He takes me in head-to-toe as I fix my hair. I ran a brush through it after our detour to the bedroom, but it’s still wild.

“You look perfect,” he beams. “Go get in the truck.”

We lock up, toss my fishing poles in the back, and take off down the road a couple of hours later than we anticipated.

The windows are partially down. My hair begins to blow like crazy around the cab of the truck despite the elastic securing it. I’m trying to smash it down when he reaches behind my seat and retrieves a Tennessee Arrows baseball hat.

“Thanks,” I say, taking it and pulling it snug over my head.

Ford takes my hand, locks our fingers together, and rests them on the middle console. He holds it tight, brushing his thumb against the side of my palm. They fit perfectly together, his hand nearly encompassing mine.

“I had an interesting conversation with Camilla the other day,” he says, rolling up the windows so we can hear.

“Oh, yeah?”

“She was telling me that whoever she’s gotten involved with makes her happy. Her eyes lit up, you know?” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve never seen Cam like that. I keep thinking about it.”

“Is this the guy that you were looking for? At The Gold Room?”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “The Gold Room. I mean, if that name doesn’t tell you everything you need to know.”

I laugh, giving his hand a squeeze. “How’d the conversation go? I mean, did she come clean with you about who he is?”

“No and she won’t.”

I let him mull over whatever he’s thinking. After a few long seconds, he takes a deep breath. “In the military, I learned how important it is to surround yourself with people that you trust. You are only as strong as the weakest person in your unit. The same theory applies in life too.”

“I can see that.”

“I hope she does too before she gets in too far.” He gives my hand a final squeeze and then releases it. Grabbing the wheel with both hands, he steers the truck off the road onto an old path.

My heart leaps in my chest. “I forgot where this was!” I exclaim, not believing what I’m seeing. “It’s so overgrown now. I drove out here the other day and couldn’t find it. Oh, Ford!”

The grass is freshly cut on both sides, but the path still shows signs of neglect. It’s washed out and bumpy and the truck shakes as we creep down the trail.

I unfasten my seatbelt and lean forward to take in the place I met Ford one summer afternoon a long time ago.

The trees are green, the grass lush and tall. Flowers bloom in the opening as we approach the sparkling water.

Everything is bigger, more mature, than I recall. The tree I used to prop myself up against seems to have tripled in size over the years. I head towards the water while Ford locks up the truck.

“It’s as peaceful as I remember,” I breathe when he joins me. The air is fresh and clean, with notes of evergreen that resonate somewhere deep inside my soul. “I used to come out here and sit over there, by that giant oak tree, and just watch the water ripple for hours.”

“You were sitting right over there the first time I saw you,” he smiles, pointing towards an old dock that is half-falling into the water. “I remember riding up on my four-wheeler and seeing you. I couldn’t understand why you were here all by yourself.”

I lean against his side, feeling his heartbeat against my cheek. “I’m sure I remember that day more because I met you than why I was here, but I do remember.” My arms slide around his waist and lock on the other side. “I had a horrible time of school that day.”

My eyes close as it all plays out in front of me like it just happened. Ford must sense the heaviness of my heart and runs his hand down my back.

“I never really had a lot of friends in school,” I say. “I mean, I had lots of friends but never those close friends that feel like your people, you know? Never a tribe or a squad or whatever those dumb names are girls call them. It was fine most of the time, but sometimes it bit me in the ass.”

He squeezes my behind, making me smile.

“The day you found me was a tough one. There was this little boy in our school in a wheelchair. Something was physically wrong with him, but mentally he was pretty much on par with the rest of us. He just couldn’t speak clearly for whatever reason. You had to be patient with him but it would come.”

I grin as I remember his lopsided smile. “His name was Scott and he was really sweet. We had the same lunch. The day I met you, I had taken my lunch over and sat with him and his helper, this lady assigned to him by the school. Sitting there making him laugh was far better than listening to the girls gossip and compare the best lipsticks.”

I mentally walk the hallway from the cafeteria to the bathroom and go into the stall. The sound of their footsteps squeaking against the linoleum rings through my ears.

“I overheard them making fun of me for sitting with Scott, making these disgusting jokes about him drooling and flailing around,” I remember. “I just hid in the stall and listened. I couldn’t find the courage to go out and confront them because I couldn’t believe I was actually hearing it.”

“People are evil,” Ford says. “It never ceases to amaze me how mean they can be. They don’t need a reason; they’ll find one. Anything to make themselves feel better.”

“It was the first time I’d experienced that. Girls had been mean to me before but whatever. I could let that roll, for the most part. But to say those things about Scott? It really bothered me. It still bothers me.”

“So you were sitting out here that day thinking about that, huh?”

“I was. My dad used to bring me here to fish on the days he’d let me skip school and hang out with him. I’d never seen another soul out here before. It was my quiet refuge until you came over that hill raising hell on your four-wheeler,” I laugh. “What were you doing out here that day, anyway?”

“I don’t really know,” he admits. “I was always off by myself. No one in my family or the guys we went to school with liked to ride dirt bikes or ATVs or go fishing or whatever. They were more into chess and newspaper-worthy events,” he grins. “That day, I was riding around on one of the adjoining properties and ran into Mr. Kauffman. He owns this one. He told me I could ride around out here, so I took him up on it. Then I found you.”

Standing on my tiptoes, I meet his lips with mine. It’s a soft gesture, one that isn’t driven by lust or lost time but, instead, maybe a love that you only find once.

