What is this girl doing to me? I’ve never felt like this before.

I thought I was going to go crazy at the Johnsons’ party, watching her strutting around in that sexy, tight little dress. And when I won the bet after we played pool, it took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to bend her over the table and claim her right there, onlookers be damned.

We’ve spent the last two days since the party doing nothing but fucking. Well, working on the house, in between. But those hours tend to fly past in a daze, with half my mind focused on the next time I’ll get to strip her down and take my time making her come again and again. I barely even notice the work I’m doing, because I’m so focused on thinking about her tight little ass, her sexy breasts and her perfect pussy. The way her voice goes throaty and sultry when she’s trying to turn me on (which really doesn’t take much). The way she gasps when she comes, or how her pussy always contracts around my cock when her orgasm hits with my dick balls-deep inside her.

Fuck. I’m getting hard now just thinking about it, and I still have to finish this fence before nightfall. We’re running short on days now. Short on days and time. Something I don’t want to think about.

So I just keep focusing on the work. The work and Sasha’s perfect body.

Not to mention our conversations. Over dinner every night, she tells me about everything she accomplished during the day, her eyes bright with excitement. She doesn’t even notice it. She doesn’t hear the way she’s enjoying this, getting down and dirty, putting some callouses on those smooth, sexy city hands of hers.

At night, we lie side-by-side out in the yard, counting stars—or ignoring the stars when we lose ourselves in each other more often than not. But just last night, after we fucked hard in the grass, covering ourselves in dew, I pulled her onto my chest to watch the night sky, and she sighed, cuddling into me.

“I feel more relaxed right now than I have in years,” she whispered, and I held her tighter. Willed her to hear her own words. To realize what they mean.

But she doesn’t.

This morning over breakfast, she popped in with a cheery smile, talking about what a nice vacation this has been. A great break from the work she’s going to have to go back and slog through as soon as we’re done. She went on a twenty minute rant about work, and I didn’t say a word, just buried my face in my cereal bowl, because how am I supposed to respond to that?

You can’t exactly say wake up and smell the country-baked bread, Sasha, you’re not meant for city life. You can’t exactly tell somebody that they’re glowing in a way they weren’t just days ago. You can’t tell someone what to do in their life, even when you know what’s right for them, when you know they’d be happier if they listened to you.

You can’t, because that’s up to them. They need to figure out their own lives. Make their own calls.

Even if it kills you to watch.

“Lunch?” Sasha calls from the house, and I dust off my palms, glance over my shoulder at her. She’s still wearing those jean shorts. She loves how wild they drive me. Loves positioning herself right in front of me to work, so I’m stuck staring at that juicy, pert little ass until I can’t take it anymore and I give up on work and go to peel those jean shorts off.

But I shake off that urge right now. I’m too annoyed after this morning.

“I’m good,” I call, and turn back to the fence. I figure that’ll be the end of it until I hear the now familiar sound of bare feet padding across the grass.

“What’s up with you?” a voice asks at my elbow. I’ve come to recognize that tone of hers by now. The exasperated one. The one she turns on when I don’t want to talk—but she does.

“Don’t know what you mean,” I reply, hefting the post holer into position and stomping it into the muddy grass. It’s shocking how fast the holes left by the fallen posts of this fence filled up. Nature has a way of claiming anything left alone long enough. And God knows this poor farm was left to its own devices for far too long.

Thanks to Sasha, I remind myself. Thanks to the runaway daughter nobody ever thought we’d see around here again. Thanks to the runaway I’m being idiotic enough to start falling for.

No. I’m not falling. I’m just… Enjoying this ride.

“You’ve been weird all day,” she says. “You skipped breakfast, you don’t want lunch either?”

“I’m not hungry.” I draw up the holer and squint down into the hole its left behind in the ground. A perfect square-peg hole, just big enough for the new fence post. Looks deep enough, too, at last, so I bend down to pick up the post and start to position it in the hole.

“You aren’t talking to me either.” She crosses her arms and bends into my field of view while I fiddle with the fence. Her foot starts tapping, in a nervous, energetic way that frays my already spent nerves.

“I’m a bit busy,” I point out. But she’s clearly not going to let this drop, so I straighten and wipe my sweaty hair back from my brow, squinting at her in the midday sun. The fence is almost finished. Two more posts, then I just need to finish stringing the wire along it, and it’s ready.

The house is looking miles better too. The roof is done. The gardens are weeded and re-seeded with attractive plants. The front gate has been oiled and straightened on its hinges. The electrical wiring has been finished inside, the rooms all repainted, cleaned and tidied. It’s still not a state-of-the-art modern cabin, but it was never going to be that.

It’s back to what it always was, at least. Cozy. Comfortable. Neat. A real home. The kind of home someone could live in.

The kind of home I feel like we’ve been living in for the past week. We haven’t really, I know. We’re just guests. But… It doesn’t feel like that. Not while I’m right here in the middle of it.

