“Truth.”
He looked hesitant but finally asked his question. “Why did you recommend me for the Greensong job?”
Colin looked genuinely confused and curious. I reached for his hand and held it between both of mine. The smooth, dry skin felt perfect in my grip.
“First of all, please don’t be mad.” Before he could interrupt me with more questions, I hurried to continue. “You left your sketchbook at the Windswept Pines job one day.”
His eyebrows shot up. “That was at least three years ago!”
I nodded. “I know. And I knew you’d freak out if you lost track of it. At first I thought it was sketches for the Windswept job, but then it fell open on my truck seat and I saw what was inside.”
Colin’s jaw worked as he realized I’d seen his private design sketches. “Then how did I get it back? I don’t remember losing it.”
“I followed you to the Tavern and snuck it into your messenger bag while you were inside.” My face was hot, and I wondered if it was embarrassment or the fire. “I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t want you to be upset with me or think I took it. I promise I didn’t. But I didn’t leave it on the jobsite because that was when we were having some appliance theft overnight, remember?”
He nodded absently. “So, you saw my designs…”
When he tried to pull his hand away, I held it tighter. “You’re incredibly talented, Colin,” I said softly. “Your work is amazing.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, as if unsure of whether or not to trust me. “You think so?”
I’d never seen him look so insecure, and I hated it. “I was blown away.”
Within seconds, I had a lap full of Colin Kearns, warm from the fire and so incredibly sexy in my denim shirt. His skin color, which was usually a rich tawny brown, had reddened to a deep, coppery bronze with his blush. I freaking loved seeing his reaction to my touch. Gone was the tidy, put-together designer who fussed around a jobsite with his massive to-do list. In his place was a glassy-eyed sweetheart whose mouth tasted like the promise of a tempting future.
My hands roamed underneath the shirt to the smooth skin of his back. His muscles moved as he pushed closer to me, and I moved a hand up to clasp the back of his head so I could keep kissing him. We kissed for a long time without going any further than seeking lips and hands. Colin rocked his hard cock against mine, and I grabbed his ass to hold him still.
“Gonna lose control if you keep that up, baby,” I growled.
Suddenly he pulled back and looked frantically everywhere but at me. “I like you, but I can’t like you. That’s why I’m so weird around you. But I don’t want to be weird around you. I have to, right? So it’s like… I have to. Otherwise, if I wasn’t weird around you, the reason for me needing to not like you would be lost in the ether somewhere.” He paused his babbling long enough to gesture in the vague direction of the ceiling fan. “And then what would we do?”
I moved my hands up to cup his face. “Take a breath,” I murmured. “Tell me why you can’t like me.”
5
Colin
I couldn’t think while Ryder was touching me. In a way, that was great—when he touched me, all the worries that lashed at the edges of my mind like a storm on a windowpane fell away, and my brain went quiet and peaceful. For three years, I’d felt like he’d judged me and found me wanting, but he hadn’t. The truth was plain as day in every kiss he pressed to my lips.
But on the other hand, my issues were the same as they’d ever been… at least, I was pretty sure? He and I worked together. Allowing anything personal to develop between us would mean trusting him, not only with my heart but with my career. With so many people counting on me to succeed, could I really do that?
Looking at Ryder’s face right then, hearing how much faith he had in me, how could I not?
I pulled back from him and lay down on the rug.
“I think I might have had too many shots.” I closed my eyes on a sigh.
“Aw. Things starting to look a little fuzzy?” Ryder’s voice was sympathetic and sexy simultaneously. How did he do that?
“No, actually.” I opened my eyes to see him staring down at me, his eyes warm and unguarded. “Things seem really clear when they shouldn’t.”
Ryder lay on the rug next to me and traced a finger over my cheek. “Let me in, Colin. Tell me what’s going on in that brilliant mind.”
“It’s not your fault,” I blurted, like a totally idiotic idiot.
“You not liking me?” He sounded amused. “Okay.”
“No, I mean me liking you even though I can’t like you.” I frowned. “Aren’t you paying attention?”
Ryder laughed. “Sadly, it seems like this the moonshine-induced clarity thing is only working for you.” He ran a hand down my arm, over the sleeve of his own shirt. Meanwhile I stared at his chest, enraptured. A dragon curled from the center of his breastbone, down over his rib cage, and the tail disappeared around his back. I wanted to follow it.
“Colin,” he prompted, still amused. “You were explaining?”
“Huh? Oh. Well, you probably already know all about how my grandparents came to raise me. How my mom died when I was five, and my dad was deployed overseas in the army?”
Ryder nodded. This was the joy and the annoyance of living in a small town. We all knew each other’s story.
“It was a great childhood. Granny loved me harder than any three moms could have, just to make sure I never felt the lack of my parents. And Grandpa wanted to make sure I was taken care of. He taught me to fight and fish up at Bull Lake—”
“That’s where I live.”
I tried to look like this was news to me and I’d never spent an entire Saturday googling him. I knew Ryder was a few years older than me, and we’d gone to different schools, so it made sense that we hadn’t known each other well growing up, but it was startling to realize that he’d been in my life all along, a part of the fabric of Licking Thicket and the land surrounding it, just like I was, and the same threads that tied me to this place probably tied him too.
“Anyway, my grandparents sold off some land so I could afford to go to school. Grandpa was supportive of me in every way, but… he had a really hard time with me going into design. He wanted to be sure I’d make a living and be okay when he and Granny were gone, so he begged me to do something stable like accounting or dentistry. ‘Cities rise and fall, but folks always get toothaches, Colin.’”
Ryder grinned, even as he shook his head. “He’s not wrong, but I can’t see you as an accountant. Talk about wasting your talent.”
I bit my lip and let those few simple words warm me more than the fire.
“In the end, of course, I didn’t. But I promised him I’d be okay. That I’d make good choices. And I promised myself that I’d take care of the two of them, not because they expected me to, or anything, but—”
“But because you love them, and taking care of someone you care about just feels good.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Yes. Exactly.” I cleared my throat. “And then I forgot every one of those promises and got involved with the general contractor on my first job out of college.”