by Leanne Davis
“I can’t deny it’s there.” Her gaze skittered to him and then she looked away.
“Why does your voice sound like you’re admitting it with a warning?”
She avoided looking at him. “We were dismissing my last boyfriend and then kissing like you are suddenly all mine. I don’t know how I feel. There are a lot of things we don’t agree on.”
“And a lot of things that we do. I know we have a lot to figure out before taking any serious action on it.”
She gave him a long look. “I’m not so sure there should ever be serious action on it. How can I be what you want and vice versa? I mean, look at you. Then look at me. It doesn’t make sense. It hasn’t made any sense from the start.”
“And yet, here I am. Working with you. That’s all you’ve said but we get along because we’re friends, first and foremost. Look, I don’t know how to explain or define it, I just recognize it. After being in a relationship that went bad and lacked any trust, friendship or companionship, I’m cautious now. To be honest, I’ve never mixed a romance with friendship. It feels odd and new to me too. But I think we should acknowledge that it exists all the same.”
“Why? So, you can hang out here until real life comes calling? I’ll be your rebound and latest fling until you recover so you can go back to your city life, all healed and ready to tackle your previous career and new life as a single man.”
“Fair enough. All of it. But you just got out of a relationship as well.”
“My relationship was clearly without any strings and no one got hurt. We literally ended it as friends and then had dinner together. Your entanglement is like a black widow’s spider web, lethal and deadly to anyone that gets caught in it.”
“So, what about our kiss just now? Were you feeling mad and just trying to purge your attraction to me? Nothing more? Was I just a temporary distraction?”
She glanced away, her mouth tightening. “No. It was much more than nothing. You were not a distraction. I don’t know. I never expected to meet someone like you. You’re a mess, so is your life and your emotional state. Why would I want to take that on? Really? Think about it and try to consider the rebound warnings that you’ve been ignoring.”
“True.” He rubbed his hair. “But it doesn’t feel like that at all to me. Not at all. I mean, I don’t feel messed up. Not like I was when I first met you. The last few months I’ve adjusted and changed my opinion. I like being back here now. I think I needed to come back to recover. My mother needs me too. This tragedy with Kate is tearing her and all of my family apart. Being here, however, oh, hell, working right here with you has managed to exorcize the demons from me. The physical exhaustion and manual labor require a lot of exertion and prevent me from investing any residual energy into the anger and rage that previously burned inside me. I’ve slowly been letting it out like a leaky air hose. Just a little bit each day. I’ve released it, although at the start of this journey, I never pictured that happening. Along with that progress, I’ve had a ton of time to analyze what happened. A lot of my new thinking revolves around you.”
Her head tilted and her gaze wavered as her mouth puckered. He stepped towards her, and she stepped back before her eyes darted away. Doubt was reflected in the pools of her eyes. An alarming streak of fear seemed to glimmer there. Glancing around, he had to hold in a sigh. This wasn’t how he planned to speak with Kyomi. From kissing her very ardently, and trying to show how much he wanted her, to the moment he had to restrain the urge to have gripping, amazing, wild sex right there in the open field of her ranch, to now? Now it was more for her, much more intimate. More demanding. More intimidating. Kyomi didn’t share herself easily or at all.
He didn’t know why. She refused to even drop hints about herself in all the time he’d known her. She was both honest, and completely reserved. Hunter hoped for sexy dates and wooing and romance. But here they were. She was all but ready to bolt, and he couldn’t let his words go unsaid. As per usual with her, they faced everything in the moment it happened or right after.
He valued that now. In fact, he relied on it and needed it from her.
Francine liked to stay angry at him and not reveal her reason why for weeks. She’d explode into unreasonable tantrums, usually unprovoked, that left Hunter completely flustered and floundering. It was impossible to work out the real issues between them because she never expressed what they were.
Kyomi’s friendship was based on honesty and truth. At all times, she remained in the moment. She did the same with Asher. The only difference was they delved deeper than the upfront honesty. Hunter always dug into her brain, while Asher was content to stay on the surface. Asher missed the endlessly fascinating parts of Kyomi’s personality, thought processes, interests, friendships and her entire life. But Hunter didn’t miss any of it. He probed deeper until she refused to talk any longer about things. Hunter always backed off then and let her have her space. Hunter was far more intimate with Kyomi than Asher could ever dream of being.
“I don’t want an arrangement like you had with Asher. There is no unwritten contract that states you don’t have to share yourself with me. You do have to share yourself with me. As completely as I have with you. I’ve never been so open with any woman, hell, or any other person, including my own wife. Not even when I was dating her. I have given you all that I’m asking in return. Intimacy. No brick walls to demolish. No pre-defined limits either.”
Her eyes flashed and her mouth puckered up as her shoulders began to hunch around her face. Stepping back, she shook her head. “I can’t do that. It’s just not my way.”
“Bullshit. I’m calling bullshit. You’re just scared to do it. I don’t have a clue why. It obviously isn’t about getting hurt by Asher. He was a small blip on your emotional radar. You liked my cousin as a good friend, but never, not from the start, half as much as you liked me. I might be cocky and egotistical, clueless and citified and all the things you choose to dislike about me, but you’ve had a reaction to me from the very start. One you can’t fully control or get a handle on no matter how hard you try to suppress it. You just won’t admit it. So I’m admitting it for you.”
