“So you didn’t fall off the chair. Do you have any clue how clumsy you get when you’re distracted? You get this laser focus on something shiny, and everything else doesn’t exist, including your own feet. Trust me—I was saving you from yourself.”

“You kissed my forehead.” All pretense of play dropped in those hazel eyes.

I’d kissed a hell of a lot more than that in my kitchen. I swallowed and sat on the edge of the ledge that marked the shallow end. “You chose me over your dad.”

“You pulled me from my car and carried me home.”

I turned to fully face her, the water falling to my stomach. Cold air prickled at my chest, helping to ground me. “That was just being a good neighbor. Plus, the entire town didn’t see, so I don’t think it counts.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “Okay. You took a bullet for me.”

“Six,” I corrected her, feeling that sliver of terror at the reminder of how close I’d come to losing her. “It was six bullets. Buckshot.”

“I thought you were dying,” she admitted. “I didn’t know about the vest.”

“I thought he’d kill you before I could get out there.” I ran my hands over my air-cooled face.

“I thought about you before I saw you.” She shifted and sat up.

“What?” Game over.

“I saw the gun, and your dad was talking about cougars, and I thought about you.” She tucked her knees to her chest. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes.” Believing in anything earned you a shit ton of disappointment.

“I thought about you every single day, Cam.”

Fuck me, the woman wasn’t pulling her punches.

I did, too. But I couldn’t say those words. Couldn’t cross the lines I’d already stumbled across once. That had been passion and need, but to do so here would be choice. An unforgivable choice, and I’d already made one that broke her heart.

“I thought about you when you went to college and when you came home and stopped speaking to me. God, you were so cruel that summer.”

“I know.” The hurt in her eyes made me close mine.

“Why?”

My heart slammed in my chest, the reason screaming for release. To say the words I hadn’t been able to. Because she was everything that was good about Alba—about life, really. And he’d been that good, too.

And they’d been right together.

And I’d never be either of those things.

I looked over at her, and she sighed, realizing I wasn’t going to answer her.