Becca

If my brain had a transcript, it would read something like “Uhhhh . . . .” When it comes to guys demanding more from me, I don’t have a lot of experience.

“We don’t have to have a natural disaster for you to admit you want to hang,” Dax says, standing sentinel over me while my tongue is tied in a double knot. When he puts it that way, it does sound ridiculous. What am I hiding from?

“You leaving?”

It’s a dare. I can hear it in the gruffness of his tone. And yet I don’t feel the least bit threatened. I’m challenged, though. By his words as much as by what’s behind them. Am I brave enough to step up and take what I want?

“I’m leaving.” When his stubborn jaw goes rigid, I explain. “I’ve had a long day. My bed is waiting for me. My fancy face soap is waiting for me.”

He tilts his head. I can tell he’s smiling on the inside, even if his signature smirk hasn’t made an appearance yet.

“But if this is a sincere invitation,” I say, wrapping my fingers around the bag’s straps and stepping closer to him, “then I won’t say no to coming back.”

He uncrosses his arms, which I take as a sign that he’s no longer upset with me. He confirms that suspicion with “Tomorrow—do you work?”

I nod.

“Bring a bag. Your fancy face stuff. Clothes you can wear in the wilderness.” His gaze rakes appreciatively over my nine-to-five outfit. “You’re welcome here as long as you want.”

A surge of excitement engulfs me. I’m coming back. I’m staying as long as I want. I know I shouldn’t be excited but I can’t help it.

“No longer interested in your alone time?” I tease.

“No, Princess, you seem to have changed that.” Finally his smirk arrives. It’s gone in a blink.

“I’ll cook.”

“Won’t argue with you there.”

“Why do you want me here, Dax?” I can’t help asking.

“Because I’ve felt like dog shit for the last year. Hell, the last couple of years. No one has clicked with me. No one wanted to. You make me feel good. Great. Epic. Phenomenal. I’m trying my damnedest to make you feel the same way.”

Is it me, or did a trickle of hurt seep into the hard planes of his face?

“You do.” I don’t hesitate to tell him that—he absolutely makes me feel all of those things.

“I brought you home for night one, Becca, but you were the one who came to me on night two.”

“Dax—”

“Tomorrow.” The word ends our conversation. He ducks his head and places a kiss on my forehead. “Tomorrow you’re coming back to me.”

Then he opens the door for me to leave.

I guess that’s that.

For now.

Wednesday

I slowly pull down cabin 7’s driveway the next morning and spot Dax immediately. He’s standing on the front porch, a steaming cup of coffee resting in front of him on the railing’s edge.

I’m on a similar edge—I want to go over, cozy up, and stay here with him until he heads back, but on the other hand I’m also tempted to cut and run.

The battle waged on in my head after I left his cabin, which made for a sleepless night. Indecision also tormented me for a good part of my morning while I packed an overnight bag. I hesitated before adding two extra outfits, zipping the bag closed, and accepting my fate.

I want to be here.

I admire Dax’s strong forearms leading down to hands braced on the railing of the porch. He’s wearing jeans and a tee with an open flannel over top, and I have to laugh, because I packed a similar wardrobe. Such is life in the sticks.

I climb out of my car, which I parked beside his Jeep, and move to the back door to gather my stuff. A moment later, my host is at my side, hand extended.

I give him my overnight bag and a shopping bag full of food, since I planned a few meals. No questions asked, he takes the straps of both bags in one hand and holds out the other, his eyes surveying with sharp approval the number of bags I have with me.

I packed for the week. It’s obvious.

“That it, Princess?” he asks when I fill his other hand. I pull my purse over my shoulder and grab my makeup bag.

“That’s everything.”

He hefts the load inside, holding the screen door for me even though I’m the one carrying the lightest bags.

“Only one bedroom, babe,” he says when he walks in to find me frozen in the center of the living room. “That’s where you go.”

He moves past me to plunk down the groceries on the counter before walking into the bedroom and depositing my other bags on the bed. When he turns to the doorway, I’m across the hall in the bathroom divesting myself of the makeup bag.

I step into the bedroom and hang my purse on the doorknob. This room’s smaller than the previous bedroom we shared at cabin 13. “Cozy” is the way our website phrases it. “Stifling” might be a better adjective for this gun-shy girl who’s staying with a guy she was only supposed to know for a few hours.

My eyes survey the king bed. At least we have plenty of real estate on the mattress.

