Hideaway Heart: Chapter 13

“YOUR FAMILY IS SO NICE,” I gushed as Xander turned around in his brother’s driveway and I waved to Austin, Veronica, George, and the kids, who all stood on the porch watching us leave.

“Thanks for spending so much time with them,” Xander said, switching the wipers on. Fat raindrops were just starting to splash onto the windshield. Lightning flashed in the deep gray sky. “My dad was definitely living his best life when you asked him for lessons on throwing horseshoes.”

“Aww. He’s such a sweetheart.”

“I thought Adelaide was going to cry when you asked to see her bedroom.”

I laughed. “I know how important a girl’s room is. How she decorates it says a lot about her personality.”

“So what does it say that she has a giant poster of you on her wall?”

“That she has good taste in music, duh.” I reached over and slapped his thigh. “Oops, sorry. I broke a rule.”

“You’ve been breaking it all day,” he complained. “Why do you have to be so touchy-feely?”

“It’s not on purpose. I’m just a touchy-feely person. I’ll try to be better.” I put my hands between my knees and squeezed them. “How’s that?”

He glanced at my legs, but his frown only deepened. “It’s fine.”

Hiding a smile by looking out the window, I noticed we’d turned onto the downtown main street, which looked straight out of a movie set—red brick sidewalks, charming little boutiques, quaint coffee shops, an ice cream parlor, an art gallery, a tiny movie theater. Even the old-fashioned streetlamps were adorable. Most of the businesses were closed, since it was close to nine o’clock, but through restaurant windows I could see people lingering over their Saturday night dinner tables.

“This town is so cute!” I said. “I can’t wait to come back and explore.” At the end of the business district, Xander turned left, and the street sloped down toward the harbor. The view was so pretty, I gasped. “Oh, look at the moon on the water! Is that the lighthouse your dad mentioned?”

“Yes.” He slowed down. “This is Waterfront Park straight ahead of us. That big place on the right is called The Pier Inn. I used to work there every summer busing tables. The marina is on the other side of it.” He turned left and we drove along the water.

“Is there a beach?” I asked, straining to see. “It’s hard to tell in the dark.”

“Not here. This is just a park and harbor. But there’s a public beach up the road. On the left here—along the bluff—are big vacation homes that were built by rich Chicago families over a hundred years ago.”

“Wow,” I said, trying to lean over him so I could look out the driver’s side window. Through the misty dark, I could see the hulking shapes of big old Victorians—turrets and gables and porches and witch hat roofs. “I wish I could see better.”

“I’ll bring you back during the day. I’m hoping to buy a house around here in a few months—not one of those, of course. Something smaller.” As we left Cherry Tree Harbor behind us, the road became a highway, and Xander picked up speed. Rain drummed hard against the windshield.

“For your wife and three rowdy kids?” I teased.

“Ha.”

“So Veronica lives in the apartment above Austin’s garage?”

Xander laughed. “I think she technically lives in the apartment, but my guess is she spends a lot of nights in Austin’s bed and sneaks out early.”

“That’s kinda fun.”

“It’s kinda ridiculous. Those kids know what’s going on between them.”

“Maybe, but having a secret makes you feel close to someone.” I looked over at him. “Don’t you think?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really have any secrets.”

“Oh, come on. Everyone has secrets. Stuff they bury way down deep.”

“Not me. I’m an open book.”

Shifting in the passenger seat to face him, I tucked one boot under the opposite knee. “An open book, huh?”

“Totally.”

I rubbed a finger beneath my lower lip. “I disagree.”

“What do you mean, you disagree?” He tossed a frown in my direction.

“I mean, I think you’re one of those guys who claims to be an open book, and you keep everyone distracted with that cocky grin and easygoing charm, but you actually have a second book that you keep tightly closed, hidden from view.”

“A second book?” He snorted. “And what’s in this mysterious, hidden second book?”

“Your real feelings, of course.”

He burst out laughing. “Like a little diary where I write down the names of all my crushes? Mabel had one of those she used to lock with an actual key. Except she hid it in the most obvious place ever, and Dashiel found it and cut it open.”

I gasped. “He didn’t.”

“He did. And it turned out she had a huge crush on his best friend. We teased her about it mercilessly.”

“That’s awful,” I said, shaking my head. “Boys are awful. Poor Mabel.”

“She survived. But anyway, I don’t have any secret diary of feelings. Sorry to disappoint you. What you see is what you get.”

“Come on. We all have parts of ourselves we guard closer than others. We all choose which sides of ourselves to share and which to protect.”

“Maybe I don’t have a side that needs protection,” he said. “Maybe I feel perfectly comfortable exposing all of my parts.”

I laughed. “Except to me.”

“Hey, listen.” He got gruff with me again. “Protecting myself and protecting you are two different things. Don’t confuse them.”

“I’m not confused.” I grinned and held out my arms, Xander Buckley-style. “I’m just telling it like it is.”

By the time we got home, the rain was torrential, and the wind blew it in on a hard, pelting slant. We jumped out of the car and bolted for the porch, where Xander held his bag over my head while I typed in the code. “Shoot,” I said as we rushed in. “We did leave the windows open!”

“Get the ones in the bedroom,” he ordered, quickly turning a lamp on. “I’ll get these.”

I raced down the dark hallway into the bedroom, slipping on the wood floor in my wet boots. Luckily, the rain was angling away from the windows above the bed, so nothing had gotten wet. I cranked them shut, then sat down, tugged off my wet boots, and peeled off my damp socks. I thought about changing out of my soggy dress, but Xander seemed to like it. I’d caught him staring at me a lot today.

Heading back to the living room barefoot, I stopped short when I saw Xander’s naked back across the room. He tossed his wet shirt aside and reached into his bag for another one. The muscles beneath his tattooed skin worked as he lifted the plain white T-shirt and pulled it over his head. He turned around before it was all the way on, giving me the briefest glimpse of his bare chest and abs. Lots of ink. Lots of muscles. Lots of delicious little hills and valleys I could imagine running my hands over. Or my tongue.

I might have licked my lips.

“Is anything wet?” he asked.

It took me a second. “Oh, you mean the bed? No.”

“What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing.”

Behind him, the lamp flickered. The house groaned in the wind. “Think we’ll lose power?” I asked.

“We might.”

A loud crack of lightning split the air. “Ooh!” Touching my chest, I laughed nervously as thunder shook the cabin walls. “That one spooked me.”

He gave me a boyish smile that made my stomach flutter. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just a little jumpy, I guess.”

We stood there for a moment, looking at each other from opposite ends of the room while rain hammered on the roof. If my life were a movie, I thought, I’d rush toward him and he’d rush toward me and we’d close the gap between us in two heartbeats, our bodies and mouths colliding fast and hard.

But I wasn’t about to take that first step and risk his hand shooting out to stop me. He’d made his position clear last night, and I’d promised to respect it.

“Well,” I said, “I guess I’ll turn in and get cozy with a paperback.”

“Okay.”

I waved stupidly. “Goodnight.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Night.”

Hesitating for a couple more seconds, I gave him ample opportunity to stop me, but he didn’t. Rooted to the spot, his body was rigid and tense, the cords in his neck taut with restraint.

I could feel his eyes on me as I moved down the hall.