Page 69 of Major Love

“Yeah, on the snowmobile,” I rumble teasingly. “I’ll take you up the mountain so you can see the valley.”

“Haven’t we just learned that I’m not the best with moving vehicles?”

“That had nothing to do with your driving. It’s not your fault that an elk shot out like that.”

That blush gets a little darker and I squeeze her shoulders, not wanting her to go all shy on me.

Ever since Sunday started learning to drive way back in high school she was always nervous about being on the roads. But when she took my truck for a spin in my senior year, the only problem I saw were her own self-doubts. She’s meticulous as fuck, making her probably one of the safest drivers out there, butthe conditions in these small towns means that there’s always an unseen danger that you need to factor in.

“What d’you say?” I ask gruffly, hoping like hell that she’ll give me this shot to show her what I do – to show her that this stuff is as easy to me as breathing.

“I’m not sure,” she says warily, gently sliding her fingers over the brakes.

I swallow thickly, trying not to turn that into something else in my mind.

“I’ll ride,” I promise. “You won’t have to do any of the driving if you don’t want to.”

“Is that legal?” she asks. “Wouldn’t I need a license for something like this?”

I jerk my thumb toward the forest behind us. “Private property, baby.”

Her jaw drops and I smirk down at her. “You own all the land?”

I can’t help but laugh at that one. “Not the mountain,” I chuckle, “but I bought a decent chunk of land when I decided where I was going to build. And I know these peaks like the back of my hand. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.”

She purses her lips to one side, mulling it over. Then she slides her eyes back up to mine, trying to bite back her smile as she says, “Okay. One ride.”

“You sure you want to limit yourself?”

She stands up on the footboards so that she can look down at me, and I move in closer, grinning up at her. She places her cool delicate hands on the warm swells of my chest.

“One ride will be more than enough,” she laughs, and I bite back a smirk of my own.

Sure, baby,I think to myself.That’s what they all say.

Chapter 17

Sunday

“Hey.”

I glance up from where I’m curled on Jason’s comfy armchair, his gruff voice a welcome sound after a morning of dealing with calls to and from Nashville.

And while I’ve been working from Jason’s stunning cabin, he’s been working down in town.

I shut my laptop and get to my feet, immediately smiling when I see what he’s got in his arms.

I pad across the living room and make my way over to him, standing up on my tip-toes so that I can press a little kiss to his cheek.

A thank you kiss for letting me stay at his place last night – for preparing my dinner, and sitting together on his back porch, and talking with me in that deep voice of his about all of the construction projects that he’s been working on these past few years.

He already messaged me this morning to say that he’d checked out the power situation at Casey’s, and he thinks that one of the components needs to be changed, meaning that I’m going to be crashing at his place a little bit longer.

And I can’t deny that I’m totally okay with that.

Jason laughs quietly, his cheekbones flushing red, and he steers me gently toward the kitchen, pulling a vase from one of the cupboards.

He’s got a brown paper bag in one hand, and in the other?

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