Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5)(14)

Willa: What Cade is trying to say is that he misses you and worries about you.

Rhett: What Willa is trying to say is that she thinks you’re the sexiest Eaton brother and misses seeing you around because she’s stuck living with an ogre.

Cade: Get fucked, Rhett.

Summer: Cade, what Rhett is trying to say is that you’d be sexier with long hair.

Winter: Wrong.

Beau: Oh good, the family chat. Also, I agree with Winter.

Summer: We’re just worried about you, Beau. We like having you around.

Beau: Don’t worry. I’m fine. I’ll make the next one.



The giggle that filters back catches me off guard.

“First of all, it’s not your river.”

I expected it to be one of those Jansen assholes. But no. It’s their little sister with the wide eyes that stare at me from the other side of the bar. The one who doesn’t take my shit but tolerates my presence. Even when it’s stormy.

One reason I can’t sleep tonight.

One of many.

“Bailey?”

Her eyes widen as she takes in my bare chest. “How did you know I was here?”

Inky black hair shines under the bright moon as she pushes away from the log she was hiding behind. The water conceals her body, but above that line, my eyes hitch on her shoulders. The way the silvery light hits them—and the fact there are no straps in sight.

I scoff and blink away, not wanting to leer. “I’ve been a tier one operator for years. If I couldn’t pick out a civilian hiding in a river, I’d be dead already.”

She bobs in the water, and I drift closer to the edge. The creek must be under twenty feet across here and she’s pretty much smack dab in the middle.

I jut my chin out beyond her and shove my hands in the front pocket of my sweats. “There’s a pile of clothes on the shore.” Her head whips around to confirm, wet tendrils splaying over her slender shoulders. “Your body is disrupting the flow of water.” She glances down at herself now, at the way it folds around her in a different pattern than every other stream that passes. “And I could hear you breathing.”

Her head tilts to the side, all sass. “You could not hear me breathing.” Disbelief laces her words.

I like this sassy side of her. Before, when I’d come into the bar with my brothers, she always seemed so beaten down, so startled all the time. She made me want to save her. I just didn’t know how.

She’s stronger than I remember her, but I wonder if it’s all for show. I wonder if we’re the same that way.

But I just shrug. “Maybe I could feel you breathing. I don’t know how else to explain it. I could just sense it. You hone that sixth sense when your life is on the line.”

She stares at me, skin shimmering, reflecting the moonlight. I watch droplets of water roll down the front of her chest to the valley between her breasts.

She seems oblivious to how tempting she looks—to the way she affects me.

“Being able to twist a guy’s hand right off his body comes in handy too, I bet.”

I shift my gaze from the exposed top swells of her breasts to the river. “If you’re looking for an apology for that, you won’t get one.”

“I’m not.”

That has me turning my gaze back to her, trying to figure her out. “How long have you been coming here?”

A soft hum vibrates from her as she taps a finger against her pouty lips. “Trespassing to swim in your river? Years now, I guess.”

“You know my house is just beyond that embankment?”

“Huh. No. I didn’t.” I can tell she’s lying. “My trailer is just beyond that copse of trees.”

“Oh, yeah?” I bend to pick up a rock and pretend I don’t know that either.

I guess we’re both liars tonight.

“Why don’t you live at home?”

She chuckles. “Beau, you’ve met my family. If you were a tier one operator, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

My lips twitch. Smartass.

“I like to keep as much distance between myself and them as possible. It’s why I work so much. I’m saving up a solid nest egg to get the fuck out of here.”

“Yeah?”

She must be able to touch the bottom because she tips her head back, dropping lower into the water to wet her hair again.

“Yeah. I want to travel. Go to school. Pick a spot where I can settle down and not just be the youngest Jansen. A place where no one knows who I am, or where I came from. A fresh start.”

I turn the rock over in my hand as I turn her words over in my mind.

A fresh start.

That shouldn’t sound as good as it does to me. I shouldn’t want to leave this place too. My intense boredom feels like an affront to everyone who loves me, to this beautiful town I call home.

I’ve seen firsthand what it is to have nothing. And here I am, fortunate beyond compare—unhappy to my very core.

I guess that’s why I tell her, “You don’t need to start fresh. Nothing wrong with this town. You can make it work here.”

With her eyes still trained up on the starry sky, she scoffs at me. It’s good-natured enough, but it still has me straightening.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I turn and toss the rock downstream to clear some tension from my body. Then I pick up another one.