“You okay?” The gentle but rough quality of Dax’s voice puts me at ease. I trust him. I really do.

“I’m okay,” I answer with a smile.

“Wanna be more okay?” He sticks a finger in my belt loop and hauls me close. I come, resting both my hands on his cotton-covered chest, and catch his kiss with eager lips.

My eyes are still closed when he pulls away. “You’re making it hard to regret my decision.”

“Good.”

I follow him to the kitchen, where we start unloading groceries. He holds up the plastic pack of fresh mint leaves and shoots me a dubious look.

“It’s for my mojito fish tacos. Assuming you didn’t cook your fresh fish yet?”

“Not yet.”

I point to the coffeepot, where there’s one cup left. “Are you done, or should I make a new pot?”

“I’m good. Help yourself.”

I pause my grocery divvying to pour myself a cup of coffee to sip on while we work. We do so in silence, until the last of the bags is emptied.

“What’s on your agenda today?” I rest my hip on the countertop and curl my coffee mug close to my nose.

Dax opens the fridge and pulls out a container of half-and-half I left there when I brought stuff for pancakes. I accept, giving him a smile after I cream my coffee.

“Better?”

“Perfect,” I admit.

“When are you gonna learn you don’t have to compromise, Princess?”

It sounds so good when he says it. If only the world worked the way Dax decided it did.

“Thanks,” I say, but the sentiment seems small for what his gesture meant to me. I was sipping my coffee black and bitter simply because he was in the way of the fridge while I filled the cabinets. He never lets me settle for less than “perfect.”“Camping tonight. Fishing tomorrow. Hiking in between.” His eyes go to my flat white tennies and skinny jeans, then up to my loose gray shirt with a screen print of a glitter-dusted unicorn on the front. “You bring clothes that might aid in those pursuits?”

I make a choking sound to communicate how insulted I am. “Yes. I was trying to look cute, but I have functional clothes too.”

“You don’t look cute.” Before I become more insulted, he adds, “You look fucking hot.”

“I’ll take hot.” I’m glowing from the compliment.

“Yeah, so will I.” Instead of kissing me, he snaps up the bags I folded and holds out a hand. “Keys.”

I hand over my car key and follow him as far as the door. Then I watch him open my trunk and put away the shopping bags. He swaggers back, large and broad and so handsome it hurts.

I know what you’re thinking: Come on, Bec, how could you for a second doubt sharing several sex- and food-packed days with this guy?

Simple.

In the past, I’ve purposely left myself an out in every relationship, save one: The first one. The one you lose your virginity to, thinking you’ll be with that person forever. Until they leave and drag your heart across a football field’s length of broken glass.

After that happens, you might just decide that not having long-term relationships are better than having them.

“The ground’s still damp. Think I’ll forgo the tent and sleep in the Jeep tonight,” Dax says as he comes back inside. “You good with that?”

“Sure. I can camp.” Maybe. The Jeep sounds more doable than the ground.

“Have you ever camped, Princess?”

“Now, see? When you say it that way, it feels like you’re slotting me into the ‘fussy’ category.”

He smirks.

“The answer is yes, I have camped. Once, when my brother and I were kids. I remember s’mores and campfire beanie weenies and singing. It was fun.”

“Beanie weenies,” he repeats. It’s really hard not to giggle when a grown man uses those words together.

“I was eight. Give me a break.”

“Uh-huh.” Still smirking. What a sexy jerk.

The rest of the morning passes easily. I downsize my belongings to an overnight bag and further downsize my toiletries bag. Thankfully, the roughing-it portion won’t be too terrible. Dax divulged that we’re sleeping in the field out back, within sight of the cabin.

“Isn’t that silly?” I ask as I pack food in a cooler. It’s sufficiently stuffed with snacks and drinks for tonight.

“What?”

“To camp mere yards from your cabin.”

“Clearly you don’t recall the majesty of the outdoors from your camping trip.”

“Remember the part where I told you I was with my brother, Tad? He sort of sucks the majesty out of everything.”

With a deep chuckle, Dax asks, “Ready?”

“Ready.”

He snags a rather slouchy-looking backpack off the kitchen table—the entirety of his needs fit in there—and then grabs my weightier bag. It was as downsized as I could manage. I did my best.

The afternoon sun was as warm as promised, drying off the damp blades of grass from this morning. The ground is still on the soggy side when we drive over it behind the cabin, but when we arrive at the clearing, it’s much firmer there, thanks to full sun. Tall grass, wildflowers. It’s beautiful.

