“Are you going to have to go back?” She wasn’t looking at him. Her long lashes were swept down, muscle knotted tightly around every vertebra in her spine. He reached over and smoothed his palm down her back, aching in all the space between his ears that he’d forced into silence.

He knew the answer to her question.

But he also knew that the touch of his fingers could ease the tension in her muscles. He wanted her brilliant-green eyes to look his way and brighten with the laughter he could always tease out of her.

He didn’t want to admit his life in Montana had been a pipe dream, one a part of him had always known couldn’t last.

Eighteen

When they’d first come out onto the porch, Andra had been starving. Now she was just nauseated. Her stomach twisted so tightly she couldn’t quite sit up straight, even with LJ’s hand soothing its way down her back, rubbing the knots out of muscles she hadn’t even known she was clenching.

LJ had been different lately, more and more sadness creeping in around the edges of his brilliant smile. He talked about his home more often, and it was becoming clear the greater part of him was still anchored there. She bit the inside of her lip. His fingers danced lightly down her back, but her body was a wad of old bolts, all rusted together.

She couldn’t imagine knowing your parent needed your help and being so far away. She couldn’t imagine what would ever hold him here if his mama asked him to go.

“Hey, come over here,” LJ murmured. She moved almost too quickly, glad he was missing her touch, too. He guided her into his lap, and his arms wrapped around her, his chest so wide there was plenty of room for her to curl in beneath his chin. “Didn’t mean to let my mood get you down, Andie-girl,” he murmured.

She shook her head, her hair catching on the button of his shirt. “Wasn’t your fault.”

The warmth of his skin melted through her, starting in all the places where they touched and sighing its way in further, her muscles relaxing as if under a deep massage. The way she felt when LJ touched her . . . it wasn’t a feeling she could remember from any other time in her life. Not even in middle school, when simply holding hands could leave her breathless and giggling into the phone to Stacia long after she was supposed to be asleep.

If he left, would anything make her feel this way again?

The three days when she’d had dinner alone loomed in her memory, and she tilted her head up, hoping he would see the invitation.