Is that what this was?
‘Right.’ She nodded but still wasn’t meeting his eye.
‘I don’t leave until after New Year’s,’ he said, forgetting about the game, forgetting about why he should stay away from Kira.
‘Okay…’ Her gaze met his again, suspicion in her dark eyes.
‘Let’s extend this thing.’
She raised a brow. ‘You want to keep playing old board games and eating the scraps from my pantry?’
‘Yes.’
Kira laughed. ‘Okay, Bennett.’
‘I do. I want to do all of that. I want to do … whatever. I just want some more time with you.’ If all Kira wanted to do was hang out for the rest of his time here, he’d be into it. He just wanted to see her again and he was out of dumb excuses to come up here. He wanted to come see her, just to come see her.
She stopped laughing, the look on her face somewhere between incredulous and afraid. ‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea.’
Ben nodded, taking his gaze back to the board, not wanting to pressure her. He played the word please and caught Kira’s small smile when she read it.
‘Won’t it make things harder when you have to go?’ she asked, her voice small, as though she didn’t want to ask the question, like it revealed more than she meant to.
‘Maybe. But I like you. I want to spend time with you.’
‘You keep saying that.’
‘Saying what?’
‘That you like me.’
‘Because I do. Why does that surprise you?’
She shrugged like she didn’t care, but her face told him otherwise. ‘I guess I’ve never been particularly likable before. I mean people liked me for my money or the places I could get them into, or they liked me long enough to sleep with me, but’—she laughed a little, a bitter sound— ‘yeah, I guess people don’t typically just like me.’
‘Then they obviously don’t know you.’
‘Ben.’ She sighed, but he couldn’t help his smile because he liked it when she called him that.
‘Yeah?’
‘You don’t have to be so damn sweet all the time.’ She was scowling at him like she was angry, but the next word she played was good boy which was technically two words but he decided to allow it.
‘So … is that a yes, then?’
Kira blew out a long sigh, like he was trying her patience, but her lips had tipped up in the corner. ‘Under one condition.’
‘Okay, name it.’
‘At the end of this … thing … you need to go home.’
‘Kira. Of course, I’m going home.’
‘No, I mean it. I am a mess, Ben. I will continue to be a mess for the foreseeable future. This whole farm will be a mess. You absolutely cannot get it in your head that you are going to somehow stay here and fix it, fix me.’
‘I don’t want to fix you. You don’t need fixing.’
She scoffed, but that was bullshit, so he grabbed her wrists, making her pay attention. ‘I think it’s awesome that you are starting over, that you are trying to do better, but don’t ever for one second let anyone make you think you need fixing. Do you understand me?’ His voice was rougher than he intended, but he needed her to know this. He’d wanted to help her, to keep her warm and safe, but he had never once thought that she needed him to fix things for her.
Her eyes widened in surprise, the color high in her cheeks. Her pulse raced beneath his fingers. He relaxed his grip.
‘Sorry.’
She pulled her hands from his and swiped the Scrabble board off the bed in an instant. The tiles scattered across the wood floor.
‘Kira, what—’
She tackled him before he could ask what the hell was going on. She kissed him hard on the mouth, before pulling back. ‘You stupid, sweet, infuriating man.’ She kissed him, a little softer this time. ‘I like you, too.’
He smiled. ‘Sorry.’
‘Yeah, me, too. I really tried not to.’
‘I know.’
‘But you have to promise me, you’ll go,’ she whispered. ‘After New Year’s, you’ll go back home to your real life. I might get selfish … fall back into old habits. I might try to keep you.’
He nodded, feeling his cheeks flush, liking the idea of her wanting him to stay a little too much. But no, he wasn’t going down that road again. ‘I’ll go.’ Of course he would go. He had a life to get back to. This was a vacation, a Christmas fling. Just because he wanted to extend it a little longer didn’t mean he’d forgotten the dangers of giving up everything to fit into someone else’s life. He was determined not to do that again.
