Page 83 of Hiss and Make Up
She studied his dark, tired eyes. They hid a playful excitement. His story emphasized how he had been careful, but she knew him better than that. Someone else might have been fooled, but not her. This man hiding a grin through his two-day-old stubble had tracked down a suspected bookie and had broken into a building. And he'd obviously gotten a little thrill from both.
“It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore,” she teased.
Marc frowned. “That’s because you still think I’m thirteen.”
“That’s not true.”
Or maybe it was. Maybe she still expected him to be the same kid she knew so long ago.
Whoever he was, Sierra couldn’t deny that she wanted more than an orange soda from him. But what else came with that? Even if she ignored the check, even if she swallowed her fear and jumped on this second chance, who were they kidding?
Marc lived in his childhood home, next door to his sister and her gaggle of kids. How long would it take him to realize that he wanted all that too? How long before he accepted that Sierra didn’t fit in that picture? Because as much as she loved Luna and teaching kids at the Nature Station, she had no desire for kids of her own.
She knew her brain was jumping ahead, but it had to with Marc. Sierra didn’t want to start anything with him if she would bail on the ending. He deserved better than that.
When Marc nodded at the sliding door, she followed him outside and sat beside him on the cypress porch swing. The dog hopped between them. For a moment it looked like Marc would shoo it away, but he changed his mind and scratched its ears, while the dog curled up beside him.
They sipped their canned drinks, swinging in silence and staring at the dark waters of the Bayou Teche in the distance. Sierra pulled her feet up while Marc pushed gently like they’d done so many times in another lifetime. So much had changed since those days. She’d changed, but she was starting to realize that he’d changed too. And she had no idea what that meant for them. If there was a them at all.
Marc cleared his throat. “So I guess you found that check.”
She stared at her can while fiddling with the tab. “Yup.”
“I heard you on the phone. About the reward.”
She stopped fiddling with the can and tried to remember what phone call he could be talking about. Then she remembered her phone ringing first thing this morning. Waking up at his house. Her conversation with Liz.
Crud.
“I was trying to shut Liz up,” she explained. “She was worried when I didn’t go home last night.”
Marc scratched the dog’s ears. “Can we pretend you never found that check?”
“So I’m supposed to pretend like I didn’t know you before. Clean slate. And now I’m supposed to pretend you didn’t try to buy me off. Anything else I’m supposed to pretend?”
He stopped the swing and the lurch shook her head upwards, catching his gaze. His face was tight like he’d been slapped. “It’s not like that. I’m not trying to erase anything.”
“Could have fooled me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What about you? All you cared about was that reward money anyway. I was giving you what you wanted.”
“What I wanted? What do you know about what I want? You want me to treat you like I don’t know anything about you; meanwhile, you’re deciding what I want and handing me orange freaking soda.”
His nostrils flared, and he took several long, deep breaths, his jaw clenched. “Did you or did you not tell me on Friday that you wanted to help me so you could get your hands on that reward money?”
Of course, she had. The bigger question was what the hell had happened to her since then? Even she didn’t know the answer to that.
“Friday was a long time ago.”
As her words sank in, his face softened. “Yeah, it was.”
The dog licked her, and when she reached to pet him, Marc grabbed her hand. He squeezed her fingers, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“Sierra.” He waited, but she still didn’t look up. Shame and fear were too strong. “I thought things were changing between us.”
And there it was. Hethoughtthey were, but then he realized they weren’t. He didn’t feel the same way she did.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I get it. You thought wrong. You don’t have to say it.” She stood and the dog wobbled on the swing for a second before hopping down after her. “I’ll go.”
