Page 36 of Second First Kiss

She wasn’t able to give what Nolan was looking for. He wanted it all, was the kind of man who deserved it all, yet she barely had anything left to give. Reason number one for why she wasn’t looking for romance, and why she hooked up with guys who didn’t put much stock in long-term investments.

Romance was nothing more than a marketing tactic masterminded by big corporations to capitalize on love. And like all things manufactured to manipulate emotions, it only ever ended in disappointment.

And Kat had had enough disappointment to last a lifetime.

She’d gotten Tessa off to school, and now, ready to start her own day, Kat opened the front door and looked up at the summit in the distance, the outline of beautiful mountain peaks silhouetted by the rising sun.

A new day full of endless possibilities, she thought.

“Time to grab a morning nibble of spring,” Kat said to Tiny Dancer, who was chomping at the bit to escape and make short order of the tulips that had sprouted in the flowerbed that lined the easement between her and Nolan’s yards.

One of the things Kat loved about her neighborhood was that there were no fences. Living in the mountains meant common spaces. Her street backed up to National Forest land, so she had the benefit of neighborhood living with the beauty of wide-open spaces.

She watched Tiny Dancer trot down the front steps and onto the lawn, but when her gaze landed on the truck she came to a hard stop.

Her heart, on the other hand, raced in ways that she’d never experienced before. If she hadn’t known better, she’d place the feeling in the ‘fluttering’ category. And all because Nolan’s 1973 classic Ford pickup sat in the driveway. Not his driveway, but Kat’s. Freshly washed, keys on the dash, a still-steaming cup of coffee in the cup holder, and on the bench seat, be still my heart, a pink pastry box from Just Holes—only the best doughnut shop in the county.

Her kryptonite.

With her own car in the shop undergoing emergency transplant surgery, and Milly and Gemma on the other side of town, Kat was left with no other choice than to a) call in sick—which she couldn’t afford—or b) walk the two miles to work in chilly temperatures. Then Nolan had left her his truck.

Damn flutters.

She’d been prepared to be mad at him today. Mad for teasing her and for making her feel like an idiot the other night. His whole “You’re not ready” BS had kept her up all night. Or maybe it was the way her body turned into an incinerator every time she thought back to just how solid he felt beneath her hands.

Solid. Steady. Stoic.

And straight as an arrow. It was the last that should have had her flutters slamming on the brakes.

But God, she’d felt so feminine and delicate in his embrace. Two words no one had ever said in regard to her. But she felt how she felt, and no matter how many times she’d tried to tell herself she’d imagined the whole thing, the sensation remained.

Now, in addition to sensations and flutters, there were confusing feelings. Feelings she didn’t have the space or bandwidth for. Good thing she was turning over a new leaf and making decisions based on logic rather than the seat of her pants.

A brisk breeze blew off the evergreen Sierras, causing the freshly bloomed wildflowers to sway. The morning air smelled like fresh pine, the rising sun warmed her from the inside out, and the crystal-blue sky made everything seem brighter.

Spring had finally made an appearance. And what an appearance it was. After a particularly long and white winter, the change in season was more than welcomed. As was Nolan’s thoughtfulness.

“Let’s return the good neighbor gesture and poop on our own lawn today,” Kat said to Tiny Dancer, who was already making her way to Nolan’s property.

Neigh!

“Don’t make me take out the leash,” she threatened.

Tiny Dancer snorted and stomped his back legs, flicking up chunks of lawn. He hated his leash. It was pink with metal spikes. A real Rage Against the Machine meets My Little Pony vibe. It wasn’t the fashion choice that was the issue. TD viewed the restraint as a sign of the Man trying to hold him back from his constitutional freedoms.

“Get a move on,” Kat said. “We’ve got places to go and people to assist with all of their county office needs.”

Tiny Dancer pranced around the yard in three precise circles and then did his business, followed by a frolicking case of the zoomies. When he was done, Kat locked him up in his pen and hopped in the truck. There went that fluttering again.

Stuck to the steering wheel was a sticky note. It was nothing more than a dozen words scribbled on a piece of paper with a simple N for the signature, but it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her because it meant, unlike most people she dealt with throughout her day, he’d listened to her.

In case you need to storm

out in a cloud of dust.

~N

Fighting a goofy smile, she started the truck and gave the engine a few roars before letting it idle. While the cab heated up, she picked up a doughnut hole and popped it in her mouth, moaning aloud when the rich sweetness hit her tongue. She washed it down with a gulp of piping hot coffee—black and strong enough to eat through dentures.

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