“How did you just jump from feelings to birth control?” I have to ask.

“Because that’s what happens, Reagan. You jump from strong feelings to birth control. It’s the natural order of things for men.” He takes off his cap and runs a hand through is hair. “I was a twenty-one-year-old man once myself.”

“That’s when you met Mom,” I say, and I start to smile. He looks uncomfortable. So I have to press it. “So you and Mom went from strong feelings to birth control?” I ask. I snap my fingers. “Like that?”

“Nope,” he says, stopping to stare into my eyes. “How do you think we got you?” He grins this time. He nods his head toward the house. “Go talk to your mother.”

“TMI, Dad,” I sing. “TMI!” I turn to walk toward the house.

“Reagan!” Dad calls. I turn to face him. “Pete’s a good guy,” he says. “But he’s still a guy.”

“We’re taking things slow, Dad,” I say. Heat floods my face.

“Mmm hmm,” he hums. He goes back to work.

“Take it slow,” Link says.

“I love you, Link,” I call.

“I love you, too,” he calls back.

I walk into the back door and find my mom pouring a cup of coffee. “Pete still alive?” she asks me as she goes to sit down at the table.

“For now.” I sigh. “We fell asleep. Nothing happened, I swear.” Well, not nothing. But we didn’t do anything, really. Nothing that didn’t rock my world as I know it.

“That’s why you’re glowing?” she asks. “Because nothing happened?” She pats the table next to her. “Come sit,” she says.

“Mom,” I grouse, sounding like a child, I know.

“Sit,” she says more forcefully. I drop into a chair.

“Was he kind?” she asks.

I nod.

“Was he considerate?”

I nod and draw my lower lip between my teeth as I fight a smile.

“Was he careful?” She arches her brow at the last question.

“God, Mom,” I complain. “We didn’t do anything. He just kissed me.”

“I’ll make an appointment with my gynecologist if you want birth control,” she says. She looks at me.

I find myself nodding my head, and Mom smiles and pats my hand. “Good girl,” she says on a sigh.

Pete

I’m with the group of hearing-impaired boys, and they’re taking turns riding the horses around the ring. The deaf kids tend to make a group of themselves, and they haven’t been interacting with some of the other kids at the camp. I’ll have to see what I can do about that. Since my brother is deaf, there’s one thing I do know, and it’s that deaf kids don’t see themselves as handicapped. They have a culture all their own, and they can function in society with little or no intervention. But they do tend to clique up since sign language is something they all have in common.

I’ve never spent much time around horses. Or any, if I have to tell the truth. They’re great, big, heavy beasts, and the one I’m leading around the ring keeps nudging me with her nose against my shoulder. “Would you cut it out?” I ask, but she just makes a breathy noise and nuzzles the back of my head. She knocks off my baseball cap, and I bend over to pick it up. But when I do, she bumps me in the ass, and I fall onto my hands in the dirt.

I dust off my hands and look around. Edward, who I can no longer call Tic Tac since I heard his story, is leading one of the other horses. He snorts at me. “Dude, I think you just got bitch slapped. Again.” He chuckles, so I flip him the bird. Edward looks over my shoulder and whistles low, and I turn around to find Reagan walking toward us. She must have gone and taken a shower because her hair’s still damp and she’s plaited it into two braids that hang over her shoulders. She’s wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans, and some brown leather boots that come up mid-calf. Damn, she’s pretty.

She pats the horse I’m leading as she comes closer. “Is Juliette giving you a hard time?” she asks. She leans close to the horse’s ear and whispers to her. The hair on my arms stands up, and it’s not even my ear she’s whispering into. Juliette shakes her head, and Reagan laughs. Damn, that’s a pretty sound.

She walks by me carrying a bucket. “Where are you going?” I yell to her.

She turns back, smiling over her shoulder. “Gotta go get Romeo for Juliette,” she says. “That’s why she’s being so ornery. Her boyfriend is hanging out with the cows.” She nods toward the pasture. “Want to help me?” she asks.

She has Link with her, and he’s following her almost as closely as Maggie, her dog. I doubt that dog ever leaves her side. Hell, I want to be a puppy and follow her, too. I toss the lead rope of the horse I’m holding to one of the boys from the prison program. He grins and shakes his head. He’s the one who called me pu**y whipped last night. Yep. I suppose I am. And it doesn’t bother me in the least.

I run after Reagan, who laughs as I catch up with her. “You look really pretty today,” I say. I want to kiss her so badly I can taste it.

She blushes. “Thank you,” she says, looking down toward her feet.

“I missed you,” I say.

She grins. “You just saw me an hour ago,” she reminds me. Like I need it. All I can think about is the way she felt in my arms. She fit perfectly against my chest.

“Was your dad mad?” I ask. It matters. It really does. I want her parents to like me, but I’m afraid I’m going about it all wrong. I’ve never met a girl’s parents before. Never had any need to. But with Reagan… Everything is different.

She shrugs. “A little.” She laughs. “We had a talk about how to knee you in the nuts, the fact that men only want one thing, and then he gave me way TMI about birth control.”

I stop walking. Wow. That’s a lot to take in. “You talk with your dad about that stuff?”

She shrugs. “Some of it. He sent me to my mom for the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?”

Her cheeks get even rosier. “The talk about birth control and all that stuff.”

“Oh,” I say. I sound like an idiot. But she just threw me for a loop. She walks toward a fence and bends to duck between the rails. I follow her, and Link does, too. He’s in his own world, and I think he’s singing a song. But it’s so soft, I can’t tell. “So, you’re…um…thinking about that kind of stuff, huh?”

She bites her lower lip and nods. “Yep.”

