Page 27 of The Matchmaker's Cottage
“We should get back inside,” he said, trying to ignore the way she blinked up at him in confusion, hurt darting across her features before she wiped it all clean under a mask of indifference.
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat and scrubbed her face with her hands. “Your dad is going to wake us up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to head back ‘before the traffic picks up.’ ” She deepened her voice on the last few words, a perfect imitation of his father.
He chuckled, still reeling internally from the moment they had almost just had, though trying not to show it.
“ ‘Ready to rock and roll?’ ” he added, imitating his father’s signature phrase, uttered each time they left to go anywhere.
She cackled lightly, weaving her arm through his, and they led each other off the dock.
“Let’s not go to bed right away,” she said after a few moments of silence. “We can just watch a movie for a bit. You can stay with me.”
The words had been said innocently enough—stay with me—but Ethan couldn’t help feeling that they were somewhat loaded now. Like a boundary had been crossed, though nothing had actually happened.
She must have felt his hesitation, because she stiffened beside him and her stride faltered. He panicked then at thethought that she might voice the awkwardness of the situation, might put words to what had almost happened between them. And whatever he did, he couldn’t allow it to destroy the delicate balance of their friendship. So he answered in the only way he could, the way he always had when she asked something of him:
“Of course.”
11
Present day
Julia was goingto fucking kill him.
It was bad enough that he was even here. Because if he had never called, if he’d never made the plans to come, if he had nevercoercedher into shutting down her inn (albeit for a lot of money and significant eventual publicity, which would, perhaps, hopefully, lead to some fame and further fortune), then she would not be where she was at that moment—beingcarriedlike aninfantafter attempting an ill-advised tour of the town that they hadn’t evenmade it to, getting caught in the worst rainstorm Upstate New York had seen in decades, twisting hergoddamnankle in some gopher ditch, and now having to suffer through the humiliation that she was currently experiencing.
It was mortifying. Degrading. The worst position she had ever found herself in—and there had been a few doozies in her life. She was hating literally every millisecond of it. The feeling of his strong arms, tense around her, holding her securely to hischest. Feeling his heart pound with the exertion, his breaths coming out in short pants. Wondering if she should be offended by how much of a strain this evidently was on him.
She noticed that his breath was visible in the air, even through the rain, which had lessened slightly. The temperature had dropped in the short time they had been out, likely because the sun had begun to creep closer to the horizon as well, the already-dark skies growing ever darker with the increasing nightfall.
He must be freezing, she thought with a twinge, recognizing she was more protected from the cold with her fleece-lined sweater than he was with his thin cotton dress shirt, which was currently plastered to every line of his body, accentuating the firm muscles underneath.
She commanded herself to stop thinking of his muscles. Instead, she focused on being mad at him for lifting her up without her explicit consent and carrying her to the cottage even though she was a grown woman fully capable—well, somewhat capable, maybe—of getting there herself.
As her ankle throbbed, however, and the rain continued to come down, she found herself questioning how feasible it would have really been.
If it were up to him, he probably wouldn’t have chosen to climb that slippery hill with her dead weight in his arms, either. Especially if his—still semi-insulting—huffing and puffing were any indication.
With a sigh, she leaned her head against Ethan’s shoulder. She felt him tense slightly, even as he continued to carry her without breaking his stride.
Before she lost her nerve, she muttered a quick “Thank you.”
His breath caught so briefly, she thought maybe she hadimagined it—or again, that it had something to do with the strain of carrying her up that hill—but when he waited a few beats without responding, she began to feel a bit self-conscious.
The vulnerability of her position did not escape her. Old Ethan would have been making fun of her the entire time he carried her, comparing her to water bottle cases at the grocery store, making cracks about what she would owe him for this monumental task. Ethan’s silence—his stoic sense of duty guided more by unspoken chivalry than by any obligations of friendship—only made her more aware of their situation.
But then he spoke—“If I had known how awkward and squirmy you’d be, I would have reconsidered”—and she had to turn her face into his chest to hide her smile.
* * *
They made itback up to the house with little incident, barring the possibility of Ethan’s heart potentially pounding out of his chest, if his pulse rate was any indication.
“Okay, let me down now. I can hop the rest of the way if I have to.” Julia wriggled in his arms just enough to encourage him to deposit her on her front porch, which he did as gently as possible despite the way she could feel his arms shaking with adrenaline and hear his breath coming out at the same rapid pace as his heart. She led with her good foot, keeping the other leg elevated as she hopped to the front door and let them both in.
“Oh, there you are—oh my god!” Maggie ran over to them, wagging her hands in apparent dismay as she took in their appearances—clearly bedraggled and soaked to the skin, with the added flourish of Julia hopping on one leg. “Whathappened?”
“Twisted my ankle,” Julia said with a grimace, wobblingunsteadily on her good leg. “We ran back after getting caught in the rainstorm, and I got my foot stuck in a hole.”
“Well, come and sit, for Pete’s sake.” Maggie grasped Julia by the arm and carefully led her to the parlor, and Julia gratefully flopped down on the nearest couch.
