Chapter 13

Molly should’ve known that with Brody, Emily, and Sarah coordinating the camping trip, there was no way it wasn’t going to be perfect. Or over-the-top. Or as unlike traditional camping as you could get while still sleeping in tents in the woods. They’d gone to Google Earth and scouted out the available sites, securing the last four backing up to the woods with a decent distance between them and the next campers in front of them.

She’d ridden up with Emily and Sarah Friday morning, leaving around ten. Both the girls had a few things to handle at their respective offices, which left Molly an extra couple of hours of sleep. But mostly it had given her a handy excuse not to ride up with Sean.

No matter how she sliced it, the two of them were a pair. Not that it was something new or something terrible. It was just that with the way her brain had been misfiring recently, anything she could do to avoid that coupled-up feeling seemed wise. So she’d ridden with the girls in Max’s Charger, Sean had gone with Jase in the SUV, and Max had ridden along in the truck Brody rented to transport all the necessities.

Sarah pulled to a stop, both hands secure around the wheel as she leaned forward, her mouth hanging open.

Emily’s hands clutched between her breasts as she practically bounced in her seat. “This is going to be awesome!”

Awesome? Definitely. Over-the-top to the point of ridiculous? Already there.

The girls piled out of the car and walked down to the campsite where Brody was manning a gleaming six-burner grill parked beside the half-rusted-out traditional pit provided at the site. Jase and Max were assembling a screened-in gazebo, and where any other campsite might’ve had an assortment of folding chairs, theirs was littered with a deep-cushioned set of wicker patio chairs, end tables, a love seat, and this crazy sort of blow-up tube that looked like it might be a cross between an inflatable couch and hammock.

The girls ran down to greet their husbands. Emily got dipped back into one of those showy kisses Molly never would’ve guessed Jase had in him but had become all but standard since the two had gotten together. And Sarah stepped into Max’s arms, pushing up to her toes to meet him for a kiss Molly ended up having to turn away from. He was her brother, for crying out loud.

They had a routine. Each couple, their own thing. And seeing it usually made Molly smile, but then usually, she wasn’t fighting her own thing. Because she had one too. She and Sean. And right then, he was stepping out from behind the truck, dressed in a Wyse Hotel T-shirt that had found the perfect balance between fitted and tight, a pair of ripped-up cargo shorts, and hiking boots with socks. There were two coolers stacked in his hold, and it took everything she had not to give in to the pull of habit, skip down the gravelly slope, and cuddle into Sean’s side for a minute before helping out with whatever she could.

Not today.

Sean scanned the site, checking out the couples who were greeting each other as though it had been weeks rather than hours since they’d last had the chance. And then his eyes landed on her, his smile going wide and crooked as he jutted his chin in a nod of greeting.

Offering up a wave, she forced herself to go to Brody first.

“Hey, Moll, how was the drive up?” he asked, that too-observant stare shifting between her and Sean.

“Great. Little later start than we intended, but Sarah made good time.”

A chuckle rumbled deep from Brody’s chest “For being married to a cop, the girl’s got a lead foot on her, doesn’t she?” His eyes flicked past Molly’s shoulder. “Hey, man, let me take one of those.”

Molly turned to find Sean standing beside her, an expectant look on his face. Because whether he’d dissected it or analyzed it or not, Sean knew the routine too. He handed the top cooler off to Brody with thanks, and when the other man walked it back to the prep area, Sean searched her face.

“You okay?” His biceps were flexing as he stood there holding the oversize cooler. “We okay?”

She sighed, feeling like a jerk. Of course, Sean would notice something off.

With a shake of her head, she sighed. “Yeah, we are. It’s just me being weird.”

“Weird how?” He raised a brow, pulling the corner of his mouth a bit higher in the process.

She stepped closer, her eyes trailing around the campsite where everyone was laughing and starting to come together. Everyone except for them. “Residually weird?”

“Ahh, because of…” He let his voice trail off, but they both knew what he meant. Because of that night.

“Yes. It’s stupid, and I’m sorry. But every now and then, I feel like maybe things are different, and I really want them to be the same.”

He turned, angling his back to the rest of the group so it was just them. “What’s different?”

She might as well tell him. “Me seeing everyone couple off and maybe thinking of us that way a little too. I mean, not like I want to run and jump into your arms, showering kisses all over your face because I haven’t seen you for three and a half hours. But”—she looked behind her again—“I don’t know, it’s always Emily and Jase, Max and Sarah, and in my head, I guess I realized I always add us like that too. Sean and Molly. I know we’re not a couple, but in certain ways, we are.”

Like it was just understood that they would share a tent. That they sat together. That all their private jokes were for each other.

“Don’t overthink it, Moll.” Hefting the cooler to readjust his grip, Sean started toward the area where they’d been piling everything up. “We are together. Not like they are, but I can’t remember a time when we haven’t been paired up. Can you?”

