by Natalie Dean
As far as he could tell, she was taking commissions steadily. She had to have plenty saved up for a ticket. Maybe even a couple. And for hotel rooms, food, and other supplies. And yet, she was still around.
That made him feel good. She wasn’t staying because she thought she had no choice. She was choosing to.
And that meant a lot.
Eventually their food did come, but he hardly noticed it. It was good, sure, but to him, Sophia was the star of the show. The conversation fell off while they consumed the two steaks and potatoes in front of them, but the parade of blissed out expressions marching across her face was more than worth it.
They didn’t linger long after that. When he noticed Sophia’s gaze starting to flit around anxiously, and her shoulders hunch in on herself, he knew it was time to return. Even if he wanted to stay there for hours longer, what he wanted wasn’t important.
He left a hundred on the table, not really willing to wait for the server to give them the bill, and stood, offering Sophia his arm. She took it with a soft smile, and then they headed out into the night.
Once more, they were quiet. Enjoying the short stroll together. When they reached the car, he was pleased when she didn’t immediately go for the door, instead standing there and looking at him expectantly.
Now that he could work with.
Disentangling himself from her arm, he stepped forward to open the door for her, ready to turn back and give an over-the-top bow, but he was surprised when Sophia was right there, only a scant few inches from him and looking up at his face like she was searching for something.
“This was nice,” she breathed, a tentative smile pulling at the corner of her full lips. Lips that were painted such a pretty plumb.
Bradley wanted to reach up and gently run this thumb across the color, to feel the softness that he knew was there, the silky skin that kept coming back to him again and again.
But he didn’t move. Not even as her breath ghosted over his face and his heart thundered in his ears. He wanted to… he wanted—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t right to want. Not when Sophia had been through so much and he was one of the people providing for her. It was a power imbalance, and he wasn’t going to take advantage.
She stayed there a moment, just looking at him, seeming to try to find something but he had no idea what. It took every bit of his willpower not to close the distance between them and sweep her up off her feet.
“Thank you,” she said finally, moving past him to get into the truck.
Finally, Bradley could breathe again, and he shut the truck door before going around. Whatever was going on with him, he needed to get it under control. It was clear that he was viscerally attracted to Sophia, but that didn’t mean he could go around misconstruing her innocent actions as romance.
He would never be that guy.
Once inside, he turned on the radio, a soft indie blues tune playing over it. Sophia curled up in her seat, once more kicking off her heels. She looked contented and happy, like that strange exchange at the door never happened, so he was willing to dismiss it too.
And just like that, they drove home together.
16
Bradley
Bradley needed to come to terms with a few things.
First of all, that there were apparently a couple of things that were more important to him than the accounting on the ranch and protecting his family’s prosperity.
Secondly, that he enjoyed having company much more than he thought he did, and it wasn’t nearly as tiring as he once would have considered it.
And thirdly, he was most definitely in love with Sophia.
He tried to fight it, he really did, but after another two weeks of bliss, two weeks of no ex, no ex’s father, no bumps or bruises, it was impossible to ignore. Everything about Sophia called out to him in the best ways possible.
It was little things, to how she chewed her lip when she drew on her tablet, or how she trusted Missy to cut her hair back down to a short, more manageable do that framed her high cheekbones nicely. To how she bought a present for Benji’s birthday although no one expected her to. There was the way her tongue would stick out of the corner of her mouth as she stirred pancake batter for Ma, and how she would baby talk to all the animals, no matter how huge or tall they were.
And there were big things too. Like how she took to life on the ranch like a duck to water. The chickens loved her especially, for some reason, and she was the only one aside from Missy and one of his little cousins who never got pecked.
And also, how one day, she came up to the office all serious and without her tablet. At first he’d been alarmed when she sat down in front of his desk—the couch was always her go-to. But then she’d cleared her throat and asked him about getting health insurance since she was going to be around a while.
The thought that she was willing to stick around long enough for health insurance to be needed had nearly made him giddy right then and there. But then she had gone on to say that it was time she saw a therapist so she could move on and find out who she really was, and it took a whole lot of acting experience not to show how beside himself he was with happiness.
Therapy was a huge deal. He’d thought that some counseling would do Sophia wonders, and maybe even a support group of other women who’d been through what she had, but he was never sure if she was ready. The fact that she’d brought it up all on her own? Amazing.
And that she’d gone to her first appointment with Dani and Keiko in tow and had scheduled one a week for the next month?
Well, Bradley didn’t have a word for it, but it sure did feel good in his soul.
Because the woman he loved was healing. Slowly but surely, all the cracks that had formed were filling up while the walls that she had built for protection were slowly, oh so slowly, coming down.
Bradley looked at the ROI calculation he’d been fiddling with for the past two hours, but for once the numbers held no interest to him. Sophia had been there for lunch at one o’clock, leaving at two fifteen on the dot, but it wasn’t enough.
