Page 37 of Dove
That's how it had been for me in the beginning, when I’d realized what the ache in my chest meant whenever I was around her.
So… baby steps.
I could do baby steps.
When her hands finally curled around the mug, taking it from my hands, it was the smallest victory.
When she took a small sip and gave a pleased hum, it felt like a prize.
“Just how you like it.”
Her eyes met mine over the rim of the mug. At least she was looking at me.
“I have to go into town to pick up that feed order I placed with Dell last night,” I reminded her. Here goes nothing… “Want to come with?”
The silence after my question seemed years long, and nerves twisted in my stomach as if I was some teenage boy asking a girl to prom.
There was no denying what I’d felt last night, but what if I was projecting? What if Dove didn’t feel even an ounce of what I did simmering between us?
It’d been years since I’d seen her, and maybe that’s all this was: sudden proximity and my unrequited lust influencing me into thinking there was something between us when there really wasn’t. Perhaps all she saw when she looked at me was Joshua, her absent, jerk of a stepbrother.
Unease filled me, and I rubbed awkwardly at the back of my neck, uncertainty making me falter. I’d always been sure Dove held nothing but sisterly feelings for me, not the fiery inferno of lust I carried forher. This new grey area was… unsettling. I’d lost Dove once before; I didn’t want to lose her again. In the week I’d been back, I realized if all I could have her as was my stepsister, I could live with that. It would be agonizing, but it was better than living a life without her in it at all. I didn’t want to push her away over something I was beginning to doubt she even experienced.
“Or if you’d rather not…” I suggested, giving her a way out if I was making her uncomfortable, which was the last thing I wanted to do. The muscles along my back tensed as my father’s reproachful voice suddenly echoed in my ears, drawing up memories I’d spent years attempting to forget. I’d done none of the accusations he’d flung at me that night, and I wasnothinglike the monster he’d tried to paint me as. My leaving had proven that, hadn’t it?
“I have a lot to do today,” she hedged. I heard it for the excuse it was.
I willed the disappointment from my face, and gave a single, understanding nod.
“But,” she offered a moment later, and my heart gave a pathetic, hopeful leap, “if we both work on getting the animals taken care of, the rest can wait.”
She turned from me, setting the coffee on the washer as she slipped her feet into her boots.
I stood there, watching, waiting to see if she’d retract her agreement. And maybe to stare covertly, just a little, as she bent over to tie her laces.
“You better change.” Her abrupt order startled me, my eyes finding somewhere to be other than the tempting curve of her ass, but she wasn’t looking at me, focus still on her boots. I sworeI could hear the hint of a smile in her voice as she warned, “I’m not waiting around for you.”
Yes, ma’am.
I hadn’t missed the look Dove threw my SUV before we slid into our seats. Not quite disapproval but… something like it. I wanted to ask, but something stopped me, unwilling to break the tentativeness of the moment.
As she’d suggested, we worked together to get the animals fed, everything else minor enough to wait until we got back. When I’d finished watering and feeding the chickens, their impatient clucks loud in the hush of the morning, Dove was there waiting for me, petting Omen, who was perched close by on a fencepost. I don’t know why I’d expected to end up going into town alone but seeing her standing there waiting for me was a surprise, albeit a good one.
The drive into town was quiet, neither one of us breaking the silence that had seemed to extend between us. The urge to crack a joke, or simply start talking, hung in the back of the throat. I didn’t care what we talked about, so long as it stopped thisawkwardnessbetween us. The memory of last night didn’t just hover over us like a cloud, so did the years I’d been gone, reminding us that there was plenty we didn’t know about each other now. Years worth of things we’d missed out on.
I turned the radio on low to see if that would help dissipate the thickness of our silence, but it only seemed to highlight the fact neither one of us were talking. A twangy country artist crooned about love through the speakers, and I itched to switch it, but I kept my hands tight on the steering wheel, afraid a station change might be too much of a tell.
It was a relief when we finally pulled up to old Dell’s store front, a favorite for the local farmers around here, handy for anyone in a quick bind. Dove hopped out before I’d even unclipped my seatbelt, as if she, too, was stifled by the heaviness growing in the car ride over.
I exhaled a steadying breath before I opened my own door and stepped out. It had never been so hard to be near her before, never so tough to stop myself from little urges like reaching over and brushing away the stray lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes. I wanted to invade her space, trace her lips, and taste her smile. While I’d always had those impulses, I’d never struggled so much to control them before. It was as if time and distance had made Dove more potent to me, the exact opposite of what I’d hoped it would do. I imagined reaching over the whole ride over, and her reaching back, like I swear she had last night. My hands ached from where they’d clenched the steering wheel tightly.
I cleared my throat and slammed the door behind me, waiting for the little beep to indicate it locked.
Dove snorted from where she was leaning against one of the posts along the storefront, supporting it’s sun-faded red awning.
“What?” I asked, pocketing my keys.
She shook her head as I approached, following behind me into the store. I held the door open for her, and a bell jingled above our heads.