Her face turned red in annoyance, perhaps even anger at his provocative, combative words. He knew his assumptions would rile her. He counted on it.
“How dare you presume to freaking presume how I feel. I think I can decide that without you mansplaining it for me.”
“I am. I’m totally doing that, to get you to admit it or at least stop ignoring it. I don’t want anything more from you than you’re already giving me. I need to be divorced and free before anything physical happens between us. I want to do this right. No cheating, even if it seems a moot point, considering my previous relationship.”
“I agree. That closure is important.”
“And so are we.”
“We are very good friends,” she admitted in a high voice.
He had to contain the eye roll. “We are far more than friends now and the potential that exists between us is all but blaring out, but sure, we’ll go with friends—for now.”
“Maybe I don’t want to accede to your demands.”
“You don’t. Maybe you think you can’t. I’m not sure which it is yet. But we’ll work through it, that’s part of the plan. For some reason, you have trust issues. You use the honesty thing to keep people thinking you’re being transparent and real with them. But you use it to keep any information tightly under your control. They don’t get to decide what happens with it. You do. You dribble out the bits and pieces you want or need with discretion. Until you met me, I suspect you’ve surrounded yourself with people who easily and without questions fully accept that. The thing is? I don’t. I won’t and yet, here I am. You can’t walk away or you would have after that disaster in the city. When you had to sleep beside my car. So you’re already invested. Quit being so scared, and help me figure this out. The thing is, I’m scared too.”
Her gaze skittered all around before finally landing on him
and then instantly moving away. “You seem to have it all figured out.”
“I have nothing figured out. Other than this: you make every day feel better. It’s natural to see you. When I don’t, it’s dull and boring. We’ve had a better start than I can think of with anyone else. What do you say? Couldn’t that be our new frame of reference? Tell me what you most fear.”
“You. The day you stop playing rancher and go back to your pampered life in the city.”
“That’s it? That’s the inevitable deal-breaker you truly believe will happen?”
“Yes. That’s what I expect will happen.”
“Okay. So is my spending more time here providing any proof that it won’t be the case?”
She shrugged. “I suppose if you stay long enough, I might start to believe it. But… no I don’t really think that will be the case. I think whether it lasts a year or five years, you’ll someday wake up and realize the real you is in the city. And when you are fully healed from the drama of Francine and losing her family fortune, you will go back to the place where you belong.”
“What if I can promise that won’t happen? How can we make any decisions based on that? What might happen five years from now? Five years ago, I never dreamed I’d be working on a ranch, willingly and for free while begging you to go on a date with me.”
Her lips twitched. “You’re not on your knees so I would not call it begging.”
“Well, metaphorically speaking, I was begging. So will you? Will you go out with me on a date? How about that? An official dinner date where we can act like we could mean more to each other than laugh-buddies.”
“Drinking buddies.” She added with a small smile. “And ranch buddies.”
“See all the connections we have? What do you say?”
She eyed him up. “There are so many things that could go wrong.”
“More likely, they could go right.”
She sniffed with an eye roll and said, “Okay. I guess… I need to eat.”
He gave her a lopsided grin in response. “Yeah? Well, luckily, so do I.”
Chapter 13
KYOMI WANTED TO DRESS up. That entailed making a trip to the only decent dress shop in town. Checking off that option, she came to a compromise: a skirt and tank top. It was more fashionable, showed more leg than she usually bothered with, and was cheap, so it did not break her personal bank.
She feared Hunter would look like a runway model and she like the frumpy sister. She was facing the facts of them being together. If she lacked the confidence to acknowledge, handle and allow that, she should cancel their date right now. There was nothing in her, no flare for fashion or style that she could suddenly awaken or become interested in. She was natural. Easy. And it wasn’t so much a statement of herself as just forgetting to brush her hair, or apply her makeup or because it never occurred to her to dress up. Or do more. Like accessorize. Or even buy accessories.
Hopeless.
Kyomi showered and scrunched up her curls. She wore fresh makeup, perfume and put the new outfit on. If it were anyone else but Hunter, she’d feel kind of sassy with the results of her work. She might think, hell yeah, she pulled it together. But, (sigh), it was Hunter Rydell, the only guy she knew who wore boutonnieres in his suit jacket just because. The men she knew only wore them if they were ushers in weddings.
He showed up on time, as was agreed upon. Dust plumed around the already sullied sportscar that once gleamed from expensive polish and being waxed to perfection. Now it was dull and streaked. Even if he washed it, her driveway would provide a dust storm to make it look like he didn’t.
She opened the front door to leave and shut it behind her. He stopped back a few feet and whistled at her.
Rolling her eyes, the heat began to radiate across her face. Surprised at the blush, she turned away. He laughed gently and with care as he stepped closer. She had to look up at him, straining her neck and tilting her chin higher. The sunlight caught his shiny, ginger hair. Lord, he was gorgeous. So were the brightness of his blue eyes and gleaming flash of white teeth. His left hand came up and cupped her cheek. “You’re blushing. At my wolf whistle. It’s all about your looks tonight. There’s some girlie-girl buried inside there and together, we’ll find it. I can see that now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get too big for your lapels, Hunter Rydell. This came from the discount store.”
