Page 46 of The Kiss Keeper
“The island? Is that what your grandfather was talking about?” Jake asked, his complexion turning from a healthy tan to a sickly dishwater gray.
She watched him closely. “Yes, Woolwich Island. It’s across from the cove. It’s a small island my family uses and sometimes rents out for weddings and events. It’s only accessible by water.” She pointed out the window that looked out onto the waterfront. “You can see it right there. It doesn’t take long to get to.”
Jake swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat constricting.
Something about the island had set him off, and she couldn’t risk the guy picking up and bolting. To be fake-dumped at a family gathering would be worse than if she’d shown up with no boyfriend at all.
She turned to the children. “How about we explore the trails around camp?”
“Can we take the one with all the good climbing trees?” Tucker asked.
“Sure,” she answered, keeping a considerably less pale Jake in the corner of her eye. “Now, you’ve got two minutes to find the art basket. If I remember right, Mimi keeps it in the lodge next to the art room. Your job is to find it and then meet Jake and me at the flagpole.” She glanced at her watch. “Ready, set, go!” she called, and the children ran out of the dining hall in a tangle of whoops and elbows.
The screen door banged shut, and she touched Jake’s arm. “Are you okay?”
He shot a glance toward the cove. “I don’t do water.”
“Do you not know how to swim?”
“I can swim. I just…” he trailed off.
“That’s okay. We all have our things. I don’t do Jakes anymore,” she supplied, trying again to be funny, then immediately felt her cheeks heat.
He cocked his head to the side, and the hint of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as the color returned to his chiseled face.
She cringed. “I mean, I’m not going todateJakes, and I guess that also means I shouldn’t be doing them either.” She stopped talking and covered her face with her hands. “I must sound like an idiot.”
“The last thing I’d call you, Natalie, is an idiot,” Jake replied as two warm hands rested on top of hers, then gently proceeded to uncover her face.
He threaded their fingers together, and she held his gaze as her pulse kicked up. All it took was one touch from this man, and her heart edged out her head by a landslide.
What was this pull between them? This crazy connection that made her body buzz with anticipation.
He stared down at her, looking as confused as she felt. “It’s hard to believe that this time yesterday, we hadn’t even met.”
“We’re on camp time. An hour here is like a day in the real world. At least, that’s how it always felt for me. This place is like stepping into an alternate universe where time stands still and, at the same time, seems to go by at the speed of light. You experience life more intensely here. When I was a girl, I’d imagine that I was living inside a work of art—some painting of a far-off, magical place.”
“Like being under a spell?” he questioned, leaning in as she pressed up onto her tiptoes.
She nodded as every cell in her body begged to get closer to Jake.
He released her hands and cupped her face. “Your eyes are the exact color of the deepest parts of the water. I always remembered that color. The canopy of green that shimmered in the distance. The vividness. The depth.”
No Jake—no, anybody—had ever said anything like that to her before. Was he pretending, simply playing the part of a caring boyfriend? It made no sense to do it now. No one was here. It was only the two of them. Alone.
He slid one hand from her face and trailed his fingertips down her neck, leaving a path of goose bumps as his hand came to rest on her shoulder. His thumb brushed past her collarbone, and a dreamy familiarity washed over her.
“I shouldn’t want to kiss you this much,” he said on a tight exhale.
“I shouldn’t want you to kiss me,” she whispered back.
His gaze darkened, and she gripped the fabric of his shirt as his lips hovered a breath away from hers when a chorus of giggles burst their almost-kiss bubble.
She gasped and pulled back to see a frowning Finn flanked by Tucker and Toby, both covering their eyes, as the trio of little girls giggled and squeaked with excitement.
“Do you have the art basket?” she asked, doing her best to recover from that intense almost-kiss.
Finn held up the old wicker case with a corner of drawing paper hanging out of the opening.
