Chapter One
The state park he chooses is really close to my apartment, but might as well be a world away. Large tracts of land dot the landscape as we tear down winding roads, bittersweet vines choking off large oak trees, the road dictated by old-growth trees as wide as cars. Omnipresent pines fill in the spaces between the oaks and maples, and the ground is covered with ivies ranging from the poisonous to the benign, invasively taking over much of the land.
An insect buzzes by and I jump. Not a bee. Whew.
Cracked trees still bear scars from the massive ice storm that hit this area nearly six years ago, the orange and beige colors dotting the view as we get out of the SUV and look around. The parking lot is small, bordered by large rocks that a few little kids are climbing on. A park sign and map aren’t important to us, because Declan seems to know the way.
“How have I lived here for a year and not come here?” I wonder aloud. Three tree stumps sit side by side. The middle one is taller and has a rustic chess board hammered onto it, the outer stumps serving as stools.
“Maybe you need to take more risks and try new things,” he says with a smile.
It’s not quite dusk, so the sky still lights up the woods, but an ethereal quality infuses the air. Declan pops the trunk and it opens electronically, a slow ascent that seems too measured.
He pulls out a small backpack, a thick plaid blanket with waterproofing on one side, and another backpack, this one with a flat bottom. I grab my purse and sling it around my neck and under my arm, reaching for one of his cases.
“I’ve got them,” he says.
“Let me carry something.” He shrugs and I take the blanket. There is one wide path to the left, splitting the woods. It looks like an old road, but there is no sign of asphalt. The pale grey sky is a broad stripe above us on the walkway. The path curves up ahead, like a rolling strip of dirt ribbon.
“You come here often?” I ask as we start the walk.
“Now there’s a pickup line.”
I laugh, the air filling my lungs and making me chuckle far longer than I need to. I’m nervous. I should be. He reaches for my hand and his skin is warm and dry. He interlaces our fingers and we fit. Our bodies are aligned just so. We shift quietly into a walking pattern and he tips his head up to admire the sky.
“I don’t think I need to find icebreakers with you,” I say, turning to admire him. He looks back at me with a smile that lights my world.
His face goes serious, dimples gone, eyes searching. “That’s what I like about you, Shannon. I don’t need to find anything when I’m with you. You just are. And being with you feels like living in real time. Moment by moment. Like I…” He dips his head down. Our shoulders are touching, and the strap from one of the backpacks slips a little.
The pause feels eternal.
“Go on,” I say, giving him a gentle nudge. His hand in mine feels like a lifeline. Men don’t talk about me this way. Men don’t talk to me this way.
I want more.
He stops right in the middle of the trail and sets down the slipping backpack. His hand never leaves mine. Dusk is peeking through the clouds, the air a hair cooler than it was even a few minutes ago. The sound of the little kids playing at the parking lot fades, followed by the distant thumps of car doors closing. An engine starts.
Those green eyes look so genuine. Young and eager, nothing like the shut-off, shut-down man who argued with his father earlier this week, or who turned cold at our first business meeting the day we met. Declan opens himself up to me right here, right now, and I can’t stop meeting his eyes. What I see in them is such a mirror of what I feel deep in my core that I go still with the possibility that everything I’ve tried to convince myself was impossible exists.
That makes Declan a dangerous man.
But I can’t stop looking.
“Dating is so ridiculous,” he says, his neck tight as he swallows. I can tell he’s trying to hide his emotions, and a part of me screams inside for him to keep the curtain pulled back. To call off the masons he’s mustering to quickly rebuild that wall that separates him from the rest of the world.
The rest of the world includes me, and right now I want to be next to him, holding hands like this, hearts beating together and bodies relaxing with the relief of not having to be on guard.
“Yes.” The less I say, the better.
He takes my other hand, and now we face each other, hands clasped. He’s a head above me and I have no high heels, no oak-paneled walls, no dimly lit hallway as a refuge or a prop. We’re a guy and a girl in the woods trying to figure each other out.
Trying to figure ourselves out.
“Women want to date me because I have money. Because I’m a McCormick. Because they can get something out of me, or gain some social or career advantage.” His eyes flash and his voice goes bitter, but he never strays from my gaze. I will myself to maintain the look now, because I don’t want to make him think I’m one of those women. I’m not. He could be a street musician who busks for a living and who has twenty-seven different recipes for ramen noodles and I’d fall for him like this.
That certainty slams into my heart like someone dropped a brick on it.
“But not you,” he adds. “You had no idea who I was when we met.” There’s a lift in his voice at the end, not quite a question, but not quite a flat statement, either.
“No, I didn’t. And it wouldn’t have mattered.”
He arches one eyebrow and takes a step closer. Our jeans rub together, thighs mingling. “Really?”
“I’m having more fun right now than I ever did Monday night,” I reply, struggling to convey a feeling. It comes out wrong. When we just look at each other my intent is clearly communicated. Why do words have to make everything so complicated?
“Then I have to remedy that, because I can think of quite a few moments on Monday night that were way more fun that anything we’ve done so far.” His grin has a lust-filled curl to it.
“I…Declan?” I have to say this. Have to.
“Yes?” He presses his forehead against mine. I look up.
“I don’t want your money. I don’t care about your money. In fact, I’m worried you’re after mine.”
He laughs.
And then I add: “But before we go any further, I do have something I want to ask.”
“Go on.”
“Do you have a toilet fetish?”
“Now you’re just deflecting,” he murmurs against my neck, then steals my mouth for a kiss that makes the world go light and dark, all at once, entirely through the connection of our bodies.