Winning Back His Wife (Camp Firefly Falls Book 1) by Gwen Hayes, Zoe York

that she was sure had stopped bruising a long time ago. She had to stop herself from rubbing her chest. “We were just kids.”
    “We aren’t kids now. Do you have a boyfriend?”
    “Michael—”
    “Look, I know this is crazy. I’m not exactly the kind of guy that believes in fate or anything. But what are the chances that we’d end up here, together? I don’t do crazy or unplanned things. The first thing I did when I got to my dorm was re-read the student guidebook. Just in case I forgot something. But seeing you now, I just…I feel like this was meant to be. You. Me. Here.”
    She swallowed hard. Her last boyfriend was in a garage band. The one before that quit high school to be a mediocre sculptor and work at Wendy’s. She didn’t date preppy guys. And she didn’t come all the way to Dartmouth to hook up with a boyfriend on her first day.
    And she knew it would be more than a hookup. It could be serious. Real. She wasn’t ready for serious and real. This was insane. They didn’t even know each other.
    She licked her lips. “Maybe we can go out this weekend or something. Catch up.”
    She needed to think. She couldn’t think when he was looking at her with those intense brown eyes with the gold flecks.
    He looked a little disappointed, but he nodded. “Sure. This weekend.”
    “I live at Choates. You?”
    He laughed. “Same.”
    “Seriously?”
    He nodded, then he said her name, slow and deliberately. Like a warning. “Heather.”
    Her traitorous heart really liked it. “Yeah?”
    “I think you should know that I don’t give up. Not on anything. I didn’t get here because of my parents. I didn’t take State every year at Track because I came from money. I sometimes seem awkward, I know, but I fixate on what I want and I don’t give up on it.”
    She got a little shiver. A really good shiver. The kind she got when she watched the end of An Officer and a Gentleman on TNT. “Why are you telling me this?”
    The way he stared at her, like he was reading her thoughts, also made her shiver. Because some of the thoughts she was having were not rated PG. This new/old Michael was starting to disconcert her in the best possible way.
    “Why do you think?” He picked up her hand. “You never answered me. Do you have a boyfriend?”
    She should tell him yes. Give herself some breathing room. Maybe he’d still want to be friends and she could ease into whatever this was that was giving her goose bumps on top of her goose bumps.
    “No.”
    He smiled at her like he’d won, and that pissed her off. She pulled her hand out of his. “And I don’t want one. I didn’t come to Dartmouth to hunt a future husband. I need to be me, figure out what I want on my own for a while.”
    “That’s fine. I’ll wait.”
    “Wait for what? You haven’t even asked me out.”
    “I’ll wait until you’ve figured out what you want. I’m confident that it will be me.”
    Oh, this guy had some balls.
    Shit, he was probably right.
    “Why are you so sure? Of me. Us. Yourself.”
    He took her hand again, this time she didn’t pull it back. “Honestly, it was that kiss. Four years ago. I feel like I’ve always known.”
    Oh man, she was in trouble. Her head knew it was a losing battle. Her heart and her gut were totally going to win this round.

Chapter 9
    2013
    Camp Firefly Falls
    M ichael stretched his legs out along the couch, pressing his back against the worn, overstuffed arm as he got comfortable. Heather's lips twisted in amusement as she watched him settle. She was going to wait for him to answer her question…and he was going to stretch it out because he was having too much fun.
    They'd been hashing out their different ideas for almost an hour.
    He loved wearing her down. When had they stopped talking like this? Debating for hours until one of them finally admitted—grudgingly—that the other's idea had more merit.
    "Don’t look at me like you know you're three arguments away from a celebratory ice cream