“It’s ravishing on you. And so are you. And I love hearing that our date sent you shopping, since you never do that ordinarily.”
“Do you prefer another vapid, shallow shopping queen? Someone like Franny? See? You do have a type.”
He leaned forward, touching his forehead on hers and making her heart blip at the closeness and his warm breath on her face. “I do not want you to be vapid, shallow or a shopping queen. I want you to want to be with me. And here you are. You are my type these days.”
“Okay. That was smooth. As smooth as your suit and pricey shoes. Hunter Rydell, you had better not try to run your smooth game on me.”
He smirked, keeping his forehead on hers as he rocked his head back and forth. “I chucked cow dung with you. I choked on smoke from dead rats that will probably give me cancer. I ploughed tons of manure in a field. How could you think I’m running a game? It would be the worst lead-up to a date, or sex, if that was all I was after. I would never agree to working like that for anyone. Ever. Except you. Because you matter to me.”
He lifted his head, moving his hand behind his back before presenting her with a single, long-stemmed, perfect, red rose.
No one ever gave Kyomi flowers before. Especially a red rose. She almost said something snarky. She wanted to conceal the sudden flush of heat from her neck to her forehead. The rush of pleasure and joy that filled her also terrified her. She knew, with a trembling heart, she was in trouble. She never reacted so fervently in all of her twenty-five years because she never felt this way before.
Apprehension overcame her and made her step back. He noticed and his smile faltered. “You don’t like roses? Too common and ordinary? I know. But Francine was allergic to them so I never gave them to her.”
She grabbed the rose by the stem, almost too hard, crushing it in her grip. “No. It’s perfect. Better than perfect.” She glanced down and smiled with regret as she loosened her grasp. “I’ve never gotten flowers before. Didn’t think I wanted them, but I do. I really, really like getting them and I don’t want any other kind but roses. Ever. Big, shiny, aromatic, bright, heavenly, expensive rosebuds.”
His grin was huge. “Expensive roses. Okay. Duly noted. Next time, it’ll be an even dozen.”
To her surprise, tears filled her eyes and she had to wipe them with the knuckle of her index finger. “I don’t cry over silly gestures. Don’t bring me a dozen roses. Just bring me one. One. Because I am singular and different. And I have no need for more. But I like knowing that you saw that. One rose. And besides you’re a rancher now. You can’t be buying gifts like roses.”
His smile was long and heartbreaking. “Yes. I did see a special one for you. I don’t know why. I wanted you to feel special. But not—”
“Usual.”
“Yes. Even if roses are the most common gift. You’re not common. To anyone. But especially not to me.”
“But it was a single rose. Not a dozen roses, making it special and unusual.”
“I hoped you’d see that. And Francine’s nemesis to boot. But that wasn’t the reason I went with them.”
She grinned brightly. “But it’s a part of it because hearing that makes me happy.”
He cupped her face in his hands as he stared down, peering intently at her. “You make me happier than I think I’ve ever been with anyone. I shouldn’t say this. Not after being married. But I didn’t know that I could feel like this until I met you. And I’ve spent so much real, authentic time with you, doing some of the grossest jobs I can think of, more than I’ve spent with anyone else doing fun things. So I know it’s real. We, us, we are real
.”
She blinked back tears. Even in times of sadness, Kyomi wasn’t one to cry; but never in moments of joy or appreciation. Definitely not from the words of a man.
But this man got to her as no one else could, not in all the years of her life. He smiled in her face. “Too soon?”
She wrapped her fingers around his. “No. Too true. But I don’t do this. I don’t cry over words or flowers. I don’t ask to get them. Or let men—”
“Matter to you?”
“Yes. At least not this much. As my friend, my partner and my companion. But not—”
“I know. I know I’m your friend and partner and companion, but this time, it’s more.”
She nodded. “Yes. It’s more.”
“I’m going to do more things that you might think are fake or cheesy, like bringing you flowers or other small gifts, or making surprise dates, but that’s how I am. I like to do things like that to show you how I feel. To show you what’s inside me. I can’t always say it. And maybe I shouldn’t yet. But I want to show you. Will you let me do that?”
She blinked and replied, “Do you think I’d say no to that?”
“Six months ago, you would have. Today, I hope not. Because you know me better now. You’ve witnessed me on a daily basis. I’m not the charming, shallow face you first encountered. And you’re not as tough and carefree as you pretend to be.”
“Okay. I’m not.”
He released her. “Now you’re going to come on a date with me and it’ll be better than any date you’ve ever been on.”
She snorted. “That’s not hard to imagine. There haven’t been many, no more than dinners at the bar.”
He snorted. “You’re an idiot for sleeping with any guy who believed that was enough to win you. Asher included.”
She grinned back. “We never went on a date. I asked him out and he took me to his ranch… and we never left.”
Hunter winced. She did a fake slap on his arm, adding, “That’s not what I meant. We just never went on dates. We hung out there and you know how I feel about that place…”