She nodded. “Yes. I’ve been married. Once. For fifteen years. No kids. Which should’ve been my first sign that he wasn’t in it for the long haul.”
“What happened there?” he asked. His eyes were glued to hers. He looked genuinely interested, not that glazed-over, sympathetic look most people got when she told them about her divorce. Like she was reciting the details of a nasty car wreck she’d managed to crawl out of, barely holding onto life.
She shrugged. Broke apart a cracker. “Fifteen years happened. He got bored of me. Wanted something shiny and new, I guess.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “I could never get bored of you.”
She laughed, but her guard was up now. Even talking about her divorce made her feel small and insignificant. She wanted checkered skin so she could blend in with the picnic blanket. “Say that in fifteen years,” she said. “When all we talk about is taxes and whose turn it is to take out the trash. When all of our fights start with I’ve told you over and over. When I stop shaving my legs and—”
He reached over and moved his hand to her leg. His touch—warm, surprisingly gentle—stilled her tongue and forced her eyes to meet his onyx gaze. “With the life I’ve had, that sounds positively thrilling.”
“Even if I stop shaving my legs?”
He grinned. “I like fur.”
She mulled over his answer, took another sip from her glass, and asked, “What kind of life have you had?”
“A long one.” He picked a cherry out of the bowl, popped it into his mouth, and then said, “I’ve made mistakes.”
“Me too,” she piped up, then added, “Well, you know. The whole…getting married to the wrong man thing. Not my brightest moment. What mistakes did you make?”
His eyes were patient, but his lips pressed into a thin line. “You talk about your ex a lot.”
“Do I?” She waved her pen and said, “I guess it was just…a large part of my life.”
His eyes darkened. At first, she thought she’d said something wrong. Crap, she needed to shut up about Chris. But then she tasted plastic and realized she had nervously stuck the end of her pen in her mouth. She plucked it out and went for the strawberries instead. She had to fill her oral fixation with something other than pen. She dipped a strawberry in the soft chocolate and took a bite. He looked pleased; the darkness lifted. “What’s your next question?”
“Um…” She picked her paper pad up again and scanned through it. “Faith is important to me,” she added.
He gave a nod. “I pray all the time,” he said. There was a heavy tone to his voice and she had to wonder—
“For what?” Holly! Your mouth! Normally, she’d describe herself as socially awkward, but this was borderline socially inept. Sure, they were streamlining this whole dating process, but that was too invasive, not first-date material.
Gratefully, he released her from her cage of anxiety when he leaned over and caught her chin in his hand. He swiped a finger over her bottom lip, clearing off a smudge of chocolate and said, “For forgiveness. And for you.”
She was getting dangerously, dangerously lost in his eyes. He peeled his hand back and then sucked the chocolate off his thumb with an all-too-smug and boyish grin. “I like chocolate,” he said.
“Y—yeah,” she stammered. She felt very suddenly like a doe in the jaws of a wolf (and she liked the way his teeth trapped her). “Me too.”
“Anything else you wanna ask me?” He opened his palms. “Say it now or forever hold your peace.”
She buttoned her lip between her teeth and tried to remember the million and one questions she’d come up with on the train ride up. But the words on her page blurred. Her brain was hijacked by his touch and, to her surprise, she blurted out, “Are you a tit man or an ass man—? Oh my God.” She hadn’t meant to ask that one and now she was fumbling for a way to go back in time and retract that question.
A smile—a real smile, not that Dirty Prince Charming act—cracked over his face for the first time. It made her insides tighten, and her heart picked up an extra beat as she felt a blush threaten to consume her cheeks.
“I’m an ass man.” His eyes locked on hers and she could’ve jumped across the picnic blanket and kissed him right then and there.
“Oh,” she said and tried to get her heart to stop fluttering.
“More champagne?” He lifted the bottle to her.
“Please.”
Chapter 8
They devoured as much of the picnic as they could (Holly found herself more ravenous than normal and nervously attacked the strawberries) and then Jacob packed up and drove to his place. What she expected was a quaint one-story house in the middle of nowhere. What she didn’t expect was to pass under a hanging sign that read: RED MOON RANCH.