Her room was on the second floor, and had a breathtaking view of the ocean. It was also not his room. Which was fair. Because she had told him that she wasn’t having sex with him. So of course he’d given her a separate room.

But she was starting to feel like holding on to her virginity was more of a habit than anything she actually wanted.

She wanted him.

And it was so difficult to figure out how much of that was weakness or giving in to something, or being just like all the people who didn’t know better. When she was supposed to know better.

Know better than what?

He was a good man. He’d been nothing but a good man to her. He hadn’t pressured her into anything. Quite the opposite. He was being so respectful it was... It wasn’t like anything she’d ever been warned about; that was for sure. Her mother had told her that men only wanted one thing. But Flint seemed to want to talk to her, buy her cacti and boots and kiss her. Let her stay in a beautiful beach house. Share meals with her. Share drinks with her. Flint seemed to want a lot of things from her. And he gave a lot of things to her.

There was no map for this. Not in her experience. And maybe not in her mother’s experience either. It was okay that her mother would be wary. Upset about this. There were reasons she hadn’t told her mother that she was here. Reasons that she had never mentioned Flint to Darlene Martin.

But she had never known a man like Flint. Tansey never had before either. She couldn’t compare him to dire warnings that had nothing to do with him. He wasn’t just a cowboy. He was Flint Carson.

And he was everything.

But he couldn’t be what she stood on, what she leaned against. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be everything for right now.

For their fling.

She wanted to laugh and cry.

By the time she finished putting her things away and came downstairs, he had set a beautiful dinner out on the terrace. Right over the ocean waves.

“Did you cook?”

“My parents had this house for a long time, and knowing what to do with fresh seafood is awfully helpful. So yes. I did. But doing a crab boil is pretty basic.”

“This does not seem basic. This is extremely fancy.”

He poured her a glass of wine, and she felt like this was a life she had never even dreamed of. She wanted to know more about him, though. He was very good at asking her questions about herself. And he certainly alluded to certain things about him. But he didn’t open up all that easily.

“So you won,” she said. “Does that mean you’ll be back again next year, or...?”

“Most likely. I don’t really have anything else to do. What about you?”

“Well. Since nobody was all that interested in my demo song, and it certainly isn’t going to pay the bills, I guess I’ll keep riding for another couple of years.” She shrugged. “It’s okay. Wanting to get into the music industry is... It’s very unlikely. I don’t have any connections or anything like that. So... I don’t see it as something that would be terribly easy. And definitely not something that’s just going to happen.”

“I’ve never even heard you sing.”

She didn’t want him to turn it around on her. Not just yet. “How come you’re so good at hiding your emotions, Flint?”

“Practice?”

“But why? I guess what I don’t get is... You don’t really tell me that much. I mean, you’re vague. You like to ask me questions, and you let me talk about myself, which is... It’s nice. Sort of like therapy. But with a really good-looking man. But what about you?”

He lifted his wineglass and looked out at the ocean. It was strange to see him like this. The sun setting out on the sea, at a family home. They weren’t in a cheesy motel or a bar. Or the cab of his truck. There was no one around. It was just different. And she felt different.

“What about me?”

“You never talk about yourself.”

“There’s not much to say,” he said, and there was something in that smile that seemed false. It seemed very clear now, that the man she had met that first night, and the man she was looking at now, was a character. She had seen real pieces of Flint in the time since then. But this...this was a put-on.

The whole charming thing he did. The whole devil-may-care thing. She had seen moments of real emotion in him, but they weren’t accompanied by revelations. The way that he gave her advice, that was real. The way that he listened to her, the way that he cared for her.

The care that he showed by respecting her boundaries, all of that was real.

But it also kept them protected and safe.

She wanted to find a way to get through those walls. But she was at a loss as to how.

Because here they were, theoretically temporary, so why should she be able to get through those walls? Why should he give her anything? She didn’t know the answer to that.

And she didn’t know if wanting to break them down was particularly fair.

She had plenty of her own defenses, so she understood that. She might not do such a great job of repressing her emotions, but the whole thing with him... Not sleeping with him... Holding herself back from him... Well, that definitely had to do with her dad.

With being afraid.

Because they’d said it was a fling, but now things felt different for her, and she wanted to be blasé and sophisticated and basically the most okay with the fact that this would have an end, but she didn’t know if she could be.

It didn’t make her want to leave, though.

She wanted to do something, give him something. To find a way to make him open up to her the way she had him. She wanted to know him. Know him like he knew her. But she didn’t know what to do. So she just sat with him. There was a firepit out on the deck, and he started it up, and they sat on the couch there, and just sat together.

Not speaking.

They did that a few nights, things getting fairly hot and heavy in front of the fire more often than not.

It was harder and harder to not just join him in bed every night.

But she just wanted to be sure.

Do you? Or are you just scared?

Well. She didn’t really have an answer for that. Because she was scared. She did know that. She just didn’t know if that fear was smart, or if it was holding her back.

She got out her guitar that night when they sat by the fire, and started to pluck the strings.

“Play me a song.”

And she knew exactly which one she wanted to play. The one she had never played for anyone.

“All right. This is some... This one’s called ‘Taillights.’”

The thing I remember most of all is the taillights on your truck