Saving his document, he headed down the stairs out to the front porch, where he was pretty sure he’d find her with Missy. It was a Thursday, which meant their usual activity for the day was pushed later because the blond would go into town and help at the veterinary clinic.
Although Bart was more than happy to just have Missy live on the ranch without ever having to work, she still muckraked in the barns about twice a week and worked in town on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Everyone knew she was saving up for her own animal rescue, but what she didn’t know was that Bart had been setting funds aside for exactly that as a wedding present. He hoped Missy wore waterproof mascara to her ceremony, because she was going to bawl like a baby.
…would Sophia want to work on something other than her commissions eventually? Was there going to be an eventually? He’d set up her insurance, and she’d scheduled counseling out four weeks ahead so he knew that she would be around for at least that, but when he tried to think of the longer term, like a year, or a few years, he couldn’t. The picture was hazy, full of too many what-ifs and unknown variables.
But at the same time, he couldn’t not picture her there.
It was like a Mobius sort of fantasy. Both there and not there. He didn’t like the uncertainty of that, so he sat down on the porch swing while he watched Missy try to lead Sophia through a simple waltz.
He didn’t really understand the rhyme or reason behind Missy’s lessons, but Sophia still seemed to love them nonetheless. Sure, at first it had all been things that were useful for her to know, things to make her feel comforted and protected. The self-defense, the grappling, how to disarm an opponent. He had never been aware that Missy had so much knowledge about fighting, but when he asked Bart, the muscled man had gotten all dreamy eyed and said something about his beautiful Amazon, so Bradley had kind of glazed over.
But once all of the practical stuff was out of the way, there’d been painting, and learning how to do
a cartwheel, simple repair sewing, how to shoe a horse, mixing the perfect water-to-soap ratio for really good bubbles, how to catch a fish, how to clean a fish, makeup, it was such a wide range of things that he could never really guess what was next.
Then again, maybe it was all stuff that people would normally learn if they were given the chance to have a real life. Sophia had basically been snatched up and groomed since she was seventeen. Not allowed to be her own person. Not allowed to do her own things. Explore what she liked and disliked. No, that time had been robbed from her.
So maybe… maybe the whole point of Missy’s activities was to give Sophia all of that time back.
Bradley whistled to himself. Bart was right. Missy was real good at understanding what people needed. Pulling out his phone, he put in a reminder to himself to get her a very nice gift card for one of those pet sites online that Bart said she approved of.
After that was done, he contented himself to watching until they finished, making sure to stand up and clap when they were done.
“Thank you, thank you,” Missy said with an exaggerated bow. “I live to serve.”
But Sophia had a different reaction. “Don’t tease me,” she said, coming up onto the porch and pushing playfully at his arm. “I wasn’t that bad.”
“I never said you were,” Bradley retorted. “I was admiring your efforts. …and the durability of Missy’s shoes.”
“Steel-toed boots!” Missy called as she walked off in the direction of her and Bart’s cabin.
As for Sophia, she just cracked up laughing.
Strangely enough, Bradley loved the sound. It was so unchecked, unflinching. Although Sophia was healing, she was never very loud. Always keeping her voice down as if she was afraid she might trigger something terrible if she dared go above a certain level. He supposed it was possible that she had subconsciously trained herself to be quiet as a survival tactic, but that made him cherish the moments where she was loud all the more.
“Yeah, I really am not good at keeping a count. And I thought all Latinas were supposed to have rhythm.”
“I’m sure you have rhythm. It’s just your rhythm.”
“Are you trying to find a nice way to tell me that I march to the beat of my own drum?”
“Wait, is that not a nice saying itself? Because people have been telling me that since I was three.”
“Well yeah, but that’s because you’re real weird.”
Bradley huffed in faux affront. “Excuse you, I’m rich. It’s called eccentric.”
“Yeah, well why don’t you eccentric me up a glass of lemonade then? I’m parched.”
“That’s not how you use that word. It’s an adjective, not a verb.”
She placed a hand on his chest as she moved around him to the front door. “Anything is a verb if you try hard enough. So, did you just come down for the show or is there a sudden accounting apocalypse I should know about?”
For a moment Bradley had forgotten his purpose for even leaving his office. But that was what being with Sophia was like. The rest of the world fell away, and it was just them. “I, uh, I was actually thinking that it’s been a while since we left the house. If we wanna keep the ruse up, I thought we should go into town for a date.”
“Right. Only for the ruse, of course.”
“Yeah, of course,” he agreed quickly.
“I don’t know. I don’t really have anything else to wear for something like that fancy restaurant we went to before.”
“Actually, I was thinking something different.”
She lifted one of her eyebrows. “Hmmm?”
“I might have overheard you telling one of the girls that you’ve never seen a musical outside of a high school production. There’s a pretty good theater in the city, and they have a great one running. That is… if you’d want to go.”
Her hand left the door, and she turned around fully to look at him. “You want to take me to a play?”