“No, I guess not.”

“I think we’re both sensitive about making sure everything is okay between us. After what happened, there’s bound to be a little residual weirdness, but we’re good, Moll. We’re just us. Even if occasionally one of us thinks something about the other they shouldn’t.”

Molly stopped walking and turned to face him. Their eyes met, and again, she found herself caught in a hold that made her heart beat faster, her skin heat, and her belly start that slow needy churn she only associated with Sean. His eyes slowly dropped to her mouth, and she felt something deep inside threatening to break free.

But then Sean looked away and cleared his throat. “I’m sure it will pass.”

* * *

Once the campsite was set up to Brody’s liking and he had his feast under way, everyone else donned their hiking shoes and sneakers and took off down the trail toward the swimming hole. About a mile in, the trail split. One way was an easy path directly down to the beach, and the other wound farther around the lake, following a steeper trail dead-ending at a rocky overhang protruding far enough over the water so swimmers could jump in.

“It’s not that high,” Molly urged, practically bouncing on her toes, she was so excited to get there. “There’s a windy walkway on the side where you can leave your stuff and climb back up.” Her breath came out in an adorable rush. “Even Sean jumps off it, and you know what a chicken he is.”

Or not so adorable. He barked out a laugh, shaking his head.

“Once,” he countered, throwing his hands up with a laugh. “One time. I suggest that maybe we take the trail down to the beach and go in there.” And it hadn’t been because he was afraid to jump—he’d been afraid to watch Molly jump. Even years and dozens of jumps later, he still had to keep himself from trying to talk her out of it.

“Come on, you guys! Don’t be a bunch of babies,” she goaded. “It’s, like, fifteen feet up.”

Max stood behind Sarah, his hands resting on her shoulders. “Twenty-two feet, seven inches,” he clarified.

Sarah gave a firm shake of her head. “I’ll pass. But don’t let me stop you.”

Emily and Jase shared one of those looks where a whole conversation took place without words. And then Jase grinned, taking his wife’s hand as they started back toward the site. “You know, we’re kind of beat actually. You guys go. Have a good long swim, and we’ll see you back at the campground.”

Christ.

“Mmm-hmm, I think maybe a nap,” Emily added unnecessarily, because seriously, like everyone didn’t know what was going on.

Molly snorted quietly. “Subtle, guys.”

“Okay, so, Moll, you and I will take the high road, and Sarah and Max will take the low road,” Sean said.

They split up, hiking the last mile and a half separate from the group. Sean didn’t mind. It wasn’t like he’d been plotting to get Molly alone, but sometimes when it was just the two of them, he relaxed in ways he couldn’t when everyone else was there.

“This is it.” Molly stopped next to the sign for the overlook, kicking off her shoes while Sean did the same.

He’d just pulled his T-shirt over his head when he looked up to find Molly doing the same.

He swallowed. Hard. She was wearing a bikini he’d seen before. Hell, she’d probably been wearing it last year this time, but for some reason, today, it was different. Today, that bikini seemed criminally small and painfully sexy. Today, he found himself looking around, with the insane need to prevent anyone else from seeing what he was. Like somehow he had the right to keep her all for himself.

“Hurry up, hotshot,” she said, waving her hand all let’s go, let’s go.

“Relax, babe. The water’s not going anywhere.” Dropping his shirt over his sandals, he stood back up and found Molly missing the eager smile that had been on her face seconds ago. “What?”

Her eyes cut away uneasily. And she shook her head. “You just called me ‘babe,’ and it sounded funny.”

He hadn’t, had he? Babe wasn’t what you called your best friend. It was one of those intimately affectionate names he rarely used with anyone. The women he dated, the ones he was photographed with and who usually knew his parents before they knew him, never went by babe. And the girls he hooked up with? There generally wasn’t time to establish that level of intimacy. He wasn’t the kind of guy to call just anyone babe either, and he never used it as a crutch when he’d forgotten someone’s name.

So calling Molly babe?

“Don’t worry about it,” she insisted. “I’m just being weird again.” She started to leave, but Sean reached out and caught her wrist, pulling her back a step.

“No, you’re not. It’s me.” Those big blue eyes peered up at him, bright as the sky above, and suddenly, Sean was aware of the way his hand had drifted from her wrist, and now his fingers were caught in a loose tangle with hers. Jesus, what was wrong with him?

He needed to look away, but instead, he found himself searching deeper, getting caught in all that blue, looking for…hell, looking for something he wasn’t going to find.

Releasing her, he took a step back and smiled. She’d just told him it was weird that he’d called her babe. Standing there getting lost in her eyes probably wasn’t the best way to come back from that.

