Wes looked apprehensive as well. He turned pale watching the riders being tossed around at lightning speed. “I might sit this one out,” he said.

“Come on, Dad. Don’t be a wimp in front of Sarah,” Marissa said with a grin.

Lia shot an intrigued look between them as though wondering what Marissa was implying. Sarah’s cheeks flushed slightly, and she avoided Lia’s questioning gaze and pretended not to read absolutely everything into Marissa’s comment.

Wes sighed as he glanced at Sarah. “Apparently, I can’t be a wimp, but if you want to get us out of this…”

She desperately did, but she didn’t want to look like a wimp, either, so she shook her head. “We’re here, right? May as well go for it.”

Wes’s gaze lingered on hers a fraction too long, and her heart raced.

What else should they go for?

Right now, she’d like to go all in. There had been a moment in the den earlier that day when it felt like he was going to ask her out…before Marissa suggested the fairgrounds and Lia showed up, inviting herself along.

Staring at him now, she knew she would have said yes. Give in and put herself out there one last time for him.

Might be a risky move that would once again lead to heartache, but she’d never been successful repressing her feelings for him. And that night, he looked amazing in a pair of board shorts, sandals, and a shirt unbuttoned down his chest. His dirty jeans, bare chest, and work boots was still her favorite look, but this casual, relaxed air around him that evening reminded her of the guy she used to know in high school, and that familiarity combined with the new sexual attraction she was fighting made him impossibly tempting.

“Okay, I guess we’re doing it,” Wes said, and they fell into step behind Lia and Marissa as they joined the long line waiting for the ride.

Sarah stared up at it. From a distance, it hadn’t looked so bad. Up close, she could see how scary it was. The mechanics holding it together looked slightly rusted with peeling paint, and those grinding noises couldn’t be good. The riders’ reactions were a combination of screams and laughter. She knew which one she’d be.

But there was a small kid on the ride, so it couldn’t be that bad, right? Though the little boy did look kinda green and petrified—the open-mouth, soundless expression plastered on his face each time his car passed them didn’t instill much confidence.

“This is going to be so awesome,” Marissa said, dancing from one foot to the other excitedly as they waited, her strawberry-blond braid swinging back and forth.