Page 49 of Lucky Haven

“Come to the ranch with me on your next day off. Say yes to that. That’s your dare right now. Don’t overthink it, don’t worry about what my family will think, or if we’re lying to them. Come out to the ranch and let me show you how easy and safe it is to just…be there.”

I wasn’t expecting to say all of that to her, but now that it floods out, it feels damn right.

“Yes,” she whispers. And there’s a lot loaded into that tiny single syllable. But she pushes past it fast. “Your turn again. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“What did you think happened between Jeb and myself, after you were convicted?”

“Nothing,” I say real fucking quick. Because I know that to be the truth. She doesn’t owe me any explanation.

But the rumours swirl, and she’s aware of them.

Maybe I’m a safe person to practice confronting them with.

“I didn’t seduce him.” Her chin lifts as her eyes go painfully bright. “He told me he’d waited more than long enough. I told him he would wait forever. I should have told him that years earlier, apparently, because by the next day, people were looking at me differently.”

“The next day? Not after you left town?”

She shakes her head. “That’s how it morphed over time. That I fled town, and that’s when he realized I wasn’t serious about a Godly relationship with him. But he was constructing that before I left.”

I really regret being civil this morning.

She puffs out her cheeks. “Your turn again.”

We need to lighten this up.

“Dare,” I say.

“Oh, no.” She presses her lips together. “I can’t think of another one.”

I have a small kitchen, and I make it smaller by crowding her against the counter, bracing my hands on either side of her hips.

“I’m sure you can,” I say.

Her gaze drops to my mouth.

I smirk.

“Should I dare you to kiss me?”

Fuck. I crush my lips to hers, hungry now and not for dinner.

She wraps her arms around my neck, holding me down and returning the kiss.

But when we break apart, both of us breathing, she doesn’t give an inch. She taps her index finger against my mouth. “That was a question, not a dare.”

I growl and catch the tip of her finger between my teeth.

She looks adorably flustered as she flails for anything to keep the game going. “I…dare you to drink a teaspoon of soy sauce.”

I suck at the tip of her finger, making her shudder before I release her hand and straighten up. “Pass.”

“You can’t just—there has to be a penalty for passing.”

“Another kiss.”

She opens her mouth, closes it. “That’s not a penalty.”