“I remember you turning around,” he chuckles. “You gave me this look like you thought I was going to kill you or something and all I wanted to do was kiss the girl with mud down the side of her face.”

“I think you did kiss that girl,” I wink.

“I did. And then I was hooked.” He takes my hand and leads me to a burgundy and white quilt beneath a tree. A picnic basket is sitting on one corner.

“You made me pinky swear that I wasn’t a serial killer,” he laughs. “Do you remember that?”

“It seemed legit at the time,” I say, embarrassed that he remembers.

My heart is full, memories flooding back like they only can when you’re at the location they took place.

“This is the best date spot ever,” I whisper. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

We sit on a blanket stretched out under a tree. Ford lifts the lid to a picnic basket. I laugh as he pulls out two glass bottles of root beer, a bag of chips, and two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

“It’s not gourmet,” he laughs, his cheeks flushing. “But I got stuck in the office until late and I wasn’t about to stop and buy burgers.” He hands me a sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap. “I’ll happily buy you whatever you’d like when we leave, but—”

My hand rests on his forearm, stopping him mid-sentence. “This is perfect.”

He takes me in carefully. “It’s not. I don’t think I could ever come up with the perfect way to show you how much I think about you.”

I twist his wrist and press my thumb against the little star in the bend of his thumb and pointer finger. “You did.”

Tossing my sandwich beside me, I crawl across the blanket and curl up in his lap. He locks his hands around my waist and nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck.

“So, I was talking to Barrett last night,” Ford says. “I think he really might run in the next election cycle.”

“Really?”

“Maybe. He and Graham and I had a long discussion about it. He has reservations, naturally, and is afraid he’s being thrown into a lion’s den.”

“That’s what D.C. politics is, isn’t it? A giant lion’s den.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” he chuckles. “But politics is Barrett’s thing. He’s been testing some ideas out, tossing around platforms that he could run on. One of them,” he says carefully, strumming his fingers against my arm, “is the idea of bringing back the family dynamic in this country.”

“Like sit-down dinners and things?”

“Yes. Kind of. I understand it like he wants to make the country think more about doing things as a community, helping one another. Being involved in their neighborhoods. That kind of thing.”

“That’s sensible,” I agree. “I like it. I think it would resonate well with a lot of people.”

He takes a deep, calculated breath. “A part of the reason he was asking Graham and I for our thoughts is because, to pull this off, he’d need his family to have his back.”

“Of course you’d support him, right? I’m not following you.”

Turning in his arms, I see the hesitation in his eyes, the lines forming around his mouth. Forcing a swallow, I wait for some kind of bomb to drop because I know it’s coming. It’s written all over his face.

“The thing is,” he pauses, “he’d want to incorporate us into his campaign. Really walk the talk, so to speak.”

He gauges my reaction, his features falling as I sit up. My stomach flip-flops, my mind scrambling to get to the point and to get there fast.

“So you’d be going to D.C.?” I ask flat-out.

“If he won. He proposed me being on the security panel of his campaign. I could do a lot of that from a home base—Savannah or Atlanta, for now. But once the actual campaign would start …” He blows out a breath. “God knows what it would entail, to be honest.”

“Wow.”

“I know this is a lot to take in, but I wanted you to know it was being discussed.”

I nod, forcing back a lump that’s forming rapidly in my throat. “Thanks for telling me.”

“I’m not sure he’s even going to do it, Ellie. And if he does, I have no idea what my role will be.”

Sitting criss-cross applesauce on the blanket facing him, I consider what that life would be like. Or if there would even be one for me included in that plan.

There’s no interest on my part in spending weeks and weeks alone while he travels the country with his brother. I have no desire to relocate anywhere, much less to the shark tank of Washington.

I see the resolution in his eyes. I know the loyalty he has to his family. And, sadly, I know where I rank.

“You’re overthinking this,” Ford says. “Don’t. Don’t start playing out a million scenarios, Ellie.”

With a half-laugh, I shrug. “How can I not? At least this time, I have a little warning.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I can prepare for you to move on this time and not be blindsided like before.”

His sigh is sarcastic, frustration laced all through his tone.

“Look,” I say, “I get you want to support your brother. You’d be a dick if you didn’t. But that’s a huge commitment you’re making—”

“I might make.”

“You might make,” I correct.

Before I can say anything else, his gaze catches mine. The brightness of the blues is gone, and in their place, is a reluctance I’ve feared seeing in them since they day he walked into Halcyon. It’s a shadow of the look I saw when he broke the news he was enlisting. It’s enough to make my stomach curl.

I have a hard time pulling a lungful of air in as I look away.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Ford says. “Nothing has been decided.”

Maybe not for him. But there has for me.

It takes all the courage I have to turn my head to face him again. I paint a smile on my face and even manage a laugh. “Let’s eat these sandwiches before they get soggy.”

He wants to press the issue, but smartly decides to let it go. We go about unwrapping our picnic in silence.

“Listen to what happened at work today …”

Ford begins a story about how a contract almost fell through, but he managed to save it in the end. I stop listening after the first couple of sentences and just nod and smile every now and then.

His cologne fills the air and weaves with the pine scent from the trees around us. My gaze drifts to the dock to my right and I think back to the little girl I was so many summers ago, the little girl that was broken by a boy that moved along to something better.

I’m not her anymore.