Oh, and I was wrong about Dax’s belongings fitting in that slouchy backpack. The back of his Jeep is filled with sleeping bags and tent accoutrements, and he even brought firewood that he’d hauled from the covered porch to ensure it’d be dry for the fire he planned on starting.

We park and I hop out. Dax took the top and the doors off. He strolls to a burned-out circle where the grass hasn’t grown, a few large logs arranged around it like seats. “Looks like we’re not the first ones to have this idea. Perfect spot for a fire.”

Already the prospect of sitting at a campfire, this time across from Dax, sounds like a hell of a lot more fun than it was when I was eight. That’s a big statement considering that when I was eight, I thought roasting marshmallows was as good as life could get. Even now I silently wonder if Dax could run a close second to a perfectly roasted marshmallow.

Guess I’ll have to find out.

By dinnertime he’s built a fire and set up a rack for cooking over the low flames. He grills the fish that he caught and cleaned—color me impressed—which have been bathing in my magical mojito marinade. I tell him as much, admiring the line of his strong body as he tends to our dinner with a metal spatula.

“Magical Mojito Marinade sounds like my next menu item.”

“Really?” Careful excitement laces every word, and he notices. He pauses in his flipping.

“Told you that you were hired. Still don’t believe me?”

“Well, you haven’t tasted it yet,” I say with an uncomfortable chuckle. “You might not want to include it on your menu.”

There’s plenty of space on the log next to him, so I sit. The moment my butt hits bark, he leans close.

“I haven’t had anything of yours in my mouth I didn’t enjoy immensely.” His lips brush the shell of my ear when he growls, “Anything.”

Don’t mind me while I excuse myself for a cold shower. . . .

He finishes the grilling and I busy myself setting the “table,” which is a blanket spread out on the bed of his Jeep. I set out a few extra-thick paper plates and plasticware and find an empty beer bottle that, a few wildflowers later, makes the perfect vase.

I’m stepping back to admire my handiwork when Dax sets a plate holding our grilled fish next to our plates.

“Is that salsa?” he asks of the bowl of mango relish I whipped up this morning.

“Close enough.” I point to another dish. “That’s red cabbage slaw with quick-pickled jalapeños. And if you give me thirty seconds, I can whip up fresh guacamole.”

“I was right,” he tells me as I split a few avocados and mash in red onion, cilantro, lime juice, and more “quickled” jalapeños. “You don’t know how to camp. This is fancy.”

I peek up at him as he lifts the beer-bottle vase. He’s not complaining, though. There’s a difference between complaining and being impressed. Dax Vaughn, I’m learning, is continually impressed with me. I’m embarrassed to admit that whenever I’m with him my pride-heavy chest swells to embarrassing proportions. His words of encouragement, even his teasing compliments, fill a deep, empty well within me.

We settle on the back of the Jeep to eat, and I accept his offering of a light beer, tapping the can against his and enjoying a long, cold sip. Then we dig into some of the best mojito fish tacos I’ve ever made.

“These are good,” he says after he polishes off one taco and starts on the second.

He’s not kidding. The mojito marinade is sweet and citrusy, the slaw is tangy and crisp, and the mango relish is spicy and verdant. Add a dollop of two-minute guacamole and it’s phenomenal.

“We’re a good team.” I polish off another taco. “Usually I make this with mahimahi.”

“Dolphin,” he corrects. I scowl. He lifts his third taco. “Dolphin the fish, not dolphin the mammal. Hence the term mahimahi, or else everyone would lose their shit.”

“A little insider restaurateur knowledge.”

“Free of charge,” he says around a mouthful. He shovels in the rest while I take a dainty bite. I admire that kind of eating. I know he’s enjoying it, and watching Dax enjoy my recipe is akin to watching him enjoy anything. It fills me with more pleasure than it should.

“I want it,” he says.

When I look up at him, he’s guzzling his beer and pointing at the remaining taco on my plate. I promptly lift the plate and offer it.

“Not the taco, Princess.” He crumples the beer can and sets it aside. “The recipe. How much for that one?”

“Like I told you before, I’m not selling you anything. You can have it.”

“And like I told you before, I’m not taking anything. I’m buying it.”

“Dax.”

“You’re worth it, Princess. Hasn’t anyone told you that before?”