“All right, Moll. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

A smile flitted across her lips, and then she was turning toward the lake, starting to run, and then launching herself out into the open air. And just like every time he’d seen her take that leap before, his gut clenched as he watched her plunge deep, holding his breath until she broke the surface again.

A second later, she bobbed up and, treading water, pushed her hair back from her face. The smile stretching her lips was one of pure delight.

“Come on in. The water’s great!”

He was betting the water was cold as shit, just like every year. Taking their things, he dropped down to a lower rock formation and then the one a few feet below that, where he set their stuff. Pushing himself back up, he returned to the top and waved for Molly to swim a few more feet to the side before taking off and jumping himself. It was pure exhilaration, those seconds of free fall, and then he was taking the plunge as well. Cutting through the icy water, he kicked toward the surface and came up a few feet from where Molly was swimming over. The sun glistened across her wet skin, while the water turned the white blond of her hair golden beneath its rays.

She was beautiful.

“See? Wasn’t that worth it?” she asked, grinning ear to ear.

Jesus, that smile. “It always is.”

* * *

Turned out Sarah wasn’t really interested in more than getting her feet wet and Max wasn’t interested in anything more than following his new wife around, so they’d headed back after a few minutes, leaving Sean and Molly to splash around in the lake for a good half hour on their own before returning to the campsite themselves. It was quiet when they got back. Brody’s car was gone, and there was a note on the picnic table letting them know they’d all gone into town to grab a few extra ingredients for dessert.

“Think I’m gonna head over to the showers,” Molly said, ducking into their tent to grab her things. She was still wearing her bikini, and Sean was still feeling like a shit for the way he kept looking at her and it. For the things he kept thinking.

Like how he never had fun with the women he dated the way he did with her. How no one’s smile had ever done to him what hers did. How when she was looking up at him with those eyes, for the first time in his life, his heart and head had started to say the same thing.

She popped back out, holding her little satchel of toiletries, and he tried to imagine what it would be like if that wasn’t his tent she’d been crawling out of. What it would be like when she found her someone…and it wasn’t him.

“Want me to zip it up?” she asked, holding the tent flap closed.

Clearing his throat, he shook his head. “Nah. I’ll get cleaned up too. You saw where the bathrooms were when we drove in?” They’d been to this park half a dozen times probably but had never stayed on this side of the campground before.

“Yep, I’m good. Meet you back here when we’re done,” she said, already walking toward the road.

Sean nodded, waiting until she turned around and then waiting some more before grabbing his own stuff. He was just tucking his phone into his boot when it lit up with a call from his assistant.

As a rule, when they went camping, they tried to leave work behind. But with everybody doing their own thing, he gave in to the pull and answered. He was glad he did, since the question took less than two minutes to answer and probably saved the guy an afternoon of hassle. When he was done, he headed up toward the showers, still thinking about Molly and that suit…about Molly in the water…about Molly in his arms and in his bed and all the places and all the ways he wasn’t supposed to think about her at all.

The showers at this campground looked like they did at every other one he’d ever been to. A brown wooden structure with empty windows and the doorway partly obscured by more brown fencing at either side. Out front, there was a waterspout on a concrete slab surrounded by a bunch of soupy mud.

Through the open windows, he could hear Molly singing “Radioactive.” Damn, he loved it when she sang. She didn’t hit even half the notes, but when she sang, he knew she wasn’t just happy. She was bubbling over with happiness. And it just didn’t get any better than that.

He walked up to the hut, following the sidewalk to the men’s side, but his steps slowed as he neared the door. The singing was louder, not quieter. He looked up and checked the sign again. Men’s.

Uh-oh.

Sean tentatively stepped through the doorway, knowing what he was about to encounter but hoping against hope he was wrong.

“Hey, Moll?” he called above the spray of the shower, stepping down the row of open stalls.

Holy hell, there was no way he was going to survive this. Molly stood beneath the spray, rinsing a thick lather from her hair so the suds spilled over her shoulders and chest, slipping past her belly button and down her back…making a playground of that body he hadn’t been able to get out of his head. But this wasn’t fun and games. This wasn’t about getting an eyeful of the girl he needed to remember was his best friend. This was about getting Molly out of the men’s room before she completely lost her shit when she realized where she was. Thank God she was still wearing her bikini and a pair of sandals. Hopefully, that would be enough.

“Um, Molly?” he said again, calmly, quietly, not wanting to startle her.

Her eyes blinked open, going wide at the sight of him standing there, and then she laughed, her arms crossing over her chest even though she was wearing the bikini she’d been swimming with him in for the last hour. But standing there, with the water and suds and his dirty thoughts, it felt different to him too.

“Sean! What are you doing? This is the ladies’ shower. You can’t be in here.”

He nodded, holding up one hand and knowing she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

“Okay, thing is, Moll, it’s not the ladies’ shower.”

