Chapter 4

Rainey

The glampground was charming,peaceful even, but I wasn't getting the full experience after my run-in with Zeke last night. Instead of sleeping in and enjoying the birds chirping in the trees outside the camper door, I was stewing about last night. Can't a girl take one freaking minute out of the last twelve years of complete and utter bullshit to enjoy herself without a blast from the past ruining it with his attitude?

And his ridiculous body.

Jesus. That had come as a shock. Zeke wasn't the boy I'd known in my youth or the image I'd carried around in my head ever since. Sure, the blue eyes were still there and his thick hair that was always slightly mussed was also familiar. But everything else had changed. Zeke was all man now with those thick thighs and manly chest looking like it wanted to bust out of his T-shirt like the Hulk. Had he spent every minute of the last twelve years lifting weights?

I shook away the lusty thoughts that had no business running through my head while I lay in bed next to my fiancé. Throwing on a pair of jean shorts and a T-shirt, I quietly stepped outside and shoved my bare feet into my sandals. The place was still. Quieter than any of the places I'd lived since I left Blueball. With some cash in my back pocket, I turned toward the front of the glampground and began to walk. If my directions were sound, downtown was only a little over a mile away. Maybe some early morning exercise would push the encounter with Zeke out of my brain.

It was working too, the light sheen of sweat on my brow reminding me that summers were hot back home. I still considered Blueball home, even though I'd run away from it like I didn't care. This had been the only town where I experienced people who loved me. Grandma loved me, though we weren't what I'd consider close. My immaturity in high school had made sure of that. But everyone around town had been kind to me too. Had I been just a bit more mature, I wouldn't have left Blueball in the first place.

I tiptoed around yet another trailer, pretty sure the main driveway into this sprawling place was just past it. Although all the pine trees were starting to look the same to this city girl. My steps were light in the quiet of the early morning, which was probably why I ran into a wall of flesh just around the corner of the trailer. A bit-back curse hit my ears while I felt the ground tilt. Then strong hands were gripping my arms and pulling me upright. I stared up into the handsome face of a very pissed-off Zeke Burns.

"Wow. You look like shit," I said and then winced. My mouth would be the death of me. I'd burned a lot of bridges with the words that came out before my brain had a chance to censor them.

Zeke huffed and let me go, like my skin burned him. I wrinkled my nose. He really did look like shit if shit was the most attractive man I'd seen in more than a decade. His hair was past its usual sexy dishevelment that had driven the girls wild in high school, and he smelled like a whiskey distillery. His jeans were wrinkled and his scruffy jawline had a crease down one side like he'd just woken up. If I wasn't mistaken, he had the imprint of an ear on his bicep. Somehow he convinced me hungover looked hot. Probably because his shirt was clutched tightly in his hands and he made Chris Hemsworth look like a guy who never lifted a weight in his life. He grunted, and I took that as agreement.

"You an alcoholic now?"

Zeke did a double take, then huffed like the suggestion was unbelievable. I mean, it had been twelve years. Anything was possible. He could be a circus performer with a bad case of alcoholism or the Peeping Tom degenerate of the town. I had no idea because I'd left without a backward glance.

"You know nothing about me anymore, Rain."

His voice slipped over jagged rocks and a canyon of sorrow. Guilt, familiar and slippery, lined my skin with goose bumps in the warm early morning sunshine at the use of the nickname. No one else had ever called me Rain. Just Zeke.

I shrugged away the pesky feelings and turned toward the elusive exit of this glampground. "You're right. Forget I said anything."

Footsteps lumbered behind me and then Zeke was by my side, beefy arms pulling a T-shirt over his head. I stole a glance at a torso stacked with muscles, a light sprinkling of hair going down the center. The cotton covered it all up and I snapped my gaze back to the uneven ground ahead of me. I had no business eyeing another man's body and certainly not one belonging to my childhood best friend.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, the timbre of his voice doing things to my insides. I needed coffee and a bagel in my stomach before I could handle adult-Zeke's voice.

"What are you doing here?" I rebutted, ever the child when backed into an awkward corner.

Zeke shook his head, a movement I only caught out of the corner of my eye because I couldn't get myself to look at him straight on. "I live here, dumbass."

My lips quirked, but I fought the smile. I'd almost forgotten how we used to tease each other mercilessly. It was all in jest, but I wondered if perhaps the name-calling was a little more than teasing this time around. Twelve long years can do that to a neglected friendship.

