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“Hard to do when your world’s been turned upside down. Sage Highwater told me that after their father was killed, just getting up in the morning seemed like too much.”

“Sage?”

“Youngest Highwater, and the only girl.” She smiled. “Another case of the oldest brother stepping up. Their flaky mother was long gone by then, and Shane gave up some big dreams to come home and see to his siblings.”

Something different came into his voice then, something warmer and less rattled. “Seems you grow them that way here in Texas.”

“We do,” she said, and she didn’t try to hide her pride in her home state. Then she added, rather pointedly, “But we welcome that same kind from other places, as long as they live up to that mold.” She couldn’t stop herself from giving him a wry smile. “Even if some of us are slower on the uptake.”

He shrugged. “You had your reasons, and they were... understandable assumptions.”

“Just wrong ones.”

A slight smile curved his mouth. That darned mouth. “Thank you. I appreciate that. But... could we maybe put that behind us?”

A bigger smile spread over her face. “Consider it in the rearview mirror.”

He chuckled, and she felt as if she’d accomplished something... nice. For a long moment their gazes locked, and it was as if the entire atmosphere had shifted. As if the air itself had suddenly come alive, crackling with energy. As if whatever had triggered that flash of sudden heat had struck once more, only magnified tenfold. Perhaps because this time it was going both ways. She had this sudden vision of two bolts of lightning colliding and energizing all the air around them.

And she belatedly considered the words she’d spoken. If her misjudgment of him was in the rearview mirror, then where were they headed now?

She pushed the thoughts aside, which, even as she did it, she admitted was unlike her. She was more a “confront the issue now” kind of person, and this wasn’t like her. But here she was burying deep the very thing she should be addressing.

She felt the need to run, to escape, and was mortified by the urge. She wasn’t someone who ran away from her problems. She just wasn’t quite ready for the insanity of wanting to kiss Jackson Thorpe.

She scrambled for another subject, any other subject, and they chatted amiably enough to slow her racing pulse. She kept on until that moment, that electrifying instant, had faded before saying something about having an early lesson in the morning and getting to her feet.

“Say good night to Jeremy for me?”

“Of course.”

She started to take her mug to the kitchen, but he politely told her to leave it, he’d get it. He walked her to the door, as anygood host would. Opened it for her. She stepped out onto the porch, noticing with some surprise it was already nearly sunset.

She turned to thank him for the coffee and say good night. In the same instant, he stepped out onto the porch himself, and they collided. He was as solid as she would have expected, if such close contact had ever been allowed into her mind. Okay, other than in the dreams she couldn’t seem to fight off.

His lips parted as if he were about to speak, but no words came. But those lips were suddenly all she could see.

She kissed him.

She kissed him and he tasted so warm, the hint of coffee lingering, his lips firm yet giving, and even though she had to stretch upward to reach, she couldn’t make herself pull away. And for a long, sweet, intense moment, neither did he. In fact, for that moment he kissed her back, as if... as if he’d wanted this too. Or at least had wondered what it would be like.

Had he expected this... deluge of sensation? Or was it just her responding so fiercely? Had it just been too long for her, or had her body been aware of something her mind had shoved aside? Had some part of her known it would be like this?

It was Jackson who finally broke the kiss, who pulled back. She was almost afraid to look at him, afraid she’d see distaste in those famous eyes. But she saw nothing but surprise—that she’d dared?—and... heat. That same heat that had crackled between them before, in that brief, intense moment when their gazes had locked.

The sound of Jeremy’s voice did what her own will had not been able to—jolted her back to reality.

“You leavin’?” the boy asked. And only then did she realize that this was why Jackson had broken the kiss. He must have heard the boy coming down the ladder. If he hadn’t, would he have kept on, made it deeper, sweeter?

She had to swallow before she could speak. “Yes. I would have come up to say good night, but I didn’t want to interrupt your homework. Or”—she glanced at his father—“your book selection.”

“That’s okay. I’m almost done.” He, too, glanced at his father, and added almost shyly, “And I already picked out the book.”

“Good night, then,” she said.

“Go finish,” Jackson told the boy. “Then I’ll be up. Maybe with some hot chocolate, huh?”

“Cool,” Jeremy said, throwing a “’Night,” at her over his shoulder.