“Hey, I’m not messing with her. I’m treating her with the respect she deserves.”“The same respect you gave me when you stole Amanda away from me?”“I can’t change the past, Ronnie,” Langston says. “And keep your voice down. Hayden is right in that tent. I don’t want you yelling stuff about his mom in front of him.”“Ronnie, there’s nothing wrong with Langston. And if you like him so much, then why shouldn’t I be allowed to date him?” I don’t intend to let things go too far with Langston, but that should be my choice, not Ronnie’s. It has nothing to do with him.“Langston took Amanda from me. What’s to say he won’t betray you in the end too?”“That was a long time ago, Ronnie. Why can’t you just forgive and forget?” I ask.Ronnie crosses his arms and glares at Langston stubbornly. “If you don’t stay away from my sister, we’re through.” He gets up, clicks on his flashlight, and heads down the path toward home.Once he’s out of earshot, Langston says in a lowered voice, “If Ronnie wants
JENNIIjolt awake. The woods are silent around my tent, and I can’t tell what might have woken me up. But my heart is racing. “Langston?”There’s no sound, and now my skin is starting to crawl. I sit up in my sleeping bag and rub my eyes. My phone says it’s three in the morning. I sigh and lay back down. Maybe I was just having a bad dream that I can’t remember now.But then there’s a scratching sound on the side of my tent coming from the outside.“Langston? Are you guys awake?”Neither Langston or Hayden respond, and now I’m getting freaked out.Then as I wake more, my mind clears, and I remember that I’d overheard Langston and Hayden plotting to play pranks on me. I open my sleeping bag silently and slither out of it and crouch next to the tent wall where the noise has been coming from. I growl ferociously and shake the tent like it’s an earthquake. I expect to hear them scream or giggle or something, but there’s only a scrambling sound, rustling the leaves on the ground around the
“Well, he told me he loves animals and wants to be a vet one day,” Jenni says.“Maybe we can take him to visit the pet shelter or something.”Hayden bends to get a stick that’s about five feet long.“That one might be a little big for our fire.” I cross the campsite to where he’s struggling with the unruly branch.“We can chop it up with an axe,” Hayden says.“I’m afraid I’m fresh out of axes.” And Amanda wouldn’t be too happy about me giving her kid sharp, dangerous objects anyway. “But I have an idea.” I prop it up against a fallen tree. “Come jump on this, Hayden.”He’s more than happy to oblige. He pounces on the poor branch until it’s broken in lots of small pieces. “How ‘bout them apples?” he exclaims.Jenni and I laugh. “Where does he come up with this stuff?” Jenni says, shaking her head.I crouch in the dirt with Hayden near the fire ring and teach him how to arrange the sticks in a formation that’s conducive to keeping a flame alive. “There you go,” I say once it’s caught fi
LANGSTONWe approach Amanda at my parents’ house after our riding session when it’s time to return Hayden to his mom for the night.“Mom, can I please go camping with Dad and Jenni? They said we can take horses to the campsite and everything.”She looks between us. “Are you sure you’re ready for a big step like this?” He still hasn’t spent the night with me yet, and Amanda had planned on him spending several days with me until spring break is over.“As long as it’s all right with your dad, I don’t see why you can’t go. When did you want to do it?”“I was thinking tomorrow night. School starts back up on Monday, and this could be a fun way to finish off his spring break.” I love how he invited Jenni along. I glance over at her. “Would you like to come with us?”She glows at the invitation. “I’d love to. That sounds really fun.”And now it feels like we’re about to be one big happy family, and I can’t help the way it’s making my heart grow warm. I’m falling more for this woman every day
“Did he tell you we have a big race coming up?” I ask, bending down to Hayden’s level.“Yeah, the Blue Mountain Derby, and he’s racing against your horse, Mushroom.”“Marshmallow,” I correct. “And Marshmallow isn’t my racehorse. It’s Valentine.”“Oh, marshmallows are a much yummier food.” Hayden grins. “Hey, Dad? Can we have s’mores?”“I think we can make that happen,” Langston says. “Have you ever been camping before?”“No. My mom hates bugs, so she’s never taken me.”This poor kid. He’s missed out on so much by not having a dad around. Every eight-year-old needs to experience camping with their dad.“Would you like to go?” I ask. “Because I happen to love camping, and Langston has a lot of land. There’s even a cool camping spot we like to go to. Usually, he goes with my brother Ronnie, but sometimes they let me tag along too.”Hayden’s eyes get big and round. “Really? Do you think my mom would let me?”“We can ask her,” Langston says. “But if she says no, we can’t argue with her.”W
JENNILangston is right. Our kiss was a mistake. The fake romance is turning real, and I’m not prepared for that. I didn’t think it would happen. Langston and me? Nah.But that kiss was on fire. The tension between Langston and me has been heating up, and I’d gotten to the point that I wanted the kiss. A little too much. Falling for Langston was never part of the plan. This was supposed to be a fake romance, not a real one. Because now there are feelings involved, and that makes this complicated.Langston is the kind of guy I could see myself with long term. I could see us getting serious and quickly. We already have both our parents rooting for us. Everyone already thinks we’re an item. So why not just let it be real?Because Langston deserves a woman who can have the babies his mom wants from him. That woman could never be me. Sure, he has Hayden now, but he’s going to want to hold his future children in his arms as newborns. That was taken from him. If anything permanent ever happe