That knockout smile went brittle and stiff before cracking just enough for one lip to curl. Molly had a thing about men’s showers. Back in college, Max found out she’d been slipping into the showers on their floor, despite it being guys only. She’d thought it was no big deal since she only snuck in at odd hours when it was deserted. No surprise, big brother didn’t feel the same.

So he’d told her all the depraved and dirty things guys did in their bathrooms—the most obvious true, while other accounts had been embellished or flat-out fabricated to the furthest degree his imagination would allow. And based on Molly’s posttraumatic response to whatever details he’d given her, Max Brandt must have been way more creative than Sean had given him credit for. Because even a decade later, Moll was about to lose it, finding out where she was.

“Oh no,” she croaked, her eyes shooting to the concrete floor where the water was sloshing through the open toes of her sandals. And then more urgently, “No.”

She raised one foot and then the other, as if she was trying to keep from getting contaminated but didn’t know which foot to sacrifice first, while her increasing stomping only served to splash more water around her ankles. “Sean…Sean, Sean, Seanseansean…”

Shit. “Yeah, I know. It’s touching you.” He stepped closer. “Not a big deal, Moll. Just come with me.”

“It’s touching me.”

One look at those wild eyes, and he recognized the crazy train had left the station. Molly was beyond reason, and the only thing he could do was get her out of there before it got any worse.

“Not anymore.” He ducked down, catching her around the waist and backs of her thighs, and picked her up against his chest. “Come on, Moll, wrap your arms around my neck.”

She did, holding tight to him as though her life depended on it. “Get it off!”

“We will. Just bend your knees and kick your feet back. We’ll get them rinsed off, and I’ll carry you out.”

She looked at him with pleading eyes. “Hurry.”

Seconds later, he was carrying her outside, promising her she was clean and that she could put her feet down. Finally, he felt the rigid muscles of her body relax against him.

“I’m completely nuts,” she whimpered into his neck where her face was burrowed.

“No,” Sean soothed, rubbing her back with one hand while he held her against him with his other arm beneath her ass. “Not completely. I mean, sure, a little, but I’ve always kind of liked that best about you, so it’s okay.”

She laughed and lifted her head to look him in the eyes. “Thank you, Sean.”

And shit, she wasn’t giving him that look—the one that had brought him to his knees and pushed him past sense the weeks before—but something in those too-blue eyes was pulling at a spot in his chest he couldn’t quite ignore.

It was time to set her down. Time to take that necessary step back and let her go, but her arms were still wound around his neck, and fuck if holding her like this didn’t make him feel like he could take a full breath for the first time since they’d promised nothing would change between them.

“Sean?” she asked quietly, searching his face for answers he knew weren’t there, answers he didn’t have. “Are you going to let me go?”

Was he?

“I’ve been trying,” he said solemnly. “But the truth is, I’m not sure I want to anymore. Molly, I’m not sure I even can.”

He’d said it. The truth he hadn’t been able to admit to himself until that very moment, but now that it was out… Yeah.

Her eyes filled with shock, and her breath stalled in that small space between her parted lips. Way to blindside the girl.

He ought to tell her it was up to her. That he’d respect her feelings, but that thing that had been beating against his ribs for the last weeks had finally found its voice. “I want you, Molly.”

“Sean, we agreed—”

“We shouldn’t have,” he interrupted, his heart starting to pound. “We shouldn’t have agreed to anything, because we both still feel it. This thing between us isn’t going away.”

She was nodding, her eyes a little too wide, her voice a little too calm. “Sean, I get that you feel this way right now. But you know this isn’t what you want.”

He shook his head, more certain with every second that passed. “No. Molly—”

“Hey, there you two are,” Max called from down the road. “What’s going on?”

Molly shook her head, pushing back from Sean’s hold.

He let her slide down his body, half tempted to turn to her brother and lay it out there. Tell Max that he’d just realized he was in love with his little sister.

“I wasn’t paying attention and ended up in the guys’ shower.” Molly sent him a pleading look before turning back to her brother. “Sean rescued me.”

Max let out a hearty laugh, his eyes squinting shut as he shook his head. “Shit, Molly, you know I was making half that stuff up, right?”

She nodded tightly, peering back at the showers, and Sean couldn’t help but wonder if it was because she didn’t want her brother to see her face. “Regardless, the damage is done. I hope you feel guilty forever.”

Max stepped closer to Sean, clapping him on the shoulder. “Probably not as guilty as I should.” Then, hitching a thumb over his shoulder, he added, “Everyone’s back, and Brody’s got some assortment of snacks set out, so don’t take too long.”

“No problem.” Molly started walking toward the road. “Sean’s still got to shower, but I’ll head back now.”

Sean watched her go, rubbing his chest when she cast him a single uncertain glance over her shoulder.

So, this wasn’t going to be easy.