She tucked her chin between her knees and rocked onto her tailbone, pointing her toes. “Gosh, all over. When I finished tenth grade, my family took a six-week camping trip out West.”

“Out West.”

He echoed the words as if tasting them.

“What did you see?” he asked

“Oh, huge canyons and the Great Plains and the desert. I loved the Rocky Mountains most. Colorado was my favorite state. Even in summer, snow tips the highest peaks, and the fields are blanketed with flowers.” Her lungs quivered with the remembered exhilaration of hiking to a Rocky Mountain summit. “The mountains there are nothing like ours. They’re rough and craggy and so, so tall. They make a person feel small.” Those kissable creases cleft his cheek. She caught a flash of white teeth.

“You liked that?”

She shivered. “I did. I don’t know why. They’re so big they scare me, but the energy out there is magnetic. Sometimes I feel these rolling ridges lull me to sleep. The Rockies throw you out of bed every morning and say, come and get me.”

“Colorado,” he repeated.

“Colorado.” She stretched out on her back, tossing the stone from hand to hand. “The storms out there are massive. You see them come across the plains from miles away, and then they just descend on you.”

His brows rose. “Bigger than the storm we watched on your porch?”

“Way bigger.” Deep longing darkened his gaze.

“I’ve never been outside of Pennsylvania.”

She shoved the stone into her pocket. She understood now why he’d never traveled. His life was woven into the fabric of this countryside. “Do you really think Rebecca will leave?”

“I know it.”

She winced. The world was punishing. Rebecca had spunk to spare, but without her community and Jonas, she would be lost. “How?”

“She knows she will. That certainty is enough at any age.” He took her shoulder and coaxed her onto her side.

Nose to nose, she reveled in the joy of simply looking at him. Up close, his face was rougher than she realized. Fine lines traversed his forehead, and another small scar, pale against brown skin, ran just beneath his chin. She touched the rounded rise of his shoulder, running her fingers over the muscle and down his bare arm. Gooseflesh prickled the hairs, and he quivered like an aspen leaf. Her skin flushed. She longed to lay her head on his chest and fall asleep, safe in the circle of his arms.

“A gift,” he said again and lifted one cheek in a crooked grin.

She pursed her lips then relaxed them into a languid smile.

His eyes darkened.

Her belly tripped, and she caught the tiniest bit of lower lip between her teeth. How delicious to know she moved him.

Lifting his chin, he kissed her with slow tenderness.