None of this feels temporary. Not even the way Sasha is glaring at me right now, head cocked, those shrewd green eyes of hers flashing. She knows that something’s bothering me, and she’s not going to let up about it—like anyone in a relationship wouldn’t.

Except this isn’t a relationship. She’s about to turn tail and run, in less than two days, as soon as we officially declare this farm ready for sale.

“Seriously, Grant,” she says, and I can’t help it. I relent a little, relax at the sound of my name on her perfect, smooth, so-fucking-kissable lips. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

“Farm’s looking great,” I say instead, squinting past her at the fields. We haven’t gotten around to seeding those yet, but we’ve tilled them. They’re almost in workable order. Too late in the season for any produce this year, but next spring they’ll be ripe for the planting. For whatever lucky owner wants to come and try their luck at growing anything out here.

A frown line appears on her brow. But she follows my gaze nonetheless, and studies the place alongside me. “We’ll be finished by tomorrow or the next day, don’t you think?” she agrees softly.

“Easily. Maybe sooner if we hustle on the fence and the back garden.”

Now it’s her turn to sigh and run her hands through her hair. She stretches, and I can’t help it—my gaze drops to trace her curves. The tug of her breasts under her tight T-shirt, the way her flat belly peeks out between the hem of that shirt and the edge of her tiny, sexy little jean shorts.

“I never thought it would look this good this fast,” she admits, her voice low. “When I first pulled up here…” She laughs and shakes her head a little.

I smirk. “You were very concerned, I seem to recall. About the fence, the house, the tire swing…”

She snorts. “Well. There’s one thing we still need to fix. That tire swing is definitely a death-trap.”

“I don’t know about that,” I counter, raising an eyebrow. “It always was sturdy.” There it is again. The reminder that she doesn’t even remember. The two of us taking turns on that swing, me pushing her so high she screamed. Her trying and failing to push me hard enough to get any momentum at all. Us standing on opposite sides, winding it up and letting go so it spun, and pulled us apart, both of us shrieking, hanging onto the rope for dear life as it spun.

“I bet we’ll get a lot more than you first expected,” Sasha says, eyes still on the property. Because of course. That’s all she sees in this place. Future money. A burden to offload on someone else.

“I’d reckon so,” I reply, my tone carefully, painfully neutral.

“What do you plan to do with your share?” she asks, head tilted. Oblivious to what she’s doing. To how I’m feeling.

“Don’t know.”

She turns to look at me at last, frowning, head tilted in concern. “You don’t know? It’ll be a decent chunk of money. You must have some plans for it.”

I wanted this farm. I wanted to be the one to take it, turn it back into what it used to be in its heyday. Or at least turn enough profit to keep going, to build a life here. A life for me, and…

It doesn’t matter.

“You know me. I’m just a simple country man,” I mutter. “Don’t have any big lofty plans in life.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Sasha protests. “I just meant… Surely you were thinking about… after…”

“Probably not as much as you. I’m sure you can’t wait to get on home to your fancy new life. This all must seem way too simple for you. Boring and slow, just like all us townie folks.”

“Grant, what—”

“That’s fine, Sasha. You like what you like. You always have. You’re exactly the same girl you used to be.”

Her frown deepens now, creasing her forehead. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t even remember. That’s the worst part. How can you be mad at someone for something they don’t even remember doing?” I laugh and run my hand through my hair again. Then I tighten it into a fist, grimace, tug at my hair as I spin back toward the house.

“Of course I remember,” she spits as she steps in my way, barring my path.

That throws me.

My brow furrows.

“I remember everything, Grant Werther. You’re the one who didn’t. You forgot that of course I know how to handle a hammer and climb a ladder—we built a whole tree house together. You forgot that we used to be friends before you got all high and mighty in high school, running with the jocks. You even forgot me—when I got here all you talked about was my mama and me leaving town. Like you didn’t even remember those summers.”

I’m staring at her, wide-eyed. She never said…

She shoves past me, shoulder colliding with mine. “But you’re right,” she says, angrily. “I can’t wait to get home to my fancy life. Where I matter, where people give a damn about me.”

She storms past me into the house.

It’s too much. “Fine,” I call after her. “Then you can go on back now, Sasha. I’ll take care of the rest of this. Sell your share for you, and mail you the check. That’s all you really want, isn’t it? Go on home and leave the dirty work to me.”

I don’t look back to see if that blow landed. I don’t stop walking until I’m at the back door of the house, wrenching it open, storming inside. I can’t stand to look at her anymore. Those too-familiar green eyes, her face fallen in a sad expression. I can’t take it.

She knew. All along she knew. She thought I didn’t. What does that mean now?

It doesn’t matter. She made clear just now what she intends to do about this—about us. I’m nothing more than a passing nostalgic fling to her. She’s on her way back to the big city, and this time, I’ll need to really forget about her, if I ever want to move on with my life.