Sweet Heart (The Hearts of Sawyers Bend Book 2) by Ivy Layne

Author:Ivy Layne [Layne, Ivy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Ginger Quill Press, LLC
Published: 2020-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

Daisy

I only felt a little guilty about leaving while everyone else was still cleaning up. Hope found me a pair of sneakers that fit when we laced them tightly, and Royal met me by the back door with a bag that looked like it held more than two pieces of cake. The sun had only just begun to drop in the sky. Plenty of time for a short hike.

We headed out, taking the gravel path that led us past the bench and tree where we sat on my first visit to Heartstone Manor. The path wound deeper into the gardens, and it didn't take much imagination to see how beautiful they must have been before Royal's father had abandoned them.

Through the scraggly bushes, I caught a flash of water off to my right along with the roofline of another structure. “Do you have a pool?”

I wished the words back as soon as I asked them. This was Heartstone Manor. Of course, they had a pool. Royal sent me a grin, the one that always made my heart speed up. “The pool is one of the first things Griffen fixed. The pool house, on the other hand, might fall down on our heads. As long as we can swim when it gets hot, none of us cares.”

“I wouldn't care either. I love splashing in the river when it gets hot in the summer, but it must be sweet to have a pool.”

This time, Royal's grin held a flash of heat. “You're welcome to swim anytime. Just for curiosity's sake… Are you a bikini kind of girl?”

I grinned back, knowing my own eyes held that same flash of heat. I couldn't help it. His question made me think about wearing a bikini for Royal. And straight from there, my brain conjured a vision of Royal in board shorts, wet from the water. That hard body and all that smooth skin. I felt the flush hit my cheeks. Too long without sex was turning me into a perv. Then again, if there were ever a man worth perving over, he was definitely Royal.

“So?”

His raised eyebrow was so hot my imagination ditched the board shorts and wallowed in the thought of Royal naked. Naked and wet. Wait, what had he asked? “Um, if it was just the two of us? Maybe a bikini. If anyone else is around, definitely a one piece.”

“I'll ban them all from the pool if it gets me you in a bikini.” Distracted by thoughts of what Royal and I could do mostly naked, I didn't notice as the gardens transitioned from a formal parterre design into rolling flower beds that welcomed the approaching forest.

In fact, as I paid more attention, I realized that the forest had well overgrown its original boundaries, small saplings and waist-high weeds taking over what I imagined were once gorgeously abundant flower beds.

The path left the gardens and crossed through a stretch of overgrown grass and weeds, the gravel we walked on thinner and spotty as if it hadn't been refreshed or raked in a long time.

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