"I got that part. What are you doing here? As in, the glampground?" We walked past the sign welcoming glampers and finally got onto the paved road that led into town.

"Marlo took my keys and I drank all the alcohol in Blueball."

I snorted and Zeke huffed what I hoped was a small laugh. "So you do have an alcohol problem."

"I have a Rainey problem," Zeke muttered under his breath so low I almost didn't catch it. Almost.

I cleared my throat and increased my pace. We probably had a mile to go until we hit downtown and I couldn't fathom this conversation lasting the whole way without us going down memory lane. I wasn't sure my heart could handle that right now. It was one thing to assume someone you cared about hated you. It was another thing entirely to know for certain they did.

"So, what's your answer?"

I opened my mouth to say I had no idea what he was talking about, but I knew the dumb routine wouldn't work on Zeke. So I shrugged and spilled the truth. It was scarier than any fiction I could think of anyway.

"My father left me his inheritance. Far as I knew, the only stipulation was I had to be thirty years old. Grandma Gertie called me a few months ago with some bad news. She found the paperwork as she was cleaning out her house and discovered there's one more pesky stipulation."

I could feel Zeke leaning in closer. Oddly, his presence still comforted me. Twelve years hadn't diminished that power.

"I also have to be married."

Zeke quit walking right there in the middle of the road. I turned back to see him glaring at me. I held my hands up.

"Hey! I didn't make the rules! My jackass father did."

Zeke shook his head and came back to my side. I could feel the temper rolling off his body in waves. We continued walking to town.

"Anyway, she said she was sorry she'd forgotten that part. Back then she figured I'd be married at eighteen anyway, so she forgot about it." I did not confess that the reason she thought I'd be married was because she thought Zeke would have been my husband.

Zeke stopped walking again. At this rate I wouldn't get my hit of caffeine until lunch and that just wouldn't do. I had a ton of things to get done today if I planned to be married tomorrow.

"Do you remember our pact?" Zeke asked, staring at my shoes.

I frowned. We'd made a lot of promises and pacts over the four years we'd been inseparable. "Uh…"

"The tree, Rain. Our initials. What was below our initials?" Zeke was firing words at me, clearly not needing coffee as badly as me right now.

I pulled my hair off my neck to let the breeze cool me down and thought about it. "Uh, well, the tree by our spot?"

Zeke dipped his head once.

My face brightened. I'd forgotten because it was just a silly pact kids make and then forget about. "Oh yeah. We said we'd get married at thirty if we hadn't married anyone else."

Zeke ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up in weird spots. Like a woman had just run her nails along his scalp. Tight muscles strained against his T-shirt while his eyes burrowed into my skin. The sun was rising behind him and for a hot second there I thought maybe I was seeing some kind of angel, if angels inspired lust and looked like they wanted to pull on your hair until you groaned.

"Your birthday is in five days," Zeke said from between clenched teeth.

"Don't remind me," I said, rolling my eyes. This was why I needed the caffeine ASAP. I had a quickie wedding to plan and it had to go off without a hitch.

"Let's get married."

"I have to get a license, flowers, and a dress." I started listing off all the things I needed to do before Danny and I could get down to the courthouse to do the deed.

Then his words sunk into my brain.

"Wait, what?"

Zeke looked positively feral. "Let's get married, Rain."

My mouth dropped open and I couldn't have closed it even if a fly had flown right on in. I reached up and rubbed my eyes. Zeke was still standing there, looking like he was about to fight some unseen enemy, but his gaze was trained on me.

"Did you just ask me to marry you?" I was shocked, definitely. But I was also just a teensy bit gleeful. Zeke, the quiet hot guy from high school who all the girls secretly wanted, wanted me?

"No, Rain. I didn't ask you. I told you to marry me."

My whole body let out a little shiver at his tone. Fuck me, that was hot. Teenage Zeke had never used that tone of voice. Ever. Believe me, I would have remembered.

"Okay."

Zeke lost just a fraction of the angry glare. And that's when I remembered my sleeping fiancé back at Glamper's Paradise. What was his name? Oh yeah. Right. Danny.

"Wait. Shit. No, I can't."

Zeke stormed right up to me, that feral look back with a vengeance. "Why not?" he growled.

I looked up—way up—into his eyes and told him the truth. Even if saying it out loud made me cringe inside at how wrong it felt.

"Because I'm already engaged."