Page 18 of Nashville Lights

“Don’t you listen to them, sweetheart.” Nate ruffles hercurls gently with his big, suntanned hand. “They’re just rednecks who don’t know any better.”

“What’s a redneck?” Daisy asks innocently.

All the brothers laugh.

Even Nate smiles, and I’m quietly, utterly dazzled.

Despite his gruffness, there’s an underlying warmth in his interaction with his brothers. I’ve missed watching their bond play out over long, hot summer days. My brothers have their own messy bond, of course, but it’s more of a life-on-the-road bond, not a this-is-home-and-we-like-it-that-way bond.

His attention is on me, careful but rapt, like it’s just the two of us alone in the room. Our connection feels sparked and brimming. Those teenage summers fall back into clear focus and I can practically feel the brush of his lips against mine.

Once and once only.

Daisy tugs at Nate’s hand. “Uncle Nate, do you like my butterfly? Miss Roxie is helping me color it.”

He’s looking at me when he says it. “It’s beautiful.”

He pulls off his tie and takes off his jacket.

Jesus, the man is cut.

I’ve followed his career from afar and from Kade’s updates. Nate is a successful property developer and businessman now. Despite the suit and the muscles, I can still see the lean farm boy he used to be. He always kept his hair on the longer side, long enough that it would fall over his eyes and make my stomach do somersaults. It’s thicker now, andstill long enough to almost clash with the suit—or it might if he didn’t look so damn hot in it.

He pulls up the chair next to Daisy’s and takes a seat, answering more questions about his day.

It’s jarring to be sitting here at the same table with him after all this time of having him live rent free in my head for so many years. Day in, day out, like a little devil sitting on my shoulder in his suntanned, buff, long-limbed image, never really allowing me to get over him.

God, I was so in love with him.

With his golden eyes and that beguiling V above his low-slung jeans that you could see whenever his buttoned-up shirt was open or he took his t-shirt off—which was all the time because we were always swimming or having water fights or the boys were working in the hot sun.

The Boones were like siblings. Yet something set him apart from that. He felt likemine,in a way I could never quite explain.

We were just two kids in our extended tribe, going about our business of having the time of our lives. He was another one of my playmates and my protectors, and nothing more.

Still, as we grew older, I became more and more spellbound. I’d never seen a human being who was so physicallybeautifulbefore. I was endlessly fascinated by him.

I was fifteen the summer Nate Boone turned nineteen. It was too much of an age gap, of course. We were in different phases of life. He barely gave me a second glance, treating me exactly like he treated Dakota andTobias. Like an annoying kid sister who was fun to tease every now and then but was mostly just an afterthought. My brothers were hisrealfriends. The six of them were closer in age and played music together, drove into town to meet girls, smoked cigarettes sometimes and even drank whiskey.

I was barely even a fully-fledged woman yet. And I was sheltered because I had three older brothers who wouldn’t think twice about beating any boy to a pulp who so much as looked at me. Not that they ever had to because we usually traveled in a pack and no one would dare. All three of my brothers were built even then and they all had a wild edge that people didn’t mess around with.

But that summer, something bubbled up inside me, burning me with new, confusing feelings that dug into my body and soul. My fascination with Nate Boone deepened. I could hardly bear it. He drove me crazy with his graceful muscles and his lazy smile. It wasn’t fair that he barely seemed to notice I was alive, aside from kidding with me, along with my brothers, like I was a child.

I didn’tplanto do it. I can’t even remember why I went out to the barn at dusk one hot late-August night. I might have been looking for one of my brothers. Tobias and Dakota were in the house. Tobias was baking and Dakota had fallen asleep, I remember. We’d had a late night the night before and we were emotional that day because it was our last weekend at the Boones’. Our parents were coming to pick us up in a few days and none of us ever wanted to goback to the city after our long idyllic summers at Sugar Mountain.

I didn’t expect to find him alone out there. He was asleep in a big pile of hay. I even remember what he was wearing. Faded blue jeans and an ancient light blue t-shirt that was tight across his shoulders and chest. He wore work boots. He was long, lean and deeply tanned. One of his muscular arms was bent, crooked behind his head.

A low, dust-flicked beam of late-day sunlight landed directly on him, painting him in soft golden light.

“Nate?” I’d whispered.

He still didn’t wake. His dark brown hair almost touched his shoulders and was sun-bleached at the ends.

I lay next to him in the hay, carefully, on my side so I could gaze at his peaceful face. He looked younger than nineteen when he was asleep. A lot of the time he had a serious expression, like he was thinking about all the things he needed to do. I knew he had a lot of responsibility already. It was one of the reasons we still came out for the summers, so the boys could help out around the farm.

But the worry was gone in that moment and something about the absence of it broke my heart a little. I wished he didn’t have to worry so much or work so hard.

Keeping still for a while, I listened to the evenness of his breathing, taking in the beauty of him and memorizing it, somehow knowing that I might not see him again for a long time. Or maybe ever. The boys were already starting to get serious with their music and I knew we might not be comingback next summer. I remember my eyes stinging at the thought, and the warm slide of a tear.

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