“Well, a musical, but yeah.”
“I… I don’t have anything nice to wear. Unless you think I could use that blue dress again?”
“No, it’ll be a bit too cold, I think. How about we go into the city and find you something? We could even go to a salon for your hair and makeup if you want. Make a whole afternoon and evening of it?”
She stared at him like he had grown another head. “You want to… take me shopping for a dress, then to an expensive salon to get done up, then to a theater?”
“And maybe some ice cream later? You know, if it’s not too cold.”
“But…” She looked troubled, and he wondered if he had gone overboard. If he had made her uncomfortable. “…but that’s so much.”
“Is it?”
She nodded. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you wanna do that?”
He raised his eyebrows, his go-to expression. “I just want to. I think it would be fun.”
“I…” After hesitating, she seemed to come to a decision and nodded. “Okay. Yeah. It does sound fun.”
“Really?” Relief flooded through him and he stood up straighter. He had come up with the whole outfit thing on the fly, so he hadn’t exactly planned it properly. He needed to iron out some details and buy the tickets. Thankfully it was a Thursday in the middle of the run, so he didn’t think they’d be sold out. “Okay. That’s good. Right.”
“Do I have time to shower and get changed?”
“Yeah, yeah of course. Do whatever you need. I’ll go make sure everything’s ready once you’re out.”
“Okay, sounds like a plan.”
He wished he had a plan. Like so many things with Sophia, he rarely thought outside of the now.
She headed inside, and he busied himself with some very quick online ordering. Because if he was going to take Sophia out on a night on the town, he was going to make sure it was the best night he could give her.
“It’s not too late to back down now.”
Bradley looked over his arm to Sophia, who was curled up in his passenger’s seat as usual. She had on comfortable sweatpants and a light T-shirt, her thick hair still slightly damp from her shower, and Bradley wondered if she’d ever looked more beautiful. Something about seeing her there all relaxed and in her natural state, smiling softly and resting easy, looked so perfect to him.
“Why, you having second thoughts?”
“No. Just giving you a way out in case you didn’t think this through.”
He shrugged. “I’m taking a beautiful woman out on a fun date. What’s there to think through?”
“You’re taking your fake fiancé on a fake date but spending a whole lot of real money.”
He shrugged. “Money is meant to be spent. People and memories are what’s priceless.”
“Hah, spoken like a rich man.”
“What, you don’t agree?”
“Only partially. I know that people and memories are what make life worth living. But if you’re sick with pneumonia and don’t have health insurance, money sure does mean a whole lot. Or if you’re about to get evicted. Or if your kid desperately needs braces, but you can’t afford it. Or if you’re hungry with an empty cupboard and wallet. In all those cases, money could be considered priceless too.”
“Alright, you have a point.”
“I do try.” She looked expectantly to the door, and Bradley smiled, going around to open it for her. “You’re not just doing this so you have an excuse to not see a musical by yourself, are you?” she asked as he opened it and held out his hand.
“You caught me. That was my master plan all along. As if I couldn’t drag Ma to these any time I wanted.”
“Please, this would be way past her bedtime.” She landed on the ground but kept a hold of his hand. He stayed still a moment, just in case she changed her mind, but when that moment passed, he took it in stride.
“So, where are we going first?”
“Chastity told me that this stretch had some of the better clothing boutiques in t
he city, so I figured we could walk along, look in the windows and go in if we see anything that you like.”
“Huh, it’s really that easy?”
“Well, only if they have something you like.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Well, sweats and T-shirts aren’t the normal play uniform, but it’s not like they’ll kick us out. Or… I don’t think they will.”
“Right, so find a dress.”
“Or a nice shirt and pants.”
“Please, we have a way better chance of finding a dress that fits than pants that are the right length for my short legs.”
“I think your legs are just fine.”
She laughed and kicked one of them upwards. “Why, you been lookin’ at them?”
“I confess to nothing. I am the perfect gentleman.”
“Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.”
They devolved into friendly banter as they exited the parking garage and headed out onto the street. But the moment they passed the first boutique window, Sophia fell silent, stopping in her tracks to stare at the beautifully decorated window.
Bradley smiled, enjoying the look of wonder on her face. He didn’t say anything, just letting the moment go on as long as she needed, but a flicker of concern rose in him when tears started to well up in her eyes.
“Hey, are you okay?”
She nodded, gulping down some air and hastily rubbing at her eyes. “Yeah. I’m fine. I just… I remember when I was a little girl, it was summer, and my mother and I were shopping in St. Louis. We were on the upper side for some reason, I can’t recall, but we walked past a storefront just like this.
“I thought it was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen. I wanted to go in so desperately, but I remember her telling me that those places weren’t for us. I didn’t understand what she meant, but it always stuck with me. That nice things weren’t for me, and nice places where rich white people with great vocabularies and college degrees were someplace I’d never belong.”
“Sophia…”