Dead Silence (Stillwater Trilogy #1)(44)
Author: Brenda Novak

Kennedy rotated the marshmallows on his own stick, being careful to keep them out of the flames. If they turned out perfectly, maybe Grace would accept one from him….

“Isn’t this fun?” Teddy had chocolate spread from ear to ear, but his smile was almost as wide.

Grace rocked back on her log perch, leaning on her palms and stretching out the smooth, bare legs Kennedy had insisted she smear with mosquito repellant. “It is.”

“You like being with us, don’t you?” Heath asked eagerly.

He suspected that her slight hesitation was imperceptible to the boys, but Kennedy noticed it right away. “Of course,” she said.

Teddy stabbed another two marshmallows with the pointy end of his stick. “Does that mean you’re not going to vote for Vicki Nibley?”

Again, Grace met Kennedy’s eyes through the rising smoke. “Someone needs to vote for poor Mrs. Nibley, don’t you agree?”

“Not you,” Heath said. “What about our dad?”

“I think enough people like your father.”

“A man can never have too many friends,” Kennedy said, moving his marshmallows to a safer part of the fire.

She wiped away the moisture on her lip caused by the heat of the flames. “So you have to go after the lone holdout?” she challenged.

He grinned at her. “So you have to side with the underdog?”

She laughed as she shoved the hair out of her face. “The underdog needs me much more than you do.”

He was beginning to wonder about that. He couldn’t stop his gaze from trailing after her wherever she went, kept imagining how her skin would feel if she ever let him touch her.

He raised his marshmallows higher above the hungry fire. What he wanted required a slow, steady hand. In this—and other things—he knew he could only be as successful as he was patient.

“Dad, your marshmallows are going to fall off!” Heath said only a couple of minutes later.

He saw that they were a toasty golden-brown and were sagging dangerously low.

Kennedy held a hand under his stick so they wouldn’t drop into the dirt. “Now they’ll melt in your mouth,” he said and circled the fire to give them to Grace.

When she realized they were for her, she waved him away. “No, thanks. You go ahead.”

He frowned, hoping she’d reconsider. “Are you sure? I made them for you.”

The surprise in her expression told him he’d communicated the fact that it mattered to him whether or not she accepted his small offering, and he wished he hadn’t been so obvious. Embarrassed, he started to turn back, but she reached out and caught his hand.

“Actually, they look pretty good. I guess I have room for one more,” she said.

And that was when he knew he was right about Grace Montgomery—and almost everyone else in Stillwater, especially his mother and Joe, were wrong.

When Grace’s cell phone rang, it was nearly three in the morning, but she didn’t mind. She’d been lying in her tent for at least four hours, trying to sleep. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw Kennedy. She heard his laugh when he’d tossed them all so easily in the water. Felt the strength in his arms when he carried her back to camp. Saw the boyish eagerness on his face when she’d accepted his marshmallows.

Which made her particularly glad to read George’s name on her lit screen.

“Finally,” she muttered and pressed the Talk button. “There you are,” she said. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me.”

“Sorry. I…I should’ve called earlier.”

The eagerness she usually heard in his voice was gone, and his tone suggested there was more he wasn’t saying. “But—”

“This isn’t easy for me, Grace.”

Her stomach tightened into a hard knot, but she lowered her voice so she wouldn’t wake Kennedy or his boys. “What’s wrong, George?”

“I’ve met someone else,” he blurted.

Grace sucked air between her teeth as though someone had just punched her. Could it be true? George loved her. She knew that. He’d always loved her. Which meant something else was going on. His faith was dwindling. She needed to convince him she’d be ready to make a commitment soon.

“George, you—you’re overreacting to having me gone, that’s all. I’ll be back in a little while. I can come see you for a few days next week if you want.”

There was a stilted pause. She could feel him weakening, so the resolve in his next words shocked her. “I can’t, Grace. I’ve waited for you long enough. You know how I feel about you, how I’ll always feel. But even Petra—”

“You’ve been talking to your sister about me?”

“Why are you whispering?”

“I’m camping with friends.”

“What friends?”

“For someone who’s seeing another woman, you sound pretty possessive, George.”

“It’s just that you’ve never mentioned any friends in Stillwater.”

“You don’t know them.”

“Of course I don’t know them. Who are they?”

“Someone I went to high school with, okay? It’s no big deal,” she said, and wished that was true. Unfortunately, anything to do with Kennedy seemed like a very big deal indeed. “What did Petra say?” she asked.

“I know you don’t believe it, but she likes you, Grace. She’s just worried about me. Says our relationship is too one-sided.”

“One-sided means she doesn’t think I care about you. I plan on marrying you, having a family with you. That’s not caring?”

“If you really wanted to marry me, you would’ve done it by now.”

Grace hid inside her sleeping bag, trying not to smell Kennedy’s cologne on the lining. “That’s not necessarily true.”

“Yes, it is. Let’s be honest. You practically cringe when I touch you.”

Her hot breath bounced back at her inside the bag, making her think of a tomb. She was completely shut off. Alone. “No, I don’t!”

“Do you assume I hadn’t noticed?”

Grace stared into the blackness. Sometimes she tried to feign the interest she didn’t feel naturally. But she didn’t hate making love with George. He was patient, gentle. “I don’t cringe.”

“You don’t enjoy making love.”

“Once in a while that’s true,” she admitted. “But not always.”