Chapter 19

I knew something was up the instant Hunter appeared on my doorstep.

First clue: He wouldn’t look me in the eye. Hunter always looked me in the eye.

Second clue: Hands jammed into deep pockets.

Third clue: Shifting weight from one foot to the other. Hunter wasn’t the shifty type.

“Is everything okay?”

Finally, he really looked at me. “Yes. Why?”

Now I felt incredibly confused. “You’re just acting weird. Why aren’t you coming in?”

“I want to go on a drive with you.”

Looking over my shoulder, I lowered my voice. “I’m making dinner for Mom and Jillian. Can it wait a few minutes?”

“No.”

Okay, this had to be serious. I called for Jillian to take over dinner. A moment later, her light footsteps sounded on the stairs, though I heard her laughing in that coy way of hers that meant she was talking to a guy on the phone. Despite Mom’s illness stretching years past what the doctors predicted, my sister didn’t seem to have a care in the world. I’d worked hard to keep it that way .

I gave her quick instructions about dinner and letting Mom sleep upstairs. Then we found ourselves in Hunter’s black Pontiac, a car considered old even fifteen years ago, driving along a gravel road that cut through farmland for at least two miles before turning toward livestock fields.

But something told me we wouldn’t need to go that far. Hunter looked more nervous than I’d ever seen him.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” I told him.

He fixed his gaze on the gravel road, and I detected a sheen of perspiration on his forehead despite the cooling fall weather.

“I don’t know how to say this,” he began, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. Too tightly.

“Just say it.” Before my heart leaped out of my chest and ran with the McDurmott’s golden retriever across the street.

“When you couldn’t go to Paris like you wanted, I made you a promise. Do you remember?”

Of course I remembered. I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. And believe me, at times, I’d wanted to. “You promised I would get to see Paris someday.”

“Because I would take you,” he said softly. “I’d make sure you saw everything you wanted to see, and it would be everything you imagined.”

My heart picked up again. “Go on.”

“I got offered an internship. In Paris.” He paused, then went on in a rush. “I want you to come with me.”

“Hunter,” I breathed.

“We won’t be living like millionaires, but you won’t want for anything. I just used the last of my savings to make sure you have everything you need—the tours, the plane, the train and bus tickets, everything. They’re paying for room and board, but I’ll give that to you and stay in a hostel nearby. ”

His words slipped through my mind like high winds on a mountain, and I struggled to grasp them. “How long?”

“A month, but if they like me, they’ll hire me permanently.”

I sat there, stunned. After all this time trying to avoid him, he’d done the most thoughtful thing imaginable. My heart felt full and sick all at once. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. It’s done. We leave on Sunday.”

What little breath remained in my lungs exited in a whoosh. “Sunday?” He’d already bought the plane tickets? “That’s in four days!”

“I know. I should have given you more time to prepare, but a couple of things needed to fall into place first. It’s all ready now.” He leaned forward, his voice barely containing his excitement. “Neddie, it’ll be the trip of our lives.”

For a moment, I let myself imagine it. Paris. After all this time, I would finally be able to see all the wonderful sights captured in the photos around my room. I’d get to walk the streets featured in the movies I loved, eat the food I’d only read about, and hear the music I knew by heart. A tiny thrill rose at the very thought of it. But somehow the thrill felt tainted, like a bruised apple.

Sunday. So fast. “You paid for everything up front?”

“Everything,” he said.

It was all too much. I swung the door open and climbed out before I knew what happened. Stalking around to the front of the car, I focused on keeping my lungs in motion, my breathing ragged and fast.

Hunter wanted to take me to Paris.

I heard the driver’s side door open and footsteps on gravel. I didn’t have to look to know Hunter had reached my side .

“But, Jillian,” I said. “I can’t leave her behind with Mom. She doesn’t know what to do, and she’s afraid of needles.”

“Your grandparents will stay at your house while you’re gone. It’s all arranged.”

“They don’t know our financial situation,” I continued. “We have to call the insurance company to approve medications, and they don’t know who to talk to, and when it does come, they won’t know how to give it to her. Hunter, I don’t think I can be gone a day, let alone a month.”

