Chapter 41

Jewel had been an absolute blessing this week. Not only did she help get us through the initial shock of Kaitlin showing up at Walt’s, but she’d been doing everything in her power to make sure we were still enjoying the time we had here in June Lake.

She played chess with Colten during the day and took us out on Scott’s boat, and she’d spent most nights in my bed and listened whenever I’d wanted to talk. For the most part, now that the initial shock had subsided, things had all but gone back to normal.

Kaitlin had never reached out to me and I was hopeful that she couldn’t track me down here. Even if she could, she was hardly the sort of woman to be interested in traveling to a tiny town like this one. Walter hadn’t heard from her again either, so while the worry in my gut was still there, I was trying not to let it get to me too much.

If she dropped by once we got home, I’d find out what she wanted then, and if she didn’t, then she’d obviously realized she had no legal claim to any money from me. I suspected she wouldn’t just let it go, but for now, she was either considering her options, didn’t know where I was, or was working on some kind of strategy, which bought me time to keep enjoying the summer.

Meanwhile, Dallas hadn’t been seen around town all week and everything was settled with the insurance company about the fender bender. Colten didn’t seem concerned about any of that anymore and whatever mild trauma he had suffered as a result of the accident seemed to have worked itself out.

All of which meant we were having a carefree Saturday at the town fair. Colten barely had any time for me, running around with kids his age and some a bit younger or older, playing carnival games and going on rides I couldn’t imagine him having been brave enough to go on back home.

In such a short amount of time, I’d seen tremendous growth in him and I was immensely proud of him for it.

Jewel giggled as she bumped her hip into mine, drawing my attention away from my thoughts. “Should I even ask what you were thinking about to make you smile like that?”

I winked at her, my lips tugging into a slow smirk. “Well, since you’ve already asked, you might as well know that I was thinking about you, actually. I’m not quite sure how to thank you for everything you’ve done for us, but especially for introducing Colten to Brody. I can’t believe he’s the same kid I brought here with me. He’s really coming into his own with those kids.”

Her eyes tracked to where they were being taught how to walk on stilts. “I think you should give credit where credit is due. All I did was introduce them. Colten is the one who grabbed hold of the opportunity and made it count.”

“True, but still, thank you,” I said. My hand slid to the small of her back as I guided her to the line for the Ferris Wheel. “I haven’t been on one of these things since I was a kid. You’re sure this one is well maintained, right?”

She shrugged, her eyes sparkling with laughter as they met mine. “Not really. All I know is that we haven’t had any incidents with it before.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” I joked, honestly just happy to be getting back to having fun without anything to really worry about.

Breathing in the fresh air, I felt the warm rays of late afternoon sun on my skin and grinned. Colten wasn’t the only one who was coming into himself here. I felt like I was getting reconnected with myself as well, remembering all the things that were truly important in life.

Like Colten. And like taking a step back, slowing down, and literally focusing on enjoying all the little things that brought me joy.

Finally feeling completely relaxed and at ease, I joked around with Jewel as we inched closer to the front of the line. Just as we were about to get on, Scott and Brittany climbed off, both of them giggling like kids and blushing.

My eyebrows swept up. They spotted Jewel and immediately stopped in their tracks, turning even more red than they had been before. She rolled her eyes at them both. “You’re terrible at hiding your crushes on each other. If it matters, you have my blessing for whatever this is.” She gave Scott a stern look. “Just don’t break her heart, or I’ll have to kill you.” Turning to Brittany next, she propped a hand on her hip and nodded at her friend. “Be good to him. He’s my big brother, so if you hurt him?—”

“You’ll have to kill me too?” Brittany grinned.

“Yep. As long as we’re all clear about that, I don’t really care what you do with each other.” Her nose wrinkled. “Just, uh, spare me any graphic details.”

Scott smirked at her and mimed zipping his lips, but Brittany did her best to look innocent, batting her eyelashes as she shook her head. “There are no graphic details to share. We just kis?—”

He suddenly slid an arm all the way around her shoulders, pulling her into his side and laughing as he clamped his palm over her mouth. “She said to spare her the details. Let’s just go. Have fun on the ride, you guys.”

Brittany shook with laughter against him. Her eyes flicked up with a look of adoration in them as she stared at him and said something too muffled to make out. He dragged her away but turned to call to us over his shoulder.

“Remember to keep it PG up there,” he warned. “It’s not as easy as it might sound.”

Jewel pretended to gag. I nodded at him, took her hand, and pulled her onto the ride. We sat down on the hard seat, waiting for the attendant to lock the bar in place over our laps before lurching when the bench started moving again.

“Can you believe him?” She grimaced and leaned into her seat beside me. Her hand was on my thigh but her eyes were on the horizon as we rose slowly higher into the air. “Keep it PG. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to forget how many kids are around.”