“I…ah…don’t know what to say about that.” I take my cap off and scratch the back of my head.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she says with a shrug. “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about it.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. My heart trips in my chest like crazy. Shit just got real.

She narrows her eyes at me, but that may be the sun in her eyes. “You can tell me if you don’t have any romantic interest in me, Pete.” She heaves a sigh. “I’ll be all right with it.”

She turns and puts two fingers to her lips. A shrill whistle bursts through the air. Link covers his ears and grins. Suddenly, a horse gallops up, barreling toward us like a streak of black-and-white lightning. Reagan shrieks when I thrust her behind me, but she’s laughing too. The horse stops a step from my feet and snorts in my face. “Motherfucker,” I breathe.

“Motherfucker,” Link parrots.

Oh, hell. That’s bad. I’ve got to learn to watch my mouth around the kid. “Pretty horse,” I say, and I watch Link.

“Pretty horse,” he repeats.

“That’s better,” I say quietly. Link nods, and he holds the bucket up so the horse can stick his nose in it.

“This is Romeo,” Reagan says as she slips a halter over his head. She pats his sides. “He escapes all the time and goes to hang with the cows. Then Juliette gets upset and takes it out on everyone else.” She pats him but all he wants is to stick his head in the bucket. She starts to walk back toward the barn.

I follow, careful where I step, as we walk together. She’s quiet. Hell, maybe she’s thinking about birth control. I don’t know. I’m prepared. I’m always prepared, but she’s not ready for what I want. Not even close.

When we get to the barn, Reagan tosses the lead rope to Link and says, “Would you take him to Juliette, Link?” He nods and takes the horse, and Reagan motions for me to follow her. We walk behind the barn, and I can’t help but think of all the ways her dad would try to emasculate me if he caught us back here.

She narrows her eyes at me and a corner of her lip kicks up. “You remember last night when you said you could have some real feelings for me?” she asks quietly.

I nod.

She clears her throat and her discomfort is so damn cute that I want to kiss her immediately. “Well, I want you to know that I know I have some very real feelings for you, Pete. There’s no doubt about it. So, yeah, I’m scared. I’m scared of these feelings, and my mom was being a mom and my dad was being a dad and their first thought was keeping me from getting pregnant.”

Damn, I want to sleep with this girl, but I want so much more than just to sleep with her. “Reagan,” I say. I reach for her, and for the first time ever, she doesn’t flinch. She lets me cover her h*ps with my hands and pull her against me. “I’m the guy,” I say, trying not to grin. “I’ll take care of all that birth control stuff when the time is right.”

She nods. “I know you will.” She lays her forehead against my chest, and I can feel her breath against my skin, hot and warm. “You just asked about what my mom and dad had to say. And that’s what they had to say.” She shrugs. “So I told you.” She steps up onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to against my cheek, lingering long enough for me to smell her minty toothpaste. “Don’t worry, Pete. I promise not to defile you.” She grins. But with what happened to her, that’s not the least little bit amusing.

I groan and lay my head back, closing my eyes while I think. I can’t think while she’s looking at me.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. She steps back, and I feel the loss of her immediately. “The idea of ha**g s*x with me turns you off completely?” she whispers. “Doesn’t it?” She shakes her head. “I should have known.”

“No,” I start, but I don’t know what to say. She steps away, and I reach for her fingertips. She turns, and I grab her shirt. She spins around, but this time she doesn’t clock me. She looks at my hand and smiles. But it’s a sad smile. It’s not what I want to see on my girl’s face. “I want you.”

“It’s okay, Pete,” she says quietly. “Maybe I read this all wrong.” She motions from me to her and back again. “I thought we were at the same place.”

“I’m further gone than you are,” I blurt out.

She stops walking and looks me in the eye. “Gone?” Her green eyes blink slowly.

“Gone. Done. Head over heels. Can’t stop thinking about you. Want to be with you all the time. Can feel you against my skin even when you’re not with me. Gone.”

Her breaths quicken. “Oh,” she says. Her hands lay flat on my chest.

“But I think I might be further gone than you are.” I lean down to look into her eyes. “Are you going to break my heart, Reagan?” I ask. “You’re already thinking about birth control, and it scares the f**k out of me, the very thought of getting to be inside you. Because I want you, Reagan. I want every piece of you.”

“Even the shattered pieces?” she asks.

I bracket her face with my hands and pull her face up to mine. “I’ll be the glue that puts you back together,” I breathe. “I’ve been locked up a long time, Reagan,” I say.

“I’ve been locked up even longer than you have, Pete,” she says, her voice heavy with emotion. She swallows.

“Don’t give me hope unless you’re sure,” I plead.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she says. She wraps her hands around my neck and pulls my head down to hers and kisses me. Her lips are soft and warm and insistent, and when her tongue touches mine, I almost come in my pants. I break away from her because I can’t take much more. She looks into my eyes. “I’m not ready for sex yet, Pete,” she says. “But I’m closer than I was. I feel like you’ve unlocked the door to my future. Now I just need for you to walk through it with me. So, quit being so f**king scared you’re going to hurt me, Pete. And just like me. And then someday, maybe you’ll love me.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I chuckle quietly. “I’m glad you had the birth control talk with your mom,” I say. “My brother Paul shoved condoms at me as I was going out the door to come here. I don’t know who he thought I’d screw at a camp for boys.”

Her face goes rosy red.

“I mean, not screw. Well, if it wasn’t you, it would be screwing.” Shit. I’m f**king this all up. With her, it’s going to be so much more than screwing. “That’s what scares me, princess. I’ve never done what I want to do with you.”

“You’ve done it lots of times,” she says with a breezy wave.

I shake my head. “No, I haven’t.” I look her in the eye. “Now you think about what that means and be sure you’re ready for it.”