But she wasn’t willing to give up yet. This was the man she loved, and if they had to start from scratch, she’d do it. Though, the ominous words Fate had used kept poking at her, telling her to hurry up—she just didn’t understand what the hurry was.
Nash handed her a cold bottle of water and lifted his Stetson to wipe his brow with his forearm. “So what did we do here?”
They’d decided as a group to only reenact the really important events, in light of the fact that there were just too many to count in their three-month courtship.
She cleared her throat, raspy from the heat, and smoothed her hands over her hair. “I was here with a couple of the seniors for an outing to feed the ducks, and you surprised them with cold lemonade and cookies from the bakery.”
Nash was always doing things like that. Not just for her, but the seniors he knew she loved so much. It had been just as hot that day as it was now, and when he’d seen them while he was doing some errands in town, sweating as they threw bread to the ducks, he’d grabbed bottles of lemonade from the downtown market and set up a mini-picnic under the shade of the tree.
“So lemonade was an important event?”
Her smile was distant. “It was more the kind act. It was crazy hot, and you did something so nice, it made me…” His gesture, so sweet, had her lobbing herself at him like a racquet ball to a court wall. “This was where we had our first kiss.”
Her heart throbbed at the thought. That first kiss had been some kind of magic.
He turned on the bench and looked down at her with a half smile. “Our first?”
She smiled back, even though her heart was growing heavier by the second. “Yeah. Right under the pecan tree.” Her words sounded almost giddy to her ears, so she bit the inside of her cheek.
Nash brushed a lock of hair from her shoulder. “The first time or the second? Because we knew each other growing up, right?”
If he only knew how his words were shredding her with every lost memory he voiced. “We never kissed when we were kids.”
“Didn’t we?”
“Nope.” Not that she hadn’t prayed for it every night before she went to sleep like most girls prayed a Backstreet Boy would lay one on them, but it never happened, much to her teenage dismay.
“Wow. Just call me slacker. I can’t believe I passed up an op to kiss you.”
She fought a good preen. “Really?”
“Hell yeah. You’re pretty cute. So was the kiss good?”
The best kiss ever. But she didn’t want to sound too overeager and scare him off with her enthusiasm. Instead she smiled and replied, “It was nice.”
He held a broad hand over his heart and made a sad face. “Nice? Just nice? What every guy wants to hear. What did I do wrong that just made it nice? What can I do to make it spectacular this time ’round?”
Greta approached with a roll of her eyes, her hair sticking to the sides of her face with perspiration. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Nash. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right, Calla. She talked about that blasted kiss for days afterward. All we heard every girls night out over cheese fries and apple martinis was, ‘Oh my God, those lips are like a pair of evil temptations. How ever will I manage to keep my hands off him until we take the big leap?’ That’s how good that kiss was.”
Calla’s cheeks went red with heat, but before she could say anything else, Daphne was there, like some weird director in a Civil War reenactment. “Places, everyone!” she bellowed through the megaphone that had appeared out of nowhere after they’d finished at the center.
Calla winced. All of her senses were on high, especially her already ultra-sensitive hearing. “Hey, Spielberg! I’m begging you, easy on the loud noises. My nerves are already frazzled.”
Daphne flipped through a notebook, something else that had magically appeared. “Sorry, honey. I just want to get this right. Now, the script says you two were under the pecan tree. So find your spots.”
“The script,” Calla muttered, trudging to the shade of the enormous pecan tree behind the bench and leaning back against it just like she had the day Nash first kissed her.
“Okay, so, this instance I totally remember because Winnie and I were out power-walking along the lake, minding our own business, chatting about nothing when we ran smack into you two, all pressed up against the big pecan tree, sucking face for all you were worth while Clive fed the ducks.”
Kirby shook her head full of gorgeous auburn hair when she inspected Calla’s position with a critical eye. “No, Calla, lean more on your left foot so your hip juts out.”
Calla put her weight on her left foot, shoving her hip forward like some awkward supermodel.
Kirby still shook her head. “Nope. That’s not it either. Lift your arm up and drape it over that lower branch.”
Jesus. What had she been doing that day in the park, hooking for cash?
“A little higher,” Kirby instructed with a wave of her finger.
“Oh, stop, Kirby. Do you really think if I stand here looking like I’m ready to do business it’s going to alter the scene that much?”