan. Nathan. Even after she’d made it very clear she didn’t want him to return.
Okay, want had nothing to do with it. What she’d wanted to do was leap into his arms and kiss him back. But that was the old Jasmine speaking, the one who’d been a fool for Nathan Hamelin in high school and in her early college years. The one who could glance at a flower and know whether to start plucking petals withhe loves meorhe loves me notto get the desired result. Not the more grown-up Jasmine, the one who guarded her heart, and was waiting for the man God had for her.
She heard the gate latch click outside the living roomwindow, and a minute later footsteps thudded on the back porch, followed by a knock at the door.
Was it Nathan she had been waiting for all these years, after all? The brush of his lips earlier had sent sparks firing all throughout her body, even more than what she remembered from their final kiss years back. She didn’t want to be waiting for Nathan. She didn’t want him on her doorstep when it was dark outside, either.
A second knock sounded. She pulled to her feet, crossed the kitchen, and opened the back door just a few inches. “Didn’t you get my text? I told you Pansy was fine, and you didn’t need to come back.”
Nathan filled the doorframe. Dagnabbit, he looked hot in those jeans and the gray Henley she’d forgotten to tell him he could never wear again. His muscles rippled as he lifted one hand to the doorjamb, leaning a little closer so that his gray eyes looked down into hers.
Jasmine backed up a step, but she couldn’t go any further without leaving the door unguarded or shutting it in his face. Which was probably what she ought to do.
“I got your text, but I wanted to see for myself.” He took a half step back, turning slightly, and indicated the backyard, lit with an automatic action sensor. “Want to come with me, or shall I go on my own?”
On your own, of course, doofus.But she couldn’t say that as she looked into his deep gray eyes. She bit her lip. “I’ll just grab my jacket and meet you out there.” She shut the door and leaned back against it, sagging slightly with her eyes shut.Oh, Lord, what am I doing?
She’d already given her response, so she couldn’t very well change her mind, could she? No, that wouldn’t be polite. Although, when again had she decided that being polite toNathan was on her to-do list? She shook her head, reached for her jacket, and slipped out the back door to find Nathan sitting on the top step overlooking the yard.
He glanced up at her. “This place looks like a goat’s paradise.”
Perhaps Jasmine should stick up for her friend and say it really wasn’t so bad, but that would be lying. It truly looked like the inside of a horse corral that housed a dozen beasts in a small space. Nothing grew in the atomic wasteland the goat left behind her. Jasmine shrugged. “Pansy is more important to Eden than a pretty yard.”
Nathan rose to his feet. “How about her new husband? What if he wants to have a nice yard where he can invite some friends over? What about when they have kids?” He chuckled. “I meant children. Babies.”
Babies. Once Jasmine had dreamed of having babies with this man. She’d fantasized about the house in Glenrose where she and Nathan would spend cozy evenings wrapped in each other’s arms. Idyllic. She shoved the thought from her mind as she jogged down the steps to the backyard and strode across to Pansy’s pen. “I guess those are decisions Eden and Jacob will have to make on their own. No one else can decide for them what’s important.”
She felt more than heard Nathan catching up to her just as she unlatched the goat pen. Pansy scrambled out with a loud bleat and crow-hopped toward her soccer ball, then gave it a head bump.
Nathan chuckled. “She is kind of cute, though.” He studied the goat as she cavorted around the backyard. “She seems to be doing all right.”
