Free Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle by Denise Hunter

the terror came from, but she didn’t need to understand it to react. She wanted him to take back the question, to set things back where they’d been.
    “We’re just friends, Landon.”
    He looked away, and the light from inside caught his eyes. When he looked back at Sam, she folded her arms across her stomach. “Come on, you know that’s not true.”
    Her pulse skittered. Fake it, Sam. Come on, say something. Anything. She grabbed onto an idea like a drowning person to a life preserver. “Maybe you should ask Melanie out.”
    He stared at her blankly. “Melanie?”
    Sam shrugged. “You’re two of the nicest people I know, and I was thinking you’d make a nice couple.” Even as she said it, her heart squeezed. She told herself to hang tight. Stand firm. Soon she would be back in the safety of Boston, and this unsettling fear would be a thing of the past.
    The way he was looking at her with those wounded eyes didn’t help. Like she’d just slammed a two-by-four into his head for no reason.
    “I don’t want to go out with Melanie. I want to go out with you.”
    He wasn’t making this easy. On either of them. She looked at the boards on the porch floor. “I don’t think so, Landon. It wouldn’t work.”
    “How will you know until you give it a chance?”
    Why did his tone have to beckon her like that? She hated the clash going on inside her. Fear of saying yes versus the pain of saying no. It wasn’t a fair fight. “I can’t.”
    He studied her, and she shifted, crossing her arms.
    “No reason?” His voice was steady and deep—just like he was. “Just ‘I can’t’?”
    Sam looked at the dark fingers of the tree limbs reaching into the sky, at the bits of sand that coated the deck, at anything other than Landon’s face. Her mind emptied of any rational response.
    His hand lifted her chin until their eyes met. “Still pushing me away, Sam?”
    “No.” The word was a breath. Her insides quaked with the turmoil. She prayed her feelings weren’t obvious to him.
    He let go of her chin, but his attention remained fastened on her. “What are you so afraid of?”
    “Nothing.”
    He shook his head slowly. “It’s written all over your face. Just like it was that day out on the boat.”
    She didn’t have to ask what day he was talking about. She looked away. How could she tell him he ignited the fear?
    He stepped back, and the distance left an empty spot that opened a chasm. Her shoulders sagged.
    “You win.” His lips tucked in on one corner. “For now.” He turned and left.
    Sam wrapped her arms around herself, guarding against the coolness of the night.

    Landon paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again. Max watched him, his forehead scrunched. Max’s toy frog lay in the middle of the floor, and Landon kicked it. From his spot next to the recliner, Max watched it bounce against the table leg, squeaking as it hit.
    “Too tired to chase, huh, boy?”
    He stopped by the window and looked across Miss Biddle’s yard at Sam’s cottage. He couldn’t believe she’d suggested he ask Melanie out. He wasn’t interested in Melanie. He only wanted Sam.
    He’d wanted her a long time, since that last summer. Before that, if he was honest with himself. Ever since Scott had dated her during their sophomore year.
    His friend had wanted to ask Sam out for weeks, and when Sam told Landon she was going out with Scott, something happened inside him. He wouldn’t define it as jealousy, more like protectiveness. Scott was a good friend, but he was fickle when it came to girls. Sam had been hurt enough, and the last thing she needed was someone toying with her.
    Scott and Sam went out on two dates, and it was after the second that Landon heard Scott pulling into Sam’s drive. It took everything in Landon not to get up off the pier, cross into her yard, and see if Scott was kissing her good night on her front porch. A full eight minutes passed before the old Ford rumbled away.
    A few minutes