Only in Your Dreams (The Mountains are Calling #2)

12. Finley

The best part of summer in Fontana Ridge is, without a doubt, the county fair. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in town attends at least one day. There are funnel cakes and pie-baking competitions. Carnival rides and the best lemonade you’ll ever have in your life. Kids participating in 4-H and a temporary farmers’ market.

For as long as I’ve been alive, my family has attended the fair on Thursdays. Sometimes Holden and I would come throughout the week with friends, but Thursdays were the days Mom took off from work, loaded us into her tiny car, and headed across town to the fairgrounds. We’d spend the day riding poorly constructed rides run by high teenagers and ex-cons. We’d eat our weight in fried food and complain about the heat and humidity. And at night, we’d attend the rodeo. Mom and I would always root for whichever bull rider was the hottest, and Holden would groan under his breath and usually bring a book to read between events. He hated the crowds and the noise, but Mom and I loved it.

Today is Thursday, and we’re headed to the fair. But this time, I’m not in a car with my mom or with Holden and his little family. Grey picks me up from Unlikely Places, leaving his truck idling out front.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he says as he walks through the front door.

He’s wearing a hat today. It’s backward, pushing his hair out beneath the rim. His skin is darker, cheeks red and freckled like he’s spent time out in the sun. His jeans are slung low on his hips, and the heather green tee he’s wearing is so worn it’s basically transparent. I’m sure it would disintegrate in the rain.

I roll my eyes at him. “We’re alone in here. You don’t need to call me that.”

He grins at me, dimple popping in his left cheek. “I like it. It suits you. You’re sweet to everyone,” he says, and then his grin widens, turning cheeky. “Except me, of course.”

“Of course.”

After closing out the register, I come around the counter, and Grey’s eyes widen as he takes in my outfit.

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s rodeo day,” I say, defiant.

I’m wearing tiny denim shorts and a shirt that says Giddy Up on the front in rope letters. But that’s not what he’s looking at. It’s the cherry red boots on my feet.

“You always wear those, and you always complain.”

I kick out one foot, prop a hand on my hip. “I don’t always wear these. They’re new.”

His eyes roll so hard I’m sure he’s seeing stars. “You always wear boots ,” he clarifies. “Did you even break them in?”

“Yes.”

No.

He watches me, pale eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Liar.”

I let out an aggrieved sigh. “Fine. No, I didn’t. But I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not carrying you.”

“Did I ask you to?” I challenge, quirking both brows.

He gives me an equally challenging look. “Not yet.”

This feels good. Normal. Unlike whatever has been going on between us for the last few weeks. I’ve been twisted up, unsure about where we stand, unsure of how I feel about him. But this is right. This is us in our usual roles, pushing each other’s buttons.

“You carry people for a living,” I shoot back, the anxious knot that’s been growing inside me since we started this whole charade finally starting to unravel.

He moves closer, invading my space. I always forget how big he is until he’s this close. He’s much larger than Gus, who is my height and lean. Larger, even, than Holden, who is tall and built from all his contractor work. Grey is giant because of genes and working out for a living. But even if he were to quit firefighting, he’d stay overwhelming.

“That’s not even remotely true,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts, forcing my attention from the breadth of his shoulders back up to his intriguing pale blue eyes. I can never tell what they remind me of. Ice on the lake in winter. The first clear day in spring. Giant, blooming blue hydrangeas. But even those comparisons don’t do them justice.

Now this is less familiar, but it’s infinitely more heady.

“But you’d carry me if I needed you to, right?” I’m flirting, I think. His body language changes, a tensing of his muscles that I see and want to feel. Pale eyes growing darker. Chest expanding like he’s taken a full breath and hasn’t let it go.

Finally, just when I think he’s not going to respond, he says, “Sure, sweetheart.”

It’s midmorning, but the fairgrounds are already packed as we follow directions to park the truck in a grassy lot. Every night, there’s a different show at the grandstand, rodeo night and monster truck night being the most popular. So while it’s going to get more crowded as the day goes on, there are already hundreds, if not thousands, of people here, roaming around the fair.

