Page 53 of Rebel Bride
I let my thumb brush the soft skin at her waist. She shivered, but didn’t move away.
“Try me.”
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
I nodded. Like I could possibly forget that Rebels Christmas party five years ago.
“That was my first date with Dash, and I’d already met your dad and a few of the other Rebels because I’d worked in the front office for a few months. But I’d never met you.”
“I was home for the holidays from college. I went to that party because I had a crush on Giselle DuPre.”
She laughed. “Harper and Remy’s daughter?”
Harper Chase was the Rebels CEO while Remy DuPre was a former star player and now her husband.
“Uh huh. But she had brought a boyfriend, so I got over it really quickly. She was too old for me anyway.”
“I figured you were distracted. When we were introduced, you barely said two words to me, but I was a little boy struck when I met you.”
I felt like I’d swallowed a puck. “Boy struck?”
“I had a crush on you, Hatch Kershaw! But then the next time we met—I think it was in the Empty Net when the season was over, maybe four months later—I tried talking to you, asking about your new contract with Denver. You shut me down. Cold!”
“No, I didn’t.” Yes, I did. “I just didn’t want to be too friendly with you because you were another guy’s girl.”
“To the point of being rude?” Another laugh, like it was so amusing, while inside I was dying. I had been rude. I had shut her out. I didn’t want to get to know her.
Because knowing her, and not being able to have her, would have broken me.
And yet, not knowing her had the same effect. This last year, especially, had been miserable.
“I hope I’ve made up for it,” I said quietly.
“Oh, you have, Dino Boy. You most definitely have.”
Chapter Seventeen
Summer
* * *
We lay out on the lounges, absorbing the sun’s rays as the boat bobbed lazily in the water. Each conversation made it easier between us. Unburdening will do that.
Hatch had taken what I’d said and been so damn sweet about it. It felt good to talk to someone about my past, even if it was just a fraction of what had happened to me. If I told him everything, he’d probably jump overboard in terror.
As it was, he knew I was a Mississippi girl, a runaway, a fraudster, and a hockey nut. Surely enough for one day.
“Ready for lunch?”
I looked up from the Joanna Lindsay Viking romance I’d found on Aurora’s nightstand (with the naughty bits underlined. Go, Aurora!). On the small deck table, Hatch had set down a cheese plate with figs, walnuts, a couple of spreads, and wheat thins. I could have cried.
“Of all the favors you’ve done for me, Hatch Kershaw, your provision of cheese is the kindest.”
“Can’t believe you went without for so long.” He was busy opening the bottle of Sauv Blanc.
“I had to cut it out to fit in my wedding dress.”
“Well, eat up there, Sunshine. You need to start filling out that junior bikini.”
