“I don’t mean without clothes. I mean there’s nothing false and deceptive about you. Like your father, I guess, you say what you mean, and I bet the only time you hold back or fudge it a little is when it might hurt someone who can’t defend him- or herself.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“But even that isn’t all of it.”
“So what else is there?”
“There’s a mystery in you. I feel there’s more to you than anyone knows, maybe even your own father. I don’t know if I’ll ever know it, but I’m intrigued. Most of all, you make me feel comfortable with myself. I think I could tell you anything,” he added. “I once read that true love means no secrets, because the people in love are unafraid of each other.”
I squinted suspiciously. “Since when have you become so poetic, Kane Hill?”
“Since I realized how much I like you,” he replied, and then he shrugged.
I didn’t say anything. He reached for my hand, and we walked back in silence, soaking in the delicious special moments we had created for ourselves, both afraid that any words spoken would shatter them and bring us back to reality. Was it because we were here? Because we went to this lake? I wondered if the Dollanganger children had ever once looked upon this place and seen it as something magical. I would know, I thought. Christopher would surely reveal it.
My father watched us approach and stepped away from the work to greet us. “So?”
“It must have been very beautiful here once, Mr. Masterwood.”
“Probably,” Dad said reluctantly. “Someone will make it beautiful again once the corpse is gone. I’ll be done here in about an hour, Kristin. We’re still going to Charley’s Diner?” he asked, looking at Kane and perhaps thinking we had made other plans.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Okay. Be careful, now,” he warned Kane. “You’ve got precious cargo aboard.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, sir.”
“I do have to tell you,” Dad said. “You’ll realize it when you’re a father.”
Kane gave him his famous shrug and a smile. Dad nodded at me and returned to his work.
“I like your father,” Kane said as we walked to his car. He looked back at him. “You can just feel he suffers no fools.”
I looked at Kane, surprised at the quote he used. “?‘Suffers no fools’?”
“Actually, it’s my father who says that all the time. Occasionally, I listen to him when he tells me stuff,” he added, and gave me that smile that made me want to kiss him again.
And again.
Which we did when he dropped me off at my house.
“I really enjoyed spending time with you at Fox Hell,” he said.
“You think places get stained forever by the events that happen there?” I asked.
He grimaced like I was getting too heavy about it. But then he shrugged. “You mean like the Dallas Book Depository because of the Kennedy assassination? Sure. I don’t know how well Ford’s Theatre did after Lincoln was shot there, but I don’t imagine it was a selling point.”
“Seems wrong to punish nature for what happened at
Foxworth. It’s beautiful if you don’t know what happened there.”
“You sound like you’d like to be the one building a new house.”
“Just curious,” I said.
“Get curious about me. I’d like the attention,” he said.
“Like you lack any,” I replied, and got out of the car.