Page 69 of Kenna's Dragon

I’m silent for long enough that Kenna glances over at me, and whatever she sees on my face has her sucking in a surprised breath.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, lines of worry appearing on her forehead. “You don’t have to answer that.”

Snapping myself back to the present and swallowing around the sudden lump in my throat, I shake my head to clear my thoughts.

“It’s alright,” I tell her, voice coming out hoarse. “It’s just not a part of my life I care to revisit.”

She nods quickly. “Okay. Yeah, we definitely don’t have to talk about it.”

Silence falls, and for the first time since I picked her up this morning, the air between us is charged with discomfort. It’s a stark contrast to our levity from just a few minutes ago, and I want nothing more than to salvage it in any way I can.

“You did nothing wrong, ember,” I say quietly. “And I’m sorry for how I reacted.”

Kenna looks at me again, expression soft with understanding, though also more guarded than it has been all morning. She reaches across the console and offers me her hand. I take it, wrapping my fingers around hers and resting our bound hands against my thigh.

“It’s okay,” she says. “Let’s just keep things light this weekend?”

I nod in agreement, even as a pang of doubt and discomfort and disappointment lodges itself in the pit of my stomach. I’m struck again by the realization of just how long it’s been since I’ve let anyone in, since I’ve spoken about any of it in any meaningful way.

And Kenna shouldn’t be responsible for shouldering the burden of my own stunted emotional capacity.

Doing my best to set it aside, I squeeze her hand again and choose a different topic—how she decided to move from Idaho to Seattle—something casual, something easy, something light, and she picks up the cue immediately.

Her voice fills the space between us, and I let myself hold on to it like a lifeline as we continue on toward the cabin.

27

Kenna

When we reach the lake house, I’m thankful as hell to get out of the car and breathe in some fresh air.

I feel awful about what happened on the drive here. When I asked Ewan about Elias and the fact that the two of them used to be freakingpiratesof all things—or, at least that’s how it sounded when Nora let it slip—I had no idea how he would react.

He’s been off ever since. Although he’s making an effort to move past it, to keep things light, my stomach is still tied up in knots as we get out of the car.

We reach the cabin just before noon, and it’s breathtaking. Set onto a private piece of lakeside property, it’s rustic in a charming, down-to-earth way. A modern log cabin with a porch that wraps all the way around, and a huge wall of two-story windows looking over a sparkling blue lake.

As I step out and take my first deep inhale, some of the tension from inside the car slips away. This place is peaceful, serene, and when I look back at where Ewan is taking our bags out of the trunk, his expression has lightened, too.

“Come on,” he says, nodding toward the cabin’s back door. “I’ll show you around.”

The inside is every bit as beautiful as the outside. Lots of warm wood and a fieldstone fireplace in one corner of the expansive living room. A dining space that opens up with a set of glass doors to connect to the porch overlooking the lake.

“This place belongs to my friend Ari,” Ewan says from behind me as he sets our bags on the kitchen island.

I turn to face him, folding my arms over my chest. “The blond?”

He chuckles and steps toward me, loosening my arms and pulling them up to loop around his neck. “Yes. The blond. She and her husband are more than generous with sharing this place with their friends.”

Ass. Ewan is an ass.

I prove it to him by leaning up and catching his bottom lip between my teeth, nipping at him hard before he clasps a hand in my hair and tips me back to deepen the kiss. We go on like that for a couple minutes, trading deep, stroking caresses and teasing nips.

I’m just about to pull him toward the hallway and explore some of the cabin’s bedrooms, maybe see if we can work off the rest of the tension between us, when he leans back and smirks down at me.

“I thought we could go for a hike.”

Despite my best effort, a whine of protest sneaks out of me. “Or we could… not go for a hike.”

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