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“I wonder all the time if I could have saved him,” Wes went on. “Like, if I hadn’t been halfway across the world, maybe we’d have been running together. Maybe there would have been something I could have done.” His beautiful, familiar eyes grew shiny. “But I wasn’t here.”

“Wes, don’t.” I touched his arm. His skin was warm beneath my palm. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I’m sorry.” He backed away from me a little and shook his head. “I invited you over to have fun today and here we are talking about death.”

“Hey, listen. I know better than anyone what a constant companion grief is. And she’s a bitch, too. Just when you think you’ve gotten rid of her, she shows up again.”

Wes laughed a little, rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

“And we are going to have fun today.” I sipped my wine. “Tons of fun. And then later…”

“We’ll feel guilty about it,” he finished.

“Exactly.” Our eyes met. Something was exchanged between us—understanding, sympathy, regret—I don’t know what it was. But it eased something within me. It was like we were both in on the cruel joke our feelings played on us. I smiled ruefully.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re not alone, Hannah. I promise.”

Something happened when he touched me. Something floaty and quivery in my stomach I hadn’t felt in years.

“Should we go down to the beach?” he asked, taking his hand off me.

But the feeling lingered. I wasn’t sure I liked it. “Sure.” With one more glance at Abby, who was totally swept up in her grandmother’s stories and photos, I faked a smile at Wes. “Let’s go.”

He refilled our glasses, tucked the bottle of wine into a sleeve pulled from the freezer, and led the way across the lawn, past the seawall, and down the steps to the beach. Before I could stop myself, I realized I was staring at his butt as he walked ahead of me. It looked nice and round in his red bathing suit.

What on earth? Stop that.

It was warm and a little breezy on the beach, but the waves were gentle. They calmed my nerves.

“Want to go out in the canoe?” he asked.

“Okay.” I ditched my flip-flops on the small, beach-level deck, and we set our wine glasses and the bottle on the deck’s little round table. Wes was already barefoot. Together we dragged the forest green canoe from the tall beach grasses on the side of the deck down to the water’s edge and tipped it over.

“Let me rinse it out a little,” Wes said, frowning at the dirt and spider webs inside. “Want to grab the paddles? They should be in the shed.”

“On it.” I went to the small shed on the embankment, opened it up and grabbed the oars, which stood in one corner. On the shelves were life jackets and sand toys and deflated rafts that probably had holes in them, and scratched into the wooden door among other graffiti was WP + CB. Huh. I’d never noticed that before. Who was CB? I glanced over my shoulder at Wes, who’d taken off his T-shirt and tossed it onto the sand.

My stomach full-out flipped.

Quickly, I shut the door to the shed and brought the oars down to the canoe.

Wes stood up straight and stuck his hands on his hips. He wore different sunglasses than Drew had worn, more of an aviator than a wayfarer. The body was similar, though Wes’s arms seemed more muscular, especially through the shoulder. Other things were the same and caused a rippling low in my body—the soft maroon color of his nipples, the trim waist, the trail of hair leading from his belly button to beneath the low-slung waistband of his red swim trunks. In my head I heard Tess’s voice. Arms. Chest. Shoulders. Skin. Stubble. Muscle. The smell of a man. The solidity of him.

“What’s the law on drinking and canoeing?” he asked.

What’s the law on staring at your brother-in-law’s nipples? I wondered, swallowing hard. What was wrong with me?

“I think we’re okay,” I said, handing the oars to him. Our hands touched in the exchange. “Let me grab our glasses.”

“Perfect. If you hold them, I’ll take us out.”

I retrieved the wine glasses from the table and walked carefully across the sand to the lake’s edge, taking deep, slow breaths. A sweat had broken out across my back. I was wearing a swimsuit beneath my cover up, a modest tankini, but I didn’t want to remove it. Wading ankle deep, I attempted to step into the canoe, but it wobbled beneath my foot.

“Whoa.” Wes took me by the elbow and didn’t let go until I was seated at one end, facing the other. “Okay?”

I nodded. Despite the heat, my arms had broken out in goose flesh.

“All right, here we go.” As he rowed us away from shore, the breeze picked up, cooling my face and chest and back.


Tags: Melanie Harlow After We Fall Romance