Free I Do! by Rachel Gibson Page B

making love wasn’t just a term interchangeable with sex. Making love is more than just using your dick. It makes you feel things in your heart, whether you want to or not.” And God knew, Daisy Lee had always made his chest ache as well as the rest of his body. “You’re a Parrish, son. You’re like the rest of us. Like me. You’re a one-woman man. If you think you’ve met that woman, you better not let her get away. I caused myself a world of hurt and misery when I let your mama get away.”
    BECCA CARRIED HER laundry into her apartment and set the basket on her sofa. A week ago, she’d gone to the lake with Nate. And it had taken one week to fall in love and get her heart broken. That was a new record.
    She reached for the remote and turned on her television, searching for something to catch her interest enough to keep her from thinking about Nate and the lake. Nate and the barn. Nate and his bed. Nate and his girlfriend.
    Just as she settled on a show, a loud knock at the door pulled her attention from Maury . She wasn’t expecting anyone, and when looked through the peephole, she gazed into a pair of blue eyes gazing back at her.
    “Open up. I know you’re in there. I saw you carry your laundry inside.”
    She hugged herself and swung the door open, because the last time he’d seen her she’d been walking from his house, crying her eyes out. This time she wanted him to see that she wasn’t crying over him anymore. “What do you want, Nate?”
    “I want to start over?”
    She shut the door behind him. “With your girlfriend, Holly Ann?”
    “Holly Ann isn’t my girlfriend.”
    She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Since when?”
    “Since Sunday. Since the beginning of the summer really. She was just never around so I could break up with her.”
    “There’s always a text.”
    “That’s cold.”
    “Guys have broken up with me through a dang text message. I got over it.”
    He nodded. “I probably should have done that, but I didn’t think it was necessary until I met you. I thought I’d talk to her when she got back, but then someone unplugged my iPod and gave me a concussion and I was never the same.”
    “You gave yourself a concussion.”
    He moved toward her and pushed a tendril of hair from her forehead. “I’m sorry, Becca.”
    “I broke my rules with you, Nate.”
    “I’m glad.”
    The backs of her eyes stung despite her hard resolve to show that he couldn’t make her cry. “You broke my heart.”
    “I’ll fix it, Becca.”
    She wasn’t so sure she should trust him. No, she was sure. She shouldn’t, but she was always willing to listen. “How?”
    “I want to start over with you. Start over and do things right.” He smiled and reached for her hand. “Instead of getting all annoyed with you because you gave me a concussion, I should have introduced myself.” He raised her hand and kissed the backs of her knuckles. “I should have said, ‘I’m Nathan Parrish and you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve laid eyes on.’ ”
    That was pretty good. “You’re kind of a sweet talker. You’ve probably said that to other girls.”
    “Never, but I’m not through. There’s more. I’m Nathan Parrish and you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve laid eyes on in my entire life.” He slid her hand to the back of his neck. “And at the risk of sounding like that crappy Partridge Family song, I think I love you.”
    That was really really good. She tried and failed to keep the smile from her lips. “I like that song.”
    “My daddy told me that Parrish men are susceptible to love at first sight,” he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “We’re one-woman men and when we find our woman, we better never let her go or we’ll spend a lot of years kicking ourselves in the ass.”
    “That sounds serious. And painful.”
    “If you’d asked me the day before you walked up my driveway in your red shoes, I would have said that I don’t believe in that kind of love.