Page 40 of I’m Not Yours

He turned my face toward him and wiped my tears with his thumbs. “Tell me why you’re crying. It can’t be the food, because I didn’t cook it. If I had cooked, that would be a reason to cry.”

I laughed, then let the tears flow again, and his fingers caught them. “I’m crying because you put so much effort into this dinner for us.”

His face grew quizzical. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s so thoughtful.” I made a weird gulping sound in my throat. “It’s so considerate and kind.”

“I wanted to do this for you. You work too hard. You make me tired watching you work. And I wanted to hang out with someone funny who knows a lot about lace and sewing needles, so you’re it.”

“Oh, Reece.” He had walked straight into my heart that first day. “I love pasta Alfredo, you know that, so you brought it.”

“You have good taste.”

“And I love chocolates.”

“A woman needs chocolate in her life.”

“She does, she does.”

He handed me the golden box of chocolates. “Enjoy.”

“And I told you that I love daisies, too, because they’re so simple, and there they are.”

He clipped off the stem of a daisy and tucked it behind my ear, then stuck a daisy behind his ear, too. “June MacKenzie, you are the most open, sincere woman I have ever met.”

“And Reece O’Brien, you are . . . you are . . .” You are a man I could wear daisies with each day for the rest of my life. “ You are a man who needs a daisy chain crown and I’m going to make you one.”

“Good. I’ll wear it. But first, let’s eat. There’s hardly anything on this planet that can’t be made better by pasta Alfredo.”

Later, when the stars were twinkling, scattered with magical abandon across the heavens, and after we ate the pasta Alfredo, which did make everything better, and talked as if we’d known each other forever, as usual, Reece said, “Here, hon, snuggle in.” He lifted up a blanket, crawled under it, then pulled me toward his chest. “Let’s rest.”

I scrambled under the blanket. He pulled two more over us as the fire sparked, the waves crashed, and the moon glowed bright and white.

Let’s rest. That’s what I needed to do. I needed to rest. Not worry. Not fret. Not analyze him or us or the future that I was still so scared to step into.

“June, I think you’re the only person I could talk to forever.”

“Same here, Reece, same here.” I readjusted his daisy crown.

I ignored that blast of pain in my chest that said forever wasn’t going to happen with Reece. I lived at the beach. He lived in eastern Oregon. I was an emotional crackpot with a pile of anger and a long divorce.

“I think the moon needs some of our attention,” he said.

I tilted my head up to him. He smiled, soft and gentle, sweet and sexy. He couldn’t help igniting my rampaging passion.

Don’t fall in love, June, you’ll only get hurt again.

I gave the bright white moon my attention before I lost control and divested myself, and him, of all our clothes and invited him to roll through the sand buck naked.

I absolutely could not do that.

Yet.

My friend Reece and I continued to see each other. Each time, he sizzled my body and sent my spinning mind into a spiral of . . .love.

A love that I tried hard to smother.

My smothered love made me laugh when no one was looking.

“Good to see that you’ve lost your head,” Estelle said, taking a pin out of her mouth one sunny afternoon, the kite flyers out in force on the beach, two surfers braving the waves.

“Didn’t think you could do it. You were a wedding dress designer who didn’t believe a woman should ever wear a wedding dress.

Now you’re a wedding dress designer who is dreamy and woozily distracted and only half thinking, all the time. Yoo-hoo. Are you there?”

“She’s in love!” Leoni said.

“I’m trying not to be in love,” I said. “Trying hard.”

“You have an aura of love,” Leoni said. “And quit trying not to be in love, embrace it with open arms, bring the sparkle to your life.”

“And you’re in raving lust,” Estelle said, pointing a needle at me. “What woman wouldn’t feel lust with that bull of a man with steel-you-know-whatsits strutting around in heat?”

“He’s not a bull, he’s not in heat.” I was a bullette in heat, though. I fanned myself with a paperback book on Victorian lace.

Leoni nodded. “Have to agree on the bull comment. He’s got the equipment! And he’s romantic. Always bringing you lunch, and the flowers, ooh la la! And the cushion for your back on your rocking chair so your back wouldn’t get sore . . .”

“And the new light that hangs perfectly over the rocking chair,” Estelle said.

“So your eyes don’t get tired.” Leoni patted her chest and sighed.

I sighed, too. In a happy way.

My friend Reece made me happy.

And nervous.

Morgan walked in with her NASA outfit on. “What is ‘lust’? What do you mean about a man being a bull in heat? And what is the equipment of a bull?” We froze. Oh, sheesh.

“Hey!” She tapped her NASA helmet. “I wrote another letter to NASA. This time I included information on why I think we can get to Mars, based on my studies. Nine pages plus drawings. I think they’ll write back.

I’ll show the letter to my dad when he comes and visits me.

I’m going to be a famous astronaut and he’ll say, ‘That’s my daughter,’ and be proud. ”

I stifled a groan, then patted Leoni’s back as her eyes filled up with tears.