by Natalie Dean
He supposed if she hit him over the head with a shovel, it’d probably be fair play.
Slowly, he pulled up. The last thing he wanted was for one of his wheels to kick a rock up and bean either his brother or Missy. Killing the engine, he stepped out of his truck and gathered his thoughts.
“Whoa, hey, Bart. You’re not supposed to be here,” Benji said with a start, jumping down to the ground.
Yup. So everyone definitely knew that something went down between him and Missy. He just hoped that all of them framed him as the bad guy and none of them judged her.
“I know. I’ll be quick.”
“But, I think maybe—”
“It’s fine,” Missy said, throwing her shovel to the side. “I’m used to guys not taking no for an answer.”
She faced him, her hands on her hips, and he could see the pain across her features. It was just awful. He did that to her.
“Missy, it’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?” she asked, probably a lot more softly than she intended.
He hoped that boded well for him, and he stepped forward, remembering to grab the flowers from the car.
“Really? You think flowers are going to buy you out of this?”
“No,” he said, as honestly as he could. “But I was hoping that they would buy me enough time to apologize to you.”
That seemed to surprise her, and those little teeth of hers came to worry at her full lip. “Apologize?”
He nodded and took a cautious step forward. They were still a good way apart, but at least he didn’t feel like they were in separate rooms now.
“Uh, Miss Dominic, Bart, I wouldn’t be lyin’ if I said I didn’t know what’s the thing I’m supposed to do in this situation,” Benji said, looking between the two of them.
“It’s fine,” Missy said. “We can talk. But I’m only giving you five minutes, then I need to head home to feed the little ones.”
“Right, of course.” He sent a pointed look to Benji, who looked between the two of them once more in confusion before shrugging and getting into his own truck. To his credit, he only pulled about fifteen or so feet away. Enough not to be right on top of the conversation, but close enough if he was needed. Bart appreciated that about his middle brother. Always looking out for others.
Kind of like Missy.
Once he was gone, Bart stepped forward to hand her the flowers. She took them gingerly, far more sweetly than the guarded expression on her face prepared him for, and then smelled them deeply.
“Talk.”
“First of all. I’m sorry.”
Her eyebrows went up again, and he was reminded of that time he had stood at the foot of her apartment building’s stars, looking up at her while she was bathed in sunlight, looking like a renaissance painting made flesh. She’d looked surprised then too, and he wondered just how little she heard those two simple words.
“For what?”
It was clear that she wasn’t confused that he was apologizing, but rather that she wanted to hear what he was sorry for. She wanted to be sure that he was aware of what he had done wrong and why it wasn’t appropriate.
Or at least that was the impression he had. He may have lost a lot of his knack for reading people, but some things were still easy to pick up.
“I’m sorry for rushing things. I’m sorry for kissing you without asking. I’m sorry for assuming that you would be all right with it. I’m sorry that I put what I was feeling ahead of what you were feeling when you’ve been nothing short of hyper-considerate of my needs.” The words grew easier to say as he went along. “I’m sorry that I vaulted over your boundaries without even asking what your boundaries were. I’m sorry I treated you like all the jerks in your life have treated you.
“I promise you, I do not want to be a jerk. In fact, I’d like to be the farthest thing from that, and I can’t help but feel like being close to you makes me less of one. And I know that’s not your responsibility. You don’t owe me therapy, or anything like that. But I’d really, truly hate myself if I ever let you walk away from this ranch not knowing how much I enjoy your company, your talks, and everything else about you.”
She didn’t say anything for a long while, and he stood there in absolute agony. Part of his mind was taking in how her skin was glistening from a hard day’s work, and how her perfect lips were parted as she tried to catch her breath from the strenuous work. Of course, he quickly told that part of his mind to shut up because that wasn’t the important matter right now.
“Huh. That was some apology.”
“I know it’s really not enough to do the situation justice, but I don’t think you’d like to stand here and listen to an hour-long soliloquy on my transgressions.”
She let out the tiniest smile at that, burying her face in the flowers once more and inhaling. “I dunno, I think I might have a spare night this evening if you want to put on a performance.”
“Oh, that’s convenient then, because I was hoping to ask you to dinner.”
“Wait, what?” She stared at him, face out of the flowers, and looked like that was ten times more shocking than his apology. “You want to go to dinner, with me? As in out? Where people could see us?”
“Yes. That’s the general idea of how dates work. But if you don’t want to, please, please know that it’s all right to say no. I don’t want you—”
“But I’m not the type of girl who gets asked to dinner.”
He stopped short at that, his turn to look at her. “Pardon?”
“You know. I’m the ‘drinks at my place’ kind of girl. Or ‘take a ride through the country’ kind of girl. I’m even a ‘watch a movie and see what happens’ kind of girl. No one asks me to dinner.”
Bart’s mind tried to churn around that idea. In his defense, he’d had quite a strange couple of days with a whole lot more interaction than he was used to.
