My low chuckle filled the cab. “If you like being seasick and all.”
“Look at me,” he pleaded suddenly. “Look at me when you smile like that.” My grin slipped, and his fingers found my chin. He didn’t force my face in his direction but I felt the frustration. “You looked at my father.”
“I don’t know your father.”
He was staring at me, but I gazed past his shoulders at the pasture.
“You don’t want to know him, is that it?” Heathcliff asked finally.
My eyes fell shut, the breeze from outside brushing my cheeks. “I do want to know him. I’m just not looking to keep him.”
Heathcliff’s breath fanned my face, and my eyes tightened. “You want to keep me?” he asked, chuckling. “You do realize that sounds kind of strange.”
I was suddenly imagining a glass figurine version of Heathcliff sitting on my dresser, and my lips twitched.
And then, the smile was gone, stolen by his lips, the sudden pressure causing me to stiffen. It was quick, the kiss. A simple warm press of skin against skin before he was gone, his mouth replaced by wind and the smell of pine and woodsmoke.
He cleared his throat. “Better get this timber to the Parker’s.”
Turning my head, my eyes flew open, my breathing rushed. The urge to touch my mouth was strong.
Grass slapped the truck, the engine revving.
Pulling the pickup back onto the dirt road beyond, Heathcliff asked, “Was that your first kiss?”
My gaze remained on the landscape beyond the window, on the passing trees and scattered houses. The wind beat against my face, but it wasn’t clearing away the cobwebs in my head. I didn’t want them gone. His kiss was my first, the feel of it strange but nice, as if by kissing me he’d exposed something. Like a stubborn jar of pickles, the lid finally wrenched open.
He drove, and I watched him from the corner of my eye, my heart pounding. There was no music in the truck, only wind, but the air was suddenly our dirt road song, the rattle of wood in the back of a short bed pickup the chorus. Everything about me felt funny, like I’d eaten way too many lemons, my stomach on fire from the acid.
His head turned, and my gaze flew forward.
“It was your first, wasn’t it?” he asked.
There was a smile in his voice, and I placed my hand on the dashboard to steady myself as he drove over rough spots in the road.
“Just drive,” I said.
I didn’t have to look to know he was grinning.
Chapter 5
It hadn’t taken long to deliver the wood. With Kenny Parker’s help unloading the timber, Heathcliff had finished twice as fast, shaken Kenny’s hand, and then driven away.
Kenny’s curious gaze followed our disappearing pickup. His wife joined him, her graying hair pulled away from her face. From the side mirror, I watched his arm circle her waist, their heads close. It’d be all over town by nightfall that the Vincent boy was seen with a Macy.
My heart sank. There’s this thing about small towns. Rumors festered here, growing until they became open wounds that never seemed to heal. My parents were gone, but I’d heard the whispers growing up. I was living in the shadow of my parents’ sins. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been the one to leave, I was marked.
“She’ll run off and break Gregor’s old heart,” I’d heard people say. Because, in their minds, the running was in my blood, the antsy need to see the world and never return in my veins. That’s what people did here. They either stayed or they never left.
The pickup turned down the tree-covered lane that led to my uncle’s plantation, its ramshackle appearance not quite so disheveled after Heathcliff’s work.
“I’m bringing the paint I promised this weekend,” Heathcliff said, his hands spinning the steering wheel as he eased into an empty spot next to the shed.
We climbed free of the truck, the ill at ease, after kiss moment gone. It had been so fleeting that it seemed an imaginary moment now rather than a distinct memory.
“Tell me you really have those cookies,” Heathcliff added.
Slinging my messenger bag over my shoulder, I stepped toward the house. “Are you looking for an invite in?”
He trailed after me. “I’m looking for a reason to stay.”
My feet froze, and his shoes paused next to mine, the marker questions still scrolled on the side. I stared down at them. “I have chocolate chip cookies and pralines, and … um, would you want to work on Callahan’s assignment with me?”
“Perfect,” he responded. Leaving me, he headed for the door.
I followed. “Are you sure there’s nothing you’d rather be doing instead?”
“Trying to get rid of me so quickly?” Stopping at the door, he pulled it open and stepped aside.
“No.” I walked past him into the dark foyer. “I’m just finding it hard to believe you want to do homework.”