Page 62 of Dandelion Sighs

Our bath was like that treat. The condom was on the edge of the tub if we went that far. For now, I was enjoying having complete access to Sheridan. I got another side to her that was more than work, chatter, or sex. Intimacy. I should’ve left, but I’d lap all this up while I could.

Her damp hair was planted on my chest. She rested her arms on my knees, and her feet were on the wall by the faucet. When the water got chilly, she’d turn on the hot water and warm us up.

“A soaking tub would be nice,” she murmured.

“If I ever build a house, it’ll have one.”

“Mmm.” She trailed her fingers in the water. We’d have to drain some or risk splashing it over the sides. “I’m thinking of renting this one out.”

“You are?” I stopped scooping warm water onto her chest to keep her from getting cold. “You want to move?”

“No, I just thought of it.” She swirled her fingers in the water, displacing bubbles. “I’m not sure. I’m not attached to it, so I could rent it. What if I could get an income for it for weeks or months?”

“Would you be paying for your own place, though?” My meal crawled its way up my throat. What if renting the cabin was the first step in distancing herself from the resort? Would leaving her mom’s old house make it all easier to sell and move? She had the heart to save this place, but she was also a realist deep down.

I was stretching, but the “what-ifs” bothered me that much.

“Yes, but I don’t need more than a bedroom and bathroom.” She carefully sat forward and opened the drain. Goose bumps lined her arms when she turned the hot water on. “I think someone would even rent this place for the winter. Three bedrooms? A full kitchen.” She vibrated with more excitement as she went. “Fishermen. Hunters. Families in the summer. I could make a lot more on this house than I would pay for an apartment.”

My reflux calmed down. She wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t selling and moving. Yet.

“When I was cleaning earlier, I was thinking about what you said. What makes this resort better than a bigger, more commercial one? The restaurant makes us stand out. But people keep coming back. They want more room, and they want to stay longer, but it’s not financially feasible to rent two rooms for a week.”

“You’d get more money for the two rooms.”

“They end up paying more and not getting that much more space. The next time, guests might look for a different place to rent. What if they paid that much for a house and decided they’d stay longer?”

“Like a cabin.”

She turned the water off. “Yep. There aren’t any cabin rentals around the lake except for the state park, but I remember people talking with Dad. They’d complain about having to pack everything to be gone for a long weekend or a whole week, but then they needed bedding and towels too. I’d only have one cabin, but if I can’t buy the property, then maybe I could build another place. A small one.”

She could. There was space on the property around her house. “I could help with that.”

She twisted in the water and snuggled against my chest. “Maybe. At some point, I have to quit relying on you.”

Nothing about that statement increased my contentedness. I loved watching her shine, and caring for her was its own special reward. It wasn’t because she was needy. It was because she didn’t do it for herself. “I work for you. So you can rely on me.”

She lifted her head and faced me as best she could, water sloshing along the sides. “You want to be a maintenance guy for a career now? Lack of benefits aside, you want to work with no guarantee that Bishop’s Landing will stay open once the new place goes live?”

“I haven’t thought about it.” She’d been thinking about it, though. Because Sheridan didn’t coast through life. “What if I tried talking to Linda? I mean, there’s a ready-made cabin sitting there.”

“She’s made a decision about selling?”

“I haven’t asked yet.”

“I can’t bank on it. She owes me nothing, and it’s clear she’s waiting out the stipulations. Planning an expansion when I’m already struggling requires facts.”

“I get it.” Sheridan was slowly writing me and my family off. I didn’t want her dependent on me, but what other reason would she have to be around me? If I wasn’t useful, what would she see in me beyond a good orgasm? What did I have to give her? “I really am sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s a big decision, and your siblings might be happy, but we would’ve been going into a marriage planning for divorce. That has to mess with the mind.”

“Yeah.” Especially when I’d been left at my lowest already. “I don’t think getting divorced by you would feel good.”

“Don’t know about that. My exes all moved on really fast. In fact, two of them were married before the year anniversary of our breakup.”

I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “So you’re telling me that I did myself the biggest disservice? I would’ve found the love of my life after we said ‘I don’t’?”

She built bubbles into a pyramid. “Yep. Now we’re just messing around. But don’t worry. I’m sure once you find that dream job you’ve been waiting for, your boss will be a single woman dying to sleep with her employee.”