“Missy.” He tried to keep his tone level, but it was quite difficult given the task. “Are you telling me that you’ve never been asked to dinner?”
She paused, as if she was really thinking hard about it. “Not that I can ever remember, no. I think the last ‘date’ I was asked on was to the movies by one of the other assistants at the vet clinic, but he kept trying to make out with me, so I left after the opening previews.”
Once again that burning feeling filled his chest. The world just didn’t make sense.
“Well, I don’t know why the rest of this town has been so insane, but Miss Dominic, if you’d be so kind, I’d love to take you to a nice Bistro in the city where we can have a tasty meal. And when we’re done, I’d like to drop you off at home, see you to your door, then come right back home where I’m sure my Ma will have a dozen and one questions.”
“You say that now, but everyone always tries to pull somethin’ at the last min—”
He took one more step forward, affixing her with the most serious look he could muster.
“Missy. Please believe me in that I want to do right by you. You deserve a real, honest-to-God date, and I’d be honored if you gave me another chance.”
She eyed him curiously, like she was trying to puzzle something together. Bart felt like he was being plenty clear, but it was hard to say. He’d already bungled so much.
“Why’d you wanna do that?”
“Because you deserve that, Missy! That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m not gonna stand here and lie by saying I hated the kiss, but I sure did hate how it made you feel. I’d like to make that up to you.”
“Even if there’s nothing in it for you?” she questioned dubiously.
Geez, it was breaking his heart how she was having such a hard time understanding the concept. What kind of people had she known all her life?
“Missy, that’s what I’m trying to say. Your company, and by that, I mean only your company and nothing physical, is valuable to me. And to a whole lot of people if they’d just—”
“I have this Friday off.”
He blinked, sta
ring at her once more. “Come again?”
“I’m off Fridays and Sundays for now, then Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays once winter hits. If you wanna take me to some fancy dinner, Friday night will do.”
“All right then,” he said with a smile. “I can do that.”
“Good. Now I need to finish up this last post before I go. I’ll see you then, Bart.”
“I’ll see you.”
He recognized a dismissal when he heard one and went back to his car. But even as he hauled himself up into the truck, he was practically floating on air.
She said yes!
Now he just had to make sure that he didn’t mess this date up too. He had a feeling that if it ever came down to three strikes, he would be out.
21
Missy
Missy finished swiping the lipstick along her lower lip then looked in the mirror. Her nerves were in her stomach, sure that she would look like some sort of overly done up clown, but instead, she saw a sultry woman staring back, all cat-eyeliner and a pouty mouth.
No. That wouldn’t do at all either.
Sighing, she wiped it off and reached for her only other lipstick. While she liked the idea that makeup was basically playing with paints on her own face, she didn’t like how expensive it was. Heap on top of that that she would only buy cruelty-free products that didn’t test on animals, meant she didn’t really have a lot of options in her small town and had to rely on the internet.
Buying new makeup on the internet was only slightly less daunting than buying new shoes on the internet. There was no way to test either of them out first.
Which was largely why she only had two tubes of lipstick. Va-Va-Va-Voom red and Tea and Cookies Pink.
Not that she usually wore makeup out of the house anyway. It encouraged exactly the kind of attention she didn’t want. She didn’t even know what had possessed her to buy the most-certainly expired red three years ago.
Holding her mouth still, she swiped the much more muted pink across her clean lips. When she finished, she looked up in the mirror to see a slightly less vixen version of Missy staring back at her.
…maybe she should just go without makeup entirely.
No!
This was her first date. A real, honest-to-God date, and she was going to act like a normal person. Besides, Bart said they were going to the city where she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Where people wouldn’t see her and know that she was the daughter of the town drunk who had filled out much too early in life.
Missy nodded to herself and went on to tackle the next problem: getting dressed.
As her fingers picked through her meager closet, she couldn’t help but think back to that moment just a couple days ago. Bart sweeping up in his truck, looking all classically handsome and muscled and remorseful. She had been all set to dismiss him—it took more than a pretty face to make her crumble—but then he’d been handing her flowers and saying he was sorry. And goodness gracious, looking so sincere that she just about melted right there on the spot.
Was she weak?
Yeah, probably.
But still, a date! A real, no-sex-expected, gentleman and lady, date!
He could be lying to her. It could be some sort of elaborate trick to get her alone on a country road, but she severely doubted that.
Not with the look he had given her. So earnest. So…desperate for her to understand that he’d never want to hurt her.
And if that wasn’t such a Bart thing. Strong as a mountain, able to overpower almost everyone she knew, but wanting to be so much more than brute force.
“All right, concentrate Missy. The blue dress or the pantsuit?”
She held up the two outfits she had pulled from her closet, the only ones that seemed close to what a woman should wear on her first date. The blue dress was from online, some site from China that was having a sale. She barely fit into their largest size, but she did. Truthfully, she had wanted it in red, with its fitted top and flaring waist reminding her of the pin-up girls of the forties, but she knew that red was definitely a color she could not wear out in public. It’d be like a literal scarlet letter, except it would be her whole darn dress.