He came around to face me, cutting off my view of the fields. “You’ve been caring for your mom for three years straight. Let someone else take a turn. You deserve a break.”

“But my mom—I can’t leave her right now. What if she takes a turn for the worse?”

He didn’t roll his eyes. Instead, he lifted my chin so I had to face him. “Your mom is doing better than she has in a while. I even talked to Dr. Houston about it. He thinks you’ll be fine.”

Deep down, I knew my concerns were only excuses. Most of all, I feared what I saw in Hunter’s eyes. Their depths contained a world of softness and gentle caring I’d never experienced from a man before. And he was a man now. At twenty-two years old, we were both grown. He was a senior at the college, after all. But a trip to Paris together wasn’t something two friends did.

It was something lovers did.

And try as I might, I couldn’t forget our almost-kiss more than three years ago. It refused to leave my mind. Being in Hunter’s presence only made it worse.

Indeed, Hunter leaned in, forcing me to step back against the hood of the car. I felt an echo of heat from the engine and the reflection of the hot sun against the back of my jeans.

“Neddie,” he said, his hot breath on my face and a deep earnestness in his eyes, “you’ve sacrificed years of your life for your family. Now, let someone else sacrifice for you.”

My heart wrenched violently, and I knew I would lose control any second. I yanked my gaze away, wishing I could accept his words as truth but feeling the wrongness of them. Caring for my sick mother and sister wasn’t a sacrifice. Oldest children did such things. And at the end of all my efforts, nothing would really change. Alexis would still be gone, Mom would still die, and despite Jillian flitting around, I would still feel just as lonely.

“Don’t you dare,” he said roughly, as if he read my thoughts.

The next moment happened as if in slow motion. He stepped forward, forcing me against the car so I had nowhere else to go. Then he brushed my hair out of the way. My heart practically stopped.

I didn’t mean to do it, but it happened all the same. My eyes closed at his touch, and I leaned into his hand. I felt more accepted and more loved here, with the boy next door, than I had in a really long time. His touch felt so warm and good, and?—

His lips brushed mine. A question.

I didn’t have the answer, not really. But I didn’t want to stop, either. I’m not sure I could have if I wanted to.

When I didn’t pull away, Hunter’s grip on my face tightened, and he deepened the kiss. It felt like the floor opened beneath me, swallowing me whole and sending me into a free fall I couldn’t say I disliked.

He’d been gentle and soft all along, but when I responded, he seemed to shift into another gear altogether. His mouth moved faster, deeper, more insistent. More demanding.

And in turn, my body accepted the challenge. I couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get enough of him. I wanted more. Our bodies pressed against one another, every inch of me against every inch of him, and a moan came from deep inside his throat.

It pulled me from my dizzy, drunk consciousness and back into the real world. I yanked free of his lips and stared at him in shock. His eyes opened, looking muddy, and his chest moved quickly up and down.

“Neddie,” he said, his voice raspy.

A primal fear clawed its way through my chest.

Trying to control the rising panic, I climbed around him and let my feet find the ground again. He wanted to keep a promise I hadn’t accepted at the time because my heart hurt too much to dream? Or because he had a dream of his own?

“I’m so sorry.” A whisper, simply because I was incapable of anything more. “I can’t.”

He looked as if he’d been slapped. “Neddie, I shouldn’t have. That was poor timing.”

It took every ounce of strength that remained in my trembling body to look him in the eye. “Thank you, Hunter. I will always be grateful to you for thinking of me. But I really can’t.”

His face registered shock. “Are you serious?”

“I’m sorry.” Guilt flooded me. The man I cared for most had offered me my dream, and I was throwing it back in his face.

Hunter straightened. “I’ve already accepted. I have to go. ”

I nodded, accepting that, embracing the pain that came as I imagined him there, walking the streets I longed to see but couldn’t. Not with the world turned on its head. “Enjoy it for me.”

A shadow crossed his face. “When you change your mind, meet me in Paris. I’ll be waiting.”

An old grief rose up, threatening to strangle me from the inside. I’d lost my dad, my sister, and soon I’d be losing my mom. Now I had to say goodbye to my best friend.

My eyes filled with warmth I refused to let him see. With a sob, I turned and ran down the gravel road toward my house.