He was such an intensely beautiful man.

The strong slash of his dark brows, his dark lashes. That mouth. She wanted to lick it. All the time. She’d never understood the giggling obsession girls around her in high school had had with boys.

She felt like giggling around Gabe. She felt obsessed.

He stirred, opening his eyes, those blue eyes hitting her somewhere deep in her soul. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she said. “Thank you for yet again holding me through another emotional breakdown.”

“Sorry that there wasn’t any hot chocolate.”

“The trout was pretty good. And anyway, we can have some campfire coffee this morning.”

“Can we?”

She stretched. “Yes,” she said, some of the stretch lingering in her voice. “But one of us has to go out in the cold and start the fire.”

“I think that falls under the purview of pioneer woman.”

“No,” she said stubbornly. “I think that’s men’s work.”

“No, pretty sure men chop wood, and women stoke fires. The wood has been chopped. So...”

“That’s not chivalrous,” she pointed out.

“Oh, I didn’t know you wanted chivalry. I thought you were a strong, independent woman.”

“I’ll bite you,” she said.

“I don’t think you—”

She sank her teeth into his shoulder and he growled, before climbing out of the tent, stark naked, and heading outside. “I’ll light the fire. But only because you’re crazy.”

She smiled, enjoying the view. Who would have ever thought that she, Jamie Dodge, would someday go camping and get to watch the most perfect male specimen she had ever seen start a campfire in the buff. It was a triumph that she hadn’t even known she might want to achieve.

“Be careful,” she warned as he got a flame going. “You have some very extreme exposure happening there.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I promise to protect all relevant parts of me. There is no way you can be more concerned about it than I am.”

“Hmm,” she said, “I think I can give you a run for concern there.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” he said.

Silence fell between them for a space, and Jamie decided she couldn’t let it go, not anymore.

“Are we going to talk about what’s wrong?” she asked.

“What?” he asked, getting the flame lit, and getting the blue-and-white-speckled pot placed over the flame.

“What’s going on with your family?”

The lines in his body went hard, all of his muscles tensing up. “There’s no need for us to have a discussion about that.”

“I’d like to.”

“It’s all related to the bullshit with my dad.”

“Yeah,” Jamie said. “I’m not all that surprised to hear that. But...I would like to know what exactly happened that’s kept you so busy that you couldn’t see me over the past few days.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Did you talk to your mom?”

“Jamie, it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” she said. “It matters because I...I care about you. And we’ve been sharing all this family stuff. All of it. I just...cried a trail of snot on you yesterday over a plate of trout. I think that you can say that I’m a safe space for you to tell me whatever’s going on with you.”