So, she had sprung for blue, which was on her favorite color spectrum. It was cute on her, even if she’d only worn it twice since she bought it.
And the pantsuit had been her almost-graduation present to herself. At first, she just needed a nice outfit for her father’s funeral and for the actual graduation ceremony at the end of the school year. But then it’d also turned into her interview outfit as well. It was the outfit she’d worn when she got her job at the veterinarian clinic.
She remembered that day vividly, and as she closed her eyes, she could see slightly-younger Missy wringing her hands with worry. If she stopped to think about it, Missy was pretty sure that she was even more nervous now than she had been back then.
“Breathe,” she reminded herself. “You’ve sat with this guy for hours in the middle of nowhere. You know him. There’s no need to be dramatic.”
But she couldn’t help it. Because when she thought of Bart, her mind couldn’t help but go back to that kiss.
Sure, it had scared the crap out of her. And yeah, it had shattered that delicate layer of trust she had and made her think that he was going to try to use her just like everyone else. She had been so prepared to cut him off to protect herself forever that she hadn’t considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he was as confused as she was.
After all, it wasn’t like the guy didn’t have tons on his plate. He was coming down from at least six years in the military, four of them overseas. He couldn’t tell her what he did in the military, because he could still only vaguely speak about it. He was a man in recovery from a grievous wound deep inside him.
Certainly, she could afford him a little forgiveness for being so desperate for a little bit of comfort? Of course, she knew she didn’t owe anyone forgiveness, but when he came to her, full of apologies and assurances that she was so much more than her body, that he cared about her, the real her, she wanted to let it go. To try to lower her defenses a little and trust a man who’d been nothing but kind to her—when he was conscious, that was.
So, with all the icky parts forgiven, that only left the nice parts.
And boy were there a lot of nice parts to that kiss.
Did she want another one?
Or did she not want another one?
Enough inner turmoil, she needed to get finished dressing before Bart showed up. And, according to her phone, that was going to be within the next half hour.
The dress. The dress was the winner. It wasn’t often that Missy got to be as feminine and fancy as she wanted to, so she was going to do that for the date. She already was pushing herself anyway, why not try to wiggle a bit farther.
She sped through the rest of getting ready, finishing with a pair of stockings and wedges she had bought second hand, and then she was done. With only about twenty more looks into the mirror, she sat down to wait.
Turns out she didn’t need to rush at all, and that resulted in her sitting there for ten very anxious minutes until finally, her phone buzzed right on the dot.
I’m here
Oh geez. He was there. In his truck. Waiting to take her to dinner in the city to some sort of fancy place that she was sure she would never be able to afford on her own.
Crap, was this a mistake? Was she even stupider than she had thought earlier this week?
The questions started to buck up again, and Missy hated it. By nature, she was not a shy or insecure person—or at least she liked to think so. Shoving all of those wild thoughts down, she checked her reflection one more time before heading out.
Shoulders broad, spine straight, chin level, she held herself with all the assuredness she had in her body. She could see Bart waiting just outside the door, dressed in a crisp looking blue button-down shirt and dark pants.
Oh. Goodness.
She didn’t think it was po
ssible, but he looked even more handsome than he had previously. Missy was pretty sure that was scientifically impossible, yet there she was, staring at him with her mouth slightly open.
“Okay, get yourself together,” she murmured to herself before pasting a smile on her face and heading down the rest of the stairs.
Bart offered her an arm and she took it, her heart beating about a million miles an hour as he walked her to the truck, opened the door and then assisted her into the seat. Was this really it? Was it so easy?
It seemed to be as he went around the car and got into the driver’s side. He sent her a warm but a bit nervous grin, then they were off.
“I hope you like the restaurant,” Bart said after a few moments of quiet driving. “I haven’t gone before, but Ben swears by it.”
“Oh, does Ben go to the city a lot?”
He shook his head. “Not a lot, I would say. But he’s the one who will often meet with new investors, and more often than not, they end up going to dinner.”
“Huh, is that bribery or something?” she teased.
“Apparently, that’s business.”
“Does that mean we’re a couple of business people?”
“I’m not sure that’s the type of label we want to put on our date.”
Oh. Right. Her cheeks colored as she realized the implication of what she had said. “Okay, maybe none of that then.”
He chuckled, and that seemed to break the tension between them, then they were back to their usual talking selves.
Granted, did they have a usual? When she thought about it, she actually hadn’t known Bart for that long. Which was bizarre considering that she felt like she knew him so well.
Oh well, that was something to ponder when all of her brainpower didn’t have to go into making sure she didn’t make a mess of the first real date in her entire life.
Wow, no pressure.
Thankfully, they arrived without her going into a blind panic or sticking her foot all the way into her mouth, leaving her entirely free to gape at the beautiful place.