By the time we make it through the gates, I already know wearing the new boots was a mistake. But I’m determined not to let Grey know. He was normal on the ride over, but my heart is still beating at an irregular rhythm. He’s a flirt, but I’m not, and I don’t know what to make of the interaction in my shop, what he meant by it. What I meant by it. I can still hear the scrape of his voice as he called me sweetheart, like nails running down my spine. It makes me shiver.

Grey looks over at me, confused. “There’s no way you’re cold.”

I shake my head. “Not at all.”

The fairgrounds are steaming. It’s an unusually hot day, but with the number of people and animals here, I can already feel sweat beading on my skin.

“Are we meeting Holden and Wren?” he asks, leaning close to my ear so I can hear him over the noise of conversations all around us.

I nod and point at the big red barn in the center of the fairgrounds, where the 4-H kids show their various arts and crafts. Last year, June decided she wanted to take up needlepoint, so she and Wren dove in headfirst. This year, she’s competing with a landscape she stitched of some overlook she, Holden, and Wren like to go to. It’s going to hang in the new baby’s nursery, she told me when we had a girls’ night last week. I’ve never seen anyone so excited to have a sibling.

“Arts and crafts barn,” I tell him, and he starts pushing through the crowds of people. I have to lengthen my strides, but even with the effort, I can hardly keep up with him. People part for him, but they don’t seem to see me. When he looks back, he finds me several paces behind him.

He stops right in the middle of the dirt path, blocking the line for a funnel cake stand. I finally reach him, and he holds out his hand, palm down, waiting to envelop mine. I hesitate for only a moment before slipping my hand into his. I’ve held his hand before, I know I have. Although I can’t pinpoint an exact time. I know I won’t forget this time, though. It feels different. For starters, his fingers link through mine, like he would hold the hand of a woman he’s seeing. And I guess he is.

His hand is so much larger than mine, and he’s stronger, obviously. So when he pulls me closer to him as we wind through the crowds of people, I can’t resist. I don’t think I’m trying.

When we get to the barn, I expect him to let go. It’s much less crowded here. But he doesn’t, and I don’t either. And then we’re just holding hands for the feel of it. Or the look of it. I’m not sure anymore.

We find Holden, Wren, June, and Mom at a display near the back with the other young elementary projects. June’s is easily the best, and that’s not just the proud aunt in me. I guess June inherited her artistic talent from her mother, Mia, although it’s Wren who’s cultivating it.

Wren’s eyes catch on mine, toggling back and forth between our joined hands. She looks ecstatic, but I only shrug. I don’t know what this means any better than she does.

Twenty minutes later, we’re making our way back out of the barn and into the hordes of people once more, in search of fried food and cool drinks. We spend the morning rotating between food lines and ride lines. June wants to ride everything and eat everything in sight, and I’m no different. Wren avoids most of it, since she’s been dealing with morning sickness, but somehow, she stays peppy. Holden is grumpy, but in his signature way. He tries to keep June from eating too much junk food, but it’s no use.

And through it all, Grey keeps hold of my hand. Even when they grow clammy and sticky from powdered sugar and hand sanitizer that smells like a distillery. Our bodies are damp with sweat. Everywhere we touch is slick. I’m sure, physically, it would be more comfortable to let go, but neither of us does.

Grey is holding a thin paper plate covered in powdered sugar and fried dough for me while we wait in line for the zero-gravity spinning ride. I rip giant pieces off with my free hand and stuff them into my mouth as we draw closer to the front of the line. June wasn’t tall enough for this ride, so it’s just us, while Holden and June wait to ride on spinning strawberries.

“We can just throw it away,” he says, his lips curled in a smile as he watches me fill my mouth with another huge bite. I’m sure I have chipmunk cheeks. “I can buy you another one when we get off.”

“Oh, you’re made of money, huh?” I say around the bite in my mouth.

He laughs, and I feel it in every place we’re touching. Hands and hips and shoulders. “Very much no.” Then, leaning closer, he whispers, “I’m saving up in case there’s ever a bookstore opening in this town. I’d love to invest.”

