Page 50 of The Kiss Keeper
He cleared his throat, half dreading and half wanting for her to say that she knew it was him.
He shifted his weight. “Did you ever figure it out?”
She sat down on the edge of the well and glanced inside. “No, I didn’t. The funny thing is, I didn’t want to kiss a boy back then. No, that’s not true. I’d thought about it, but—”
“Was it a good kiss?” he asked, hating himself for asking, but he’d always wondered if it meant as much to her as it had to him.
Her cheeks went all rosy again, and she smiled the same smile he remembered from that night when he left her, standing in the moonlight outside the cabin with her face partially covered by a bandana.
She pressed her fingertips to her lips again. “It was the perfect first kiss.”
She wasn’t wrong. It was. He remembered everything about that night and everything about her.
His phone pinged again, and he stiffened.
“Is it your work or your family? Are you sure it’s not important?” she asked from her perch on the well.
He took out his phone to see another notification of a text from Charlie, then set the device to mute. “I can get to it later.”
He had to get his head in the game. But this, finding her, threw one hell of a curveball into his plan. She watched him carefully with those trusting ocean-green eyes. But he wasn’t one to be trusted. Even if he wasn’t there to persuade her grandparents to sell, he wasn’t the man for her.
He wasn’t the man for anyone.
He could only imagine that the other Jakes she’d dated were much like the douche canoe he’d watched dump her and move on in real-time. But he was no better. In fact, he may be worse. Maybe once upon a time, there was a chance for him to be one of the good guys—a family man and a loving husband like his father had been—but all that promise and potential evaporated the moment he learned of his parents’ deaths.
No, if he wanted the control and the power that he’d focused on achieving for more than half his life, there was only one way forward.
Play the part of Natalie’s boyfriend.
Get the grandparents to sell.
Then, move on. He had to treat Camp Woolwich like any other property—like any other deal.
This was business.
“I still wonder about him,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.
“About who?” he asked.
She toyed with the hem of her dress. “The boy, my kiss keeper. Where is he now? What’s he doing? Does he remember me?”
He joined her at the well, his pulse quickening as if his body remembered what it was like being there with her all those years ago, and then, he was thirteen again. All nerves and lanky limbs, he wanted now what he wanted then. He sat down next to her and drew his fingertips up the smooth, milky-white skin of her neck and cupped her face in his hands.
“I think you’d be a hard person to forget, Heels.”
It was the truth. He’d never forgotten her.
She gazed up at him with those damn elusive eyes that made him forget all the darkness and only see her and her light. She was like a beacon drawing him in. He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip, and that force was back, that magnetic pull between them. That intense drive to kiss her, to protect her, and to make love to her flooded his system. He could give in a little bit. Being a good fake boyfriend was all part of the con, right?
“Oh, Jake,” she whispered as she closed her eyes.
He threaded his fingers into her hair, and she sighed, melting into his touch. He’d allow himself one last kiss. He leaned in, and the heat of her breath teased his lips, but before they could meet, a loud cry came from where they’d left the children.
“Aunt Nat! Uncle Jake! Come quick!”
He and Natalie broke apart, and she sprang to her feet.
“What is it?” she called as they ran the short distance to where the kids had been making their rubbings.
