“I don’t need a chauffeur,” I argued.

We’d deposited Scarlett on Grumpy Gibson’s couch for the night. Neither of us wanted to deliver a drunk Scarlett home to her perpetually drunk daddy. She needed someone who could help out should she decide to barf all over herself or talk her out of drawing a hopscotch board in the middle of Main Street…again.

Gibson, the oldest Bodine, drew the short straw…again.

Bowie crossed his arms. “You know the rules, Cass.”

“Callie Kendall disappeared four years ago, Bow. I think we can rule it an isolated incident.”

“Get in the car, trouble,” he said, pushing me down the sidewalk.

I argued, just so he’d give me another little shove. I wasn’t proud of it. Being this hangdog needy-in-love wasn’t who I’d expected to grow up to be. But love was love, and there wasn’t much point in fighting it.

“Don’t make me pick you up and put you in the car,” he threatened.

A really big, needy part of me wanted him to do exactly that. But I was no giggling schemer looking for some manipulated physicality. No, I was in this for the long haul. I wanted the white dress with Bowie standing at the end of the aisle looking at me like I was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Bowie,” I said with a yawn. “I’ve been carrying pepper spray since I was twelve and taking self-defense classes since I was eight.”

“I don’t care how prepared you think you are. I’m driving your ass home.”

Always the gentleman.

“I’m not telling you how prepared I am,” I said sweetly. “I’m telling you what I’ll do to you if you try to pick me up and cart me to your car.”

It was the wrong thing to say. I was tired and still a teensy bit drunk. That was my excuse for forgetting that Bowie was a Bodine. Competition and rebellion ran in his blood. His great-granddad Jedidiah Bodine had cornered the bootlegging market in West Virginia and most of Maryland. That drive to face a challenge and stomp it into the ground still ran strong in Ol’ Jedidiah’s kin even generations later.

In one swift move, Bowie tossed me over his shoulder and, whistling a happy little tune, strolled toward his SUV. The sidewalk swam under me as my stomach’s contents sloshed dangerously.

“Bowie!” Not above causing a scene, I hammered my fists against his back. I drew the line at kicking the love of my life in the balls, which is what I would have done to any other man who thought he could manhandle me.

He slapped me on my ass and made me squawk. My body went rigid. Bowie Bodine was carrying me like my 5’8” frame was child-sized. And he’d touched my ass. I was torn between being delighted and appalled.

“Bowie Bodine, you put me down right now or I’ll make you regret this for the rest of your life!”

“Cassidy Ann Tucker, you’re not walking home all by your lonesome. You know that. Now be a good girl and get in the damn car.” He set me down on the sidewalk and opened the passenger side door.

Dizzy, I stumbled, and he caught me against his chest.

We’d touched before. One-armed hugs and high fives. Hair ruffles and headlocks. He’d been tossing me off of docks since I could swim. But this. This full-frontal, chest-to-chest contact was frying my circuits. I was in over my head. Every inch of him was warm and hard against me. The moonlight highlighted the clench in his jaw, and I wondered if I’d gone and pissed him off.

It hit me then in a blinding flash of understanding. Nineteen wasn’t adult enough to handle all of Bowie Bodine.

“Get in the car, Cass,” he said quietly.

I did as I was told, not eager to find out exactly what he’d do if I took off running in the direction of my house.

My pulse was galloping like a runaway pony when I settled into my seat. Ten inches of console separated us. I buckled my seatbelt with shaky hands. I’d dated. I’d had sex. But I was starting to realize that none of that life experience had prepared me for him. He wasn’t a boy. He wouldn’t be playing games. And I was just a kid still playing them.

I wasn’t ready for Bowie Bodine.

If I was the crying type, I’d be sobbing into my sleeve right now. Instead I stewed as my hopes and dreams for the summer popped like bubbles.

“What’s wrong?” he asked gruffly.

My world was rocked. I wasn’t the confident, experienced grown-up I’d been peacocking around pretending to be.

“Nothin’s wrong,” I lied.

“Liar.”

“Just tired,” I said, staring out the window.

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If it was something that needed fixin’?”

Oh, holy damn hell. I couldn’t stand him being sweet to me right now. Not when I’d gone and realized I had a hell of a lot more growing up to do.

“It’s not your job to be fixin’ things for me, Bow,” I pointed out.

He reached out and took my hand, and I got a hell of a lot closer to bawling. “So you know, if there’s anything that needs fixin’ you come to me. Got it?”

I stared out the windshield, refusing to meet his gaze.

He squeezed my hand until I nodded. “Got it.”

He let go of my hand and drove me the four blocks to my parents’ house in silence. I sulked, and Bowie did whatever he usually did in his head.

My perfect southern gentleman put the SUV in park and turned off the engine. He was walking me to the door whether I liked it or not. We walked up the brick sidewalk to the house. It was a wide, white two-story with tall columns. “I live in the White House,” I’d told Scarlett when I met her on the first day of kindergarten. It was about three times the size of Scarlett’s house. And what went on within my walls was a hell of a lot different than Scarlett’s. Sometimes I felt guilty that I had so much. That my parents were so good, normal.

Bowie shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans when we reached the door.

I sighed. Just because I was devastated and all didn’t mean I shouldn’t thank the man for giving up his evening to come to my rescue again. I reached into my own pocket and pulled out the ten-dollar bill I’d stashed there about thirty seconds after making the bet with Bowie.

“Thanks for being there. As usual.” I leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. A kiss good-bye to my fantasy that this summer would be the summer Bowie realized he was mine.

His hands were out of his pockets and on my waist, and I was jumping out of my skin like a bullfrog hopping for the pond. He was probably only holding me up in case I went unsteady again.

I slapped the money to his chest and gave him a little push back.

“Keep it,” he told me.

“I always pay my debts.”

He took the bill, folded it neatly, and without taking his eyes off of mine slid it into the neck of my shirt and under the bra strap.

“Keep it, Cass.”

I’d lost the power of speech. And apparently all major motor skills because when I stepped back, I tripped over the antique dang watering can my mother kept full of pussy willow branches next to the door. I caught myself with my palms against the painted brick.

“You all right there?”

I could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Peachy.” I made a grab for the door handle.

“Cass?”

He stopped me with just my name.

“Yeah?”

“Glad to have you home.”