For a moment she didn’t say anything, her entire body had tensed. Luke knew it would take time for both of them to deal with what had happened to them and the things they had seen. After a moment, she relaxed against him and snuggled closer. “I like when you call me honey.”
He smiled and began to stroke her hair. It was his turn to tense now. “Summer?”
“Yes?” She tilted her head to look up at him.
Luke drew a deep breath, he didn’t want to pressure Summer, but he also wanted to be honest. That seemed to have worked well with her so far. “Is it too early in our relationship to be mentioning theLword?”
Summer laughed.
Not the response he had been expecting, Luke frowned. “Why was that funny?” He had been sure that Summer was feeling the same way, but maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he had misinterpreted their connection at the cabin, mistaking survival with falling in love.
“It’s funny because just before you came in, I said the same thing to Aggie. I was worried that it’s too early to bring that up. We’ve only known each other for ten days, that doesn’t seem long enough to claim you’re falling in love with someone.”
“Ten days or one hundred days, it doesn’t matter. It’s how I feel.”
“It’s how I feel too.”
The horrors of the last forty-eight hours receded. He was alive, Summer was alive, and they were falling in love. Holding her in his arms was as perfect as he had imagined all those hours he had laid on the floor in that cabin, and now he could hold her in his arms every day for the rest of his life.
He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Even lying in a hospital bed, straight out of surgery, pale, with her usually shiny hair hanging limply around her face, she was breathtakingly gorgeous.
“I'm going to kiss you now.”
“You better.”