I stare up at him, eyes wide, and his smile grows. His hand drops mine, and I’m momentarily sad at the loss. But then he reaches up, smoothing his thumb over my bottom lip. It comes away white, and my heart picks up its rhythm when he licks it off.

“Powdered sugar,” he tells me.

I say, “You’re really good at this.”

His brows bunch together in question. “At what?”

I’ve never noticed how imperfect his face is from a technical standpoint. I’m trained to look for patterns, colors, and his face is contrary in every way. His eyes are much too light for his tan skin. There’s a scar above his left eyebrow, thin and paler than the rest of his face. He’s always got stubble on his cheeks, but it never grows much longer than that. His brows are just a hair from being too thick. And there’s just that one dimple, when there should be two.

But regardless of the imperfections, he’s breathtaking. Handsome in a way that feels unreal. Not the kind of sanitized, airbrushed beauty in mainstream media, but a kind that you wouldn’t expect. Stunning in all the imperfections, the way art that’s flawed and rough around the edges tends to be the most treasured.

I swallow back the words I want to say: that I’m starting to see him differently, that I want to know how he sees me. Instead, I say, “At pretending.”

His face changes, his smile growing warmer, softer. Eyes searching. He leans closer, and I feel his lips on my ear. “Who says I’m pretending, Fin? Maybe I just wanted to see if you’re as sweet as you look.”

A shiver runs down my spine, and heat gathers low in my belly. It’s wholly unfamiliar, because this is Grey , but it’s not unwelcome.

I blink up at him, searching for words, and he just watches me, that smile still in place. He looks like he knows he shocked me, and he’s pleased. Before I have a chance to respond, we reach the front of the line, and the teenager working in the booth asks for our tickets. He’s sunburned and sweaty and utterly bored with us.

Grey reaches out to toss the rest of the funnel cake into the trash, but I snatch it up, stuffing the rest into my mouth so I don’t say something stupid. I’m still chewing as we step up between our bars and the ride starts, spinning slowly at first before picking up speed.

I’ve been on this ride before, and one thing I remember is that when it really gets going, pushing you up against the metal at your back with the force of gravity, everything blurs. That happens now too, of course. But what I’ve never done before is look directly beside me. Everything in front of me is a blur of motion, and I can’t see the people across from me in the giant cylinder, but I can see Grey beside me, grin fanned wide over his face as he looks back.

He looks like a beautiful mess, the hair spinning furiously where it sticks out beneath his hat, and I wonder how I look to him. If he’s ever looked at me and been surprised to notice my beauty before. If he’s ever felt attracted to me the way I feel to him right now. If he ever feels that pulse low in his stomach, in the tips of his fingers, urging him to reach out and touch my skin the way I want to do with his.

We’re holding on to the bars next to our heads, but he moves his left hand, covering my right on the bar, and I feel heady, wanting, in a way I haven’t in a long time. Much longer than seven months. Maybe I’ve never felt like this before.

And then my stomach turns over, all the hot, fried dough spinning with the motion of the ride, and nausea hits me with full force. I slip my hand out from beneath his, covering my mouth, and his eyes blow wide.

I absolutely cannot barf in a giant spinning chamber. Where would it even go? It’s too horrifying to contemplate, and it takes every bit of my mental energy to focus on keeping all the food down.

Sweat is breaking out on my forehead from exertion as the ride finally, finally begins to slow. I’m the first one off, Grey right behind me. I barely make it to the trash can where he tossed my empty plate before throwing up in it.

I feel his warm hands on my neck, catching my wind-tangled hair and holding it back. The hot breeze feels nice against my damp skin, and suddenly, this entire situation triggers a memory.

One from seven months ago. Grey’s hands on my neck, holding back my hair as I retched in my bathroom after Wren and Holden’s wedding. He took care of me then. He was so sweet, so attentive, like he is right now, whispering unintelligible encouragement in my ear. But then he said something that I wanted to remember to ask him about when my mind was clear and I could focus on his answer.

I hadn’t remembered, and it had evaporated in the drunken haze of the night. But the words materialize now.

There’s only one woman I’ve ever wanted in Fontana Ridge, Finley.