Hot Winter Nights

His mom helped her out by laughing, not offended in the least. “Sweet of you to say. And equally sweet of you to try to protect my son—and me—by letting me know you’re not together. But I see something between you two, Molly, something I’m guessing you just don’t yet see.” She smiled. “I used to think that love was all about red roses and expensive dinners. But the truth is, love is letting your mate steal a piece of bread off your plate. It’s being awoken by snoring and refraining from shoving him out of bed. It’s talking in code and trying to embarrass one another in public. It’s going on adventures and making fun of each other. It’s stupid fights and memorable make-ups.” She squeezed Molly’s hand. “Love isn’t pretty and romantic. You know that, right? Love is just stumbling through life with your best friend.”

Molly’s heart was thumping hard in her chest. Because if she was in love, no good could come of it. So thoroughly convinced of that, she shook her head. “I care about Lucas very much. Maybe even too much. But it’s really not what you think, it’s not what you want it to be.”

“There you are,” Lucas said from the doorway, making Molly’s heart go from pounding to frozen in place. Had he heard what she’d said?

I care about Lucas very much. Maybe even too much . . .

His expression wasn’t giving anything away so she had no idea of knowing. Damn. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut? Before she could obsess over what he’d heard, he took her hand and pulled her to his side. His expression was easy and his usual lighthearted as he smiled at her. “I’ve come to save you from the evil inquisition. Can I interest you in a few s’mores before we make the trip back?”

“Yes,” she said gratefully, and if for a beat she could see his smile didn’t quite meet his eyes, she told herself that undoubtedly, hers didn’t either.

Chapter 18

#SmoresAreLife

“The fire pit’s down this incline a bit,” Lucas said. He was just in front of Molly, carrying a bag of supplies in one hand and holding onto one of her hands with the other.

She couldn’t see a damn thing. The cabin and its lights were behind them. All she could see was Lucas and a vast black night all around them. It’d stopped snowing, but the frozen ground crunched beneath her feet. And truth be told, she was having some trouble on the uneven trail. Her leg was hurting, but hell if she’d admit it.

For the tenth time, Lucas stopped and turned to her.

“Don’t,” she warned.

He didn’t sigh, but he gave her a look that spoke volumes. He wanted to help her.

“I said I’ve got this,” she said. A few minutes ago she’d shooed off Laura’s offer of helping hands. She shooed off Sami’s offer of helping hands. They’d reluctantly gone ahead.

But apparently Lucas couldn’t be shooed.

“Here,” he said and, turning his back to her, hunkered down and reached for her. “Hop up.”

“No way.”

But apparently he didn’t need her to hop up at all because he simply hoisted her up onto his back. “Piggyback race to the pit,” he called out as he passed his family, and then proceeded to beat them all down the hill with Molly and her weight of one hundred and thirty-five pounds not slowing him down one bit.

She felt dizzy at his speed. Actually, that wasn’t true. She was dizzy from the feel of being plastered against his back, at the feel of his forearms hooked around her thighs to hold her to him. Unable to help herself, she pressed her lips to the nape of his neck and smiled when she felt the rumble of a rough groan/growl go through him.

“No fair,” he said.

Maybe not, but she took a little nibble out of him just because she could and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.

At the campfire, he controlled her slow slide down his body and then turned to face her before she could swipe the sheer lust from her face.

She expected him to grin at her. Instead, he let her see that heat and hunger in his face too. It reached her in a place that his sexy humor couldn’t have gotten to.

Her damn heart.

Yes, she really was feeling things for him, no matter what she wanted to believe, no matter what she’d tried to tell his family. Big, scary things.

“Hey,” Laura called out. “We could use Lucas’s superior fire-starting skills before Sami tries to blow us all up again.”

“Jeez, a girl uses lighter fluid one time and she’s never allowed to forget it,” Sami grumbled.

“It took a year for your eyebrows to grow back,” Laura said.

Ignoring them entirely, Lucas didn’t move, just stood there looking deep into Molly’s eyes while his sister and cousin continued to lightly bicker in the background.

Hell, the woods could have been on fire for all Molly would’ve noticed. She couldn’t see, hear, or think about anything other than the look in Lucas’s eyes as her earlier words seemed to echo between them.

I care about Lucas, very much. Maybe even too much.

Then suddenly he flashed her a wicked just-for-her smile that promised all sorts of things before taking her hand and leading her to the fire pit. Crouching in front of it, he began to build a fire, the muscles in his shoulders and back shifting as he worked. By the time he had flames flickering, Molly had answering flames flickering inside her belly.

And lower.

Lucas opened the big brown bag with the chocolate, graham crackers, and marshmallows, and everyone pounced on it all like they hadn’t just stuffed their faces with more food than she’d ever seen.

“So how long have you and Lucas been knocking boots?” one of Lucas’s aunts asked.

Molly jumped and her marshmallows fell off her stick and into the fire.

Lucas arched a brow at her and . . . slid two fresh marshmallows on her stick for her. “Aunt Jeanie,” he said. “Just because you turned seventy-five last month doesn’t mean you get to turn off your inner editor.”

“Actually,” she said, “it does. I don’t have a lot of years left, you know. And the only benefit of being this ancient is that I get to say whatever I want.” Then she looked expectantly at Molly.

“Don’t answer her,” Lucas said. “She’ll just send out a letter to everyone in the family. And I do mean a letter because she refuses to use that new iPhone in her purse for anything other than taking pictures of her eight cats.”

“Ten,” Aunt Jeanie said.

Lucas’s mom put her hand over Jeanie’s. “I love you,” she said to the older woman. “But the only person who gets to grill my son on his love life is me. I pushed for twelve long, brutal hours to bring his big, fat head into this world. I earned that right.”

Lucas blew out a breath and dropped said big, fat head, muttering something about why he’d ever thought this was a good idea.

“Remember when we’d come here when we were kids?” Laura asked, clearly trying to help out her brother. “Lucas would tell us scary campfire stories until Sami peed her pants.”

“Hey,” Sami said. “I was way too young for the Lizzy Borden stories!”

“And then he’d try to crawl into one of our sleeping bags in the middle of the night because he’d terrified himself,” Laura said to her mom. “Remember?”

“Oh good,” Lucas muttered. “Childhood stories.”