Page 80 of At First Dance
I glance up at him, tilting my head. “You brought me to your brooding tree?”
His mouth twitches. “You’re welcome.”
We sit in the patchy shade, legs stretched out in front of us, and I lean back on my elbows. The sun filters through the branches, dappled and lazy. A cicada buzzes in the distance. Somewhere far off, a tractor hums.
“So,” I say lightly, “are you going to ignore the fact that you almost kissed me again?”
His jaw flexes.
“That obvious, huh?”
“I mean… I practically heard wedding bells in Marge’s eyes.”
He doesn’t smile, not quite, but something softens in his face.
I don’t give him time to climb back behind that wall.
“Then why haven’t you?” I ask, voice steady even though my pulse does its own stampede.
His answer is a rough exhale. “It’s not about Crew. I know what that was.” His gaze drags over my mouth like it’s costing him. “It’s me. It’s… everything I haven’t figured out how to hold without breaking.”
I open my mouth to argue and don’t get the chance.
Rowan closes the distance in one sure step, my back finding the warm trunk of the oak. His palm comes to my jaw, the other landing at my hip, and then his mouth is on mine—hungry and reverent, like he’s been starving and finally decided to eat. The world narrows to the press of him and the rough bark at my spine and the way he kisses like he plans to remember every second later.
I rise onto my toes. He deepens, a low sound rumbling in his chest that I feel everywhere. Fingers slide into my hair. My hands fist in the front of his T-shirt, hauling him closer like I could stitch us together if I tried hard enough. He breaks only to breathe, then takes my mouth again, slower now, a promise threaded through the heat.
When he finally stops, he stays close—forehead tipped to mine, breath mingling, and his thumb still stroking the corner of my mouth like he can’t help himself.
“You deserve more than a man who’s still figuring out how to build anything that lasts,” he says, voice low and wrecked.
I keep him right there with a hand at the back of his neck. “Maybe you just needed the right person to build it with.”
His eyes shutter, then open—clearer, softer, like the choice hurts and heals at the same time. He kisses me once more, quick and certain, then rests his brow to mine again.
“I want to do this right,” he says. “Not perfect. Just… true. The kind that holds when storms roll in.”
“Okay,” I whisper, because it is and I am. “Then we start the way things that last always do—one nail, one board, one breath at a time.”
His mouth curves against mine. He laces our fingers—solid, warm, unshowy—and eases us away from the tree like he’s learned the exact pressure it takes to keep something precious intact. We don’t hurry. We don’t explain. We walk back toward the glow of the house, hand in hand, like two people who have finally decided which direction to face.
We sit there like that for a while, our hands locked, the silence between us not heavy anymore, but healing.
When a breeze stirs the leaves above us, he looks down at me and says, “You terrify me, Ivy Quinn.”
I smile. “Good.”
Back at the farm, Rowan drops me off at the cottage like he’s afraid if he comes too close, he’ll lose every last bit of control he’s barely holding on to.
“See you tomorrow?” he asks, voice rough.
I nod, already halfway through the door. “You better.”
I don’t see him again until late afternoon.
I’m weeding the garden behind the cottage—yes,me, elbows-deep in dirt with my sunglasses perched on my head and my hair a frizzy halo of sweat. Rowan’s voice floats over the fence like it belongs here.
“Hey.”
