Page 12 of Say it Ain’t So

“Then don’t.” Rylan lifted my hand from my lap, stringing his fingers between mine. I opened my eyes and got lost in his. “Don’t go home to that. This is your chance to break the cycle. To escape him and live somewhere safe, around people who won’t hurt you. People who… just want to see you smile.”

At that, I did smile—a tiny curl of my lips that grew as Rylan’s did the same.

“There it is.” He chucked me under the chin with his finger before swiping his thumb across my lips. “Gorgeous.”

The Las Vegas heat swarmed through me, turning my face and neck into what had to be a steaming, bright red. I ducked my chin and let him pull away. Once he took a bite of his gelato, I followed suit.

“Tell me, where is home?” Though he looked casual, like he was just making small talk, I couldn’t shake the feeling that every ounce of his attention was focused on me. Like the slow movement of his mouth, the bowl clutched in one hand and the spoon in the other, were just a show.

It was… unnerving. And yet, I didn’t want it to stop.

“Right now, in Minnesota. But I’m from across the border in North Dakota.”

“Really?” He leaned forward, eyes sparkling and smile growing wide. “I’ve never met anyone from North Dakota before.”

I couldn’t help it; I rolled my eyes.

“What’s that for?”

Grabbing my napkin from the table, I wiped my lips. Rylan had his head cocked to one side, a little furrow in his brow. I shrugged.

“People always have these preconceived notions of what North Dakotans are like.”

His lips twisted up into the most handsome, most irritating smirk. “Really?”

“Yes, we had horses and sometimes it was just plain easier to take a horse to my friend’s house than to ride a bike out on the road. But we didn’t ride them to school or have carriages to take us into town. Our cars worked just fine, thank you very much.” I frowned. “Providing you remembered to plug them in during the winter. And riding snowmobiles to school was perfectly normal. Lots of people did it.”

Rylan’s tongue traced across his crooked smirk. “That sounds fascinating.”

I huffed out a breath and dropped my spoon into my cup. “And yes, we have ice cream and the internet. We may be a little behind on trends, but that doesn’t mean we’re all homesteaders, making our floral dresses and looking like we grew up on Little House on the Prairie. I mean… Except…”

“Except what?”

My gaze darted to the white wisps of clouds hovering in the sky. “I may have made my sundress. But that’s because I found the fabric in my grandmother’s sewing room, and it was too cute to pass up.”

“It was very cute.”

“Right?” I looked back at him, only to find that smirk still in place. I scratched at my neck, then forced myself to stop by crossing my arms over my chest. “I grew up in a zoo, not a homestead. Just because I know how to sew, doesn’t mean we⁠—”

“Wait, what?” Rylan’s big hand landed on my thigh, higher than it had been earlier. My mouth, which had felt dry as the desert around us a second before, suddenly felt flooded with moisture the same way my body was awash with heat.

That heat only spread as he leaned in closer, his other hand curling around the back of my other calf before he was tugging me toward him. Nearly pulling me right out of my chair.

He was so close, closer than he’d been since he swung me in his arms back at the landing zone. My skin tingled where he touched me, and I swore he’d stolen the breath straight from my chest.

“Did you just say you grew up in a zoo?”

My head jerked back, and I blinked, not once but five times to clear away the lightheadedness that had overtaken me so I could focus on him. “Yes?”

His eyes dropped from mine to my lips, and I couldn’t stop from licking moisture back onto them. “Are you joking? A literal zoo?”

“A literal zoo. With tigers and bears and all that.”

“Your parents owned a zoo?”

I shrugged, then cursed myself for that movement. Rylan brought his eyes back to mine. “The city owned it, not my parents. But they ran it. And me and my siblings had to help.”

His face twitched like he was holding back a laugh. His fingers smoothed across the skin of my legs, stealing my sanity as he dragged me forward to the edge of my chair. “Tell me more.”