“Are you tryin’ to talk me into playin’ hooky, Miss Burke?”
“I absolutely am. Somebody told me recently I needed to play more.” Though her face was sober, her eyes shone with amusement. “Seemed like good advice.”
“Far be it for me to refuse a lady.” He gestured toward the town green. “Shall we walk?”
They fell into step, Hush prancing a few paces ahead. Cam itched to take her hand, just for the chance to touch her. But this was downtown Wishful. That’d be as good as taking out a billboard decl
aring his intentions. He didn’t even know what they were yet. He only knew that she was the first woman to truly spark his interest in years and that kiss had been…epic. Today was about finding out if they were on the same page with that interest and, if he was lucky, getting his mouth on her again.
She started to pull ahead of him, legs moving with a brisk efficiency.
“You in a hurry?”
She jerked almost to a stop, then into motion again with her eyes on his feet. “You can take the girl out of the city. But seriously, your legs are a foot longer than mine. You don’t walk, you mosey.”
“Moseying is good when you want to enjoy somebody’s company.”
The noise she made might’ve been a laugh. “I’m out of practice with that, too, I guess.”
Cam couldn’t help himself. He rubbed a hand down her back. “That wasn’t meant as a criticism.”
She shifted ever so slightly into his touch. “I suppose I stay wound pretty tight.”
“Don’t apologize. You’ve got reason to be.” As they walked, he noted the fine lines of strain still around her eyes and guessed she still hadn’t come clean to Miranda about her job. But he said nothing, placing a hand at the small of her back to steer her toward the fountain. “That’s what hooky is for, anyway. Finding your way to unwind.”
“Would you believe I have never played hooky in my life?”
He glanced at her, this type-A, perfectionist overachiever, with a strong moral compass and staunch belief in The Rules, and smiled. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me about you. But rumor has it you’re a quick study for anything you set your mind to.”
“I do have that reputation. So what are the rules of playing hooky?”
“Rule 1: Never feel guilty for playing hooky.”
“Well, I’m not the one legitimately playing hooky today.”
“And I feel not a qualm about it, so we’re good on that front. It’s one of the best parts of being your own boss. Rule 2: Choose your company wisely. You want a partner in crime, not someone who will bail on you if things get dicey.”
She laughed. “And what constitutes dicey for grown ups who don’t have the threat of detention or parents?”
“Woman, there is no statute of limitations on parental disapproval when you live in the same town. Especially not a small town where everybody knows everybody else. Do you have any idea how hard it was getting away with anything when we were teenagers?”
“Somehow, I imagine you and Mitch still managed just fine.”
“Well, necessity is the mother of invention. It was more often me and Tucker McGee and our friend Brody—he’s not here anymore—sometimes Miranda, though she was more goody two shoes. Mitch was three years ahead of us in school.”
“I can’t wrap my brain around what that’s like. Growing up in one place, having friends for that long. I bounced around so much after my parents’ divorce that I didn’t make connections with people. Not really. Not until Miranda. And if she didn’t hang on as tightly as she does, I don’t know if I’d have kept up with her as well as I have. You’re really lucky to have that.” There was no mistaking the expression of longing on her face.
Cam didn’t know what to say. He’d never given a thought to having that foundation to fall back on. It simply was. Friends. Family. Community. You fought with them and fought for them because that’s what you did for what you loved. It hurt him to think she’d never known that, and he wondered what she fought for in their stead, wondered, too, why he was aching for a woman he barely knew.
“We don’t mind sharing.”
That made her smile. “I know. Which is why I’ve shamelessly adopted your entire family.”
“Does that make us cousins in a complicated, Southern sort of way? Because this is Mississippi and we definitely don’t need any more fodder for jokes around here.”
“You mean, like, the fact that there’s still a law on the books that says three women in a room together, barefoot, makes a orgy?”
“What?”