I laughed. “You might not, but I can’t make any promises.”

We stopped for more people to climb on below, and I turned to her, taking in the slight rosy flush on her cheeks and the bright light in her eyes. “I tend to lose track of things whenever I kiss you. So you might have to put on the brakes if I forget about the kids. Deal?”

Her lips parted, and her tongue came out to wet them. She shook her head, her voice a little more breathy than usual when she spoke again. “Uh uh. You can’t say stuff like that to me and then expect me to put on the brakes. It’s not right.”

“How so?” I asked, amused by her reaction to what, to me, had been a relatively simple truth. “You already know that you do things to me. Why can’t I say it?”

She groaned. “Because it’s hot, that’s why.”

“Is it?” My head jerked a little to one side. “I thought everyone around here was honest, so I thought you’d be used to hearing stuff like that.”

“Honest doesn’t mean that we engage casually in dirty talk,” she said.

I laughed, bent my head closer to hers, and spoke against her hair. “That’s not dirty talk, baby. If you want dirty talk, how about?—”

“No,” she squeaked, her cheeks even more flushed now, and she pulled back to look into my eyes. “We can’t do that up here.”

I stopped staring at her for long enough to take a quick look around, noticing that we were nearly to the very top. I couldn’t see any people from where we were currently stopped and it seemed a good bet that they didn’t have a good view of us either.

“Why not?” I asked, my cock rousing as I slid a hand up the inside seam of her jeans. “Think of it as foreplay.”

“Foreplay?” Her eyebrows quirked up. “We just got here a little while ago. If we start getting all hot and bothered now, it’s going to feel like forever before we get home.”

“Yeah, but the anticipation will just make it that much sweeter.” Capturing her chin in my free hand, I brought my mouth to hers, kissed her hard, and stroked my tongue into her mouth.

She melted into me and wound an arm around my neck, forgetting all about her inhibitions for a moment. A moment I savored as I tasted the tangy lemonade on her lips and breathed in the clean, sweet scent of her.

“You and I are going to take a shower together later.” I relished her sharp intake of breath when I ran a thumb across her pussy over the denim. “When we do, I want to see your lips wrapped around my cock again. I’m not going to last, but don’t worry. I fully intend on spending the rest of the night making it up to you.”

She moaned her assent, leaning into what quickly became a steamy make-out session that I put a stop to before I came in my pants like some boy. Chuckling against my lips, she rested her forehead against mine, just holding it there for a few beats as we caught our breath.

“Looks like you were the one who remembered after all,” she murmured. “Note to self, don’t let Landon speak to me alone while we’re in public.”

I groaned and turned to the view before I started showering the attendant with cash from above just to keep us up there a while longer. “Yeah, I might’ve gotten a little carried away with that. Think they’ll miss us if we slid away to your place for an hour once we get back down?”

Humor shone through the lust in her eyes when I glanced at her. “No sirree. You wanted the anticipation to make it sweeter, so have at it.”

I laughed, swiping my palms over my face and regretting my choices as I tried to claw back my self-control. “I need you to not touch me for a minute.”

She giggled and poked me in the ribs. “Oh, really? Does this count as touching?”

Scooting as far away from her as I could get, I chuckled and shook my head. Then I focused on the view so that I didn’t have to look at her right then. The lights from the fair, the rides, and the tents reflected on the surface of the lake as the sun set, and it might just have been the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.

Second to the woman sitting beside me, of course.

As the thought occurred to me, I took her hands and felt the sudden urge to level with her. “You’ve made this the best summer of my life, Jewel.”

She blinked a few times in surprise, but then she nodded and squeezed my fingers. “I feel the same way.”

A strange but profound sadness crept into her eyes and I closed the distance between us, scooting closer to her again. I slid a finger under her chin and gently lifted it. “Hey, what’s this? What’s happening right now?”

“I just, uh, I know it’s silly, but I don’t want you and Colt to go back to LA. I mean, I know you have to and everything. This isn’t me begging you to stay. I just can’t really stand to think about you leaving.”

I pulled her close, folded my arms around her, and closed my eyes. “Let’s not think about that right now. Let’s just enjoy tonight, okay?”

Now that she’d said it, though, I had to admit that I didn’t want to go back to LA any more than she wanted us to, and I already knew Colten didn’t want to go home. We had to do it, though. We had to leave here eventually, but I didn’t want to overthink it.

We still had four more weeks here and I wasn’t going to ruin them by dreading the moment we had to leave. For the first time in forever, I was truly living for the moment and it felt damn good.

Just like Jewel did when she was in my arms like this. It really was just too damn good to let a little something like reality come in and steal it all away from me.