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“Yep.” Hunter turned his attention to the wood lying next to the boxes. “If you wanted, we could do an even bigger garden. We could have rows of gardens. I know the square for gardening has its benefits, but if you want to massively produce your salsa and sell it at your spa, or even do your citrus blends and make some of your herbs into ‘potions’—” He grinned at her as he made air quotes. “—we could massively expand that. We could build a shop for you with an outdoor kitchen and a huge stone table where you could keep all your herbs and everything. When the weather is bad, we could have a retractable ceiling, like a football dome."
She laughed. "Okay."
He grinned at her and moved to the fence line and inspected it. “I’d let Marshall and Trey help me rip this baby out pretty easy. I know Matt might have some equipment that would make this a really simple job.”
Cheryse’s heart pounded as she listened to Hunter go on and on about how she could expand her spa operation with her own herbal supplements. It felt like her dream had become his dream. Her eyes became misty, and tears threatened to fall. She wiped them away. Was it insane that she could see his vision? The two of them working side by side with her spa and the herbal products and all the things he was talking about.
“Now, if I was buying this property next door, I’d have to have a big shop. A big shop where I could fix motors—and not just motorcycles. No. I want to fix me some trucks, and I could add cars. I could have a little area where I put up my guitars.”
“We could put a studio in it for you,” she said, getting caught up in the idea. “So you could produce music and get it out there on all the platforms. I think you’d get a following with no problem. Plus, you could hold youth groups out there.”
He paused. “You think? I don’t know. I’m not sure exactly where my brand of music fits in. It’s dark. Well, it has been since Trent passed. But I like the youth group idea.”
She grinned at him and couldn’t help but hug him. “I think you’re coming out of the dark. Maybe you could do a mix of light in the dark.” She felt a little guilty that she liked being in his arms, but not enough to pull away. “You could be called the ‘one-eyed bandit.’”
Hunter laughed. “The one-eyed bandit. It sounds too minute, like the crime isn’t big enough.”
His assessment of the title made her laugh. “Oh, not bad enough for the bad-boy Navy SEAL?”
His grin widened. “That’s a better name.”
“Not as a pastor.”
“True.”
They fell into silence.
He stood and moved to the guitar he’d brought over. He pulled it out and started tinkering with it.
She loved watching him play.
“What?”
“Sing me something.”
“Only if you sing, too.”
“Okay.”
He played a Beatles song, and she joined in.
She remembered all the times when they were young and all the beach crew joined him while he sang.
After a bit, he stopped and put his hand over hers. “What’s up, Reese?”
Cheryse couldn’t help but reach up and lightly touch his eye patch. She’d been curious about it for a long time. Her heart raced, and this moment felt intimate. “Does it hurt? Like the skin, or where your eye used to be?”
Gingerly, Hunter peeled the patch off. For a second, she was nervous, not wanting to do or say the wrong thing. There was little indentation in his skin where the patch had been in place. And, of course, there was a scar over his eye.
He stared at her with his one good eye. “It’s tender sometimes.”
She wanted to soothe him. She wanted so many things with this man. It wasn’t right or wrong; it was just a truth that had always been there. Like gravity. She traced around his eye, then carefully touched the scar itself.
Hunter sucked in a breath and then sighed. “It actually feels kind of good to have it touched.”
Compassion brewed within her as she thought about all this man had been through since Trent passed away. “I know we’ve been through a lot, but I want you to know something.”
He took her hand and interlaced their fingers.
