I leaned in closer still so my mouth was next to her ear. “I’m heartbroken you don’t remember.”
She took a step back. “Who’s lying now?”
I liked that she admitted she had been, in so many words at least. “I can tell you I’ve never forgotten it. I was quite taken with you.”
Her eyes were wide, and she studied my mouth. “So why didn’t you ask me out?”
“I think I did, but you were leaving for college the next day.”
“You remember that?”
“There’s a lot I recall about you.”
“I doubt that includes the first time we met.”
“You’re wrong. It was on the Canada Lake Store docks, and it was the day before I started working there that summer.”
“It was the only summer you did.”
“I filled in every now and then, but not as much as I would’ve liked. I came up every weekend I could, though.”
“Dinner’s ready,” I heard Mary call out from the kitchen.
“Wait,” said Maisie when I turned to walk in that direction. “What would’ve happened if I hadn’t left the next day?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I can tell you why I showed up at your party.”
“Why?”
I turned my body and crowded hers into the doorway. “To claim you as mine, sweet Maisie Ann Jones.” I waited for her to laugh or get pissed or have some kind of reaction to my Neanderthal proclamation. She didn’t have one besides her breathing accelerating and her pupils dilating—which was exactly what I’d been going for.
“So, Ranger, what have you been up to these last few years?” Mary asked partway through our meal.
“Define last few, or we’ll be here all night,” said Jimmy, smirking at me from the other side of the table.
“You went to college. Is that right?” Mary added, ignoring my brother. “Where?”
“I started out at the Ranger School in Wanakena, but then transferred to ’Cuse.”
“What made you change to Syracuse?” Maisie asked.
I laughed. “Honestly, I was bored out of my mind.”
“What did you study there?”
There were far too many things I couldn’t divulge to Maisie or her grandparents for me to continue with any detail. “Security and Law. What about you? Did I hear you went to Dartmouth?”
“Graduated summa cum laude.” Those were the first words Al had spoken since we sat down to eat.
“Impressive,” I said, leaning close enough that my arm touched hers.
“I was always kind of a geek.”
“What did you study?” I asked even though I knew the answer, just like I knew she’d graduated with honors.
“Economics, then went on to get my MBA from Tuck.”
It was ranked the fifth-best MBA program in the country and the tenth-best in the world.
“And she came back to save the carousel business,” said Al, beaming.
“A little more than that,” she mumbled, only loud enough for me to hear.
I couldn’t wait to ask her what the more was. Given her education, the sky was the limit for Miss Jones. I wouldn’t ask now, though. I wanted Maisie to get lost in her response, tell me all her hopes and dreams, while I simultaneously seduced her into my bed. Instead, I changed the subject.
“So, what’s the plan for the music box?” I asked, dropping my arm under the table. When Maisie did the same, I took her hand in mine and squeezed. I leaned close and whispered in her ear. “Tomorrow night, just you and me. Sound good?”
She squeezed back and nodded.
“Pick you up at seven.”
2
MAISIE
As if I had any prayer of sleeping tonight. Nope, that wouldn’t be happening. It was as though I’d gone back in time to when I was a teenager, crazy about Owen “Ranger” Messick and absolutely certain he had no idea I was alive.
Did he really remember coming to my birthday party? God, I swear my panties almost melted off my body whenever I thought about kissing him that night and how I wished I hadn’t had to leave the next morning. I’d never been kissed like that before or since.
There was just something about being taken back to that time of my life, when the world held endless possibilities, when falling in love at the lake was every teenage girl’s dream and nothing mattered beyond who you ended up sitting next to at the bonfire, especially if they gave you a ride home in their boat.
I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened between us if I hadn’t gone away to college. Would he really have asked me out? Would Ranger have taken my virginity instead of the asshole fraternity guy whose name I wished I could forget?
Would I have fallen madly in love and followed him to Syracuse instead of pursuing my own dreams?
God, I hoped not. I’d seen too many of my friends choose to get married instead of going to college, as if the two things were mutually exclusive. Then, two or three kids later, they’d realize they resented missing out on all the things most people experienced in their early twenties. Invariably, those who married right out of high school were divorced by the time they were twenty-five. Of course there were exceptions, but they were statistically rare.
I doubted Ranger was the kind of guy who would’ve wanted that. Not that I knew much about him. But when he’d mentioned hearing I went to Dartmouth, he sounded impressed. More so after I added that I’d gotten my MBA from Tuck. Then his eyebrows rose, and he smiled.
He’d squeezed my hand in reassurance when my grandfather said I came back to save the carousel business, then whispered he wanted to get together with me tomorrow night—alone.
I couldn’t wait.
A little before seven the following evening, my grandmother hollered up the stairwell, “Maisie Ann Jones, stop that pacing or you’ll wear a hole in the floor.”
“Sorry, Grandma,” I hollered back, flopping down on my bed, which didn’t exactly make less noise. Had I ever been this nervous over a date? Not that I could remember.
Since I had no idea where we were going, I opted for a boho-chic maxi dress that wouldn’t make me look like I was trying too hard. I paired it with knee-high boots with a heel, ones I wouldn’t normally wear on a date, given the added height made me almost six feet tall. Ranger, though, was at least six four, so I could get away with it.
“Come down and have a glass of sherry before you go,” my grandmother said from the bottom of the stairs.
Sherry was her answer to every tense situation. Some said a day out on the lake would take away anything that ailed a person. For her, it was sherry. Summer, fall, winter, or spring—it was always the answer.
A few minutes after I downed my prescribed glass, there was a knock at the door. I wiped my sweaty palms on my dress, but before I could get up to answer it, Grandpa Al pulled it open and invited Ranger inside.
It didn’t matter that I’d seen him last night; he still made my heart stop. His dark-brown hair was cut shorter than he used to wear it, but his eyes were still giant pools of warmth I could easily get lost in. His slacks and dress shirt were perfectly tailored, hugging his hard body and making me want to run my hands over every inch.