by Virna DePaul
They’d been together for six years. She’d been a huge chunk of his life for more than half a decade. For six years he’d loved her, made love to her, planned his life around her. And for six years she’d loved him back. Just not as much as she’d loved Eric’s best friend, Gabe.
And for some reason, for the first time, he was beginning to understand how his feelings for Brianne, as much as he’d loved her, hadn’t been all they could be.
“Not now,” he muttered to himself as he grabbed their clothes off the ground and headed back to the house. He didn’t want to think about all that right now. About the reasons he’d left L.A. to move to Montana. He didn’t want to focus on the past. Or even think about the past. He wanted his future.
As great as she was, Brianne would never have smashed through a barn wall that way. She’d never have jumped him outside. She’d never have fucked him on the ground.
Not because she’d been a prude but because they hadn’t been right for each other.
Not the way Lexi was right for him.
Eric banged through his front door and headed up the stairs. He paused outside the bedroom for a second, and this time deliberately called up an image of Brianne in his head, once again relieved that doing so didn’t break his heart anymore.
Instead, her visage quickly vanished, replaced with images from the night before. Lexi bending over for him. Lexi on her hands and knees. Lexi riding him like a goddess with those soft little strokes that had made his eyes cross.
He grimaced down at the tent he was currently making in his shorts. He needed to calm down, or he was going scare the poor woman off. She was nervous enough this morning without him leading with his monster boner.
He took a deep breath, thought of that one time he’d walked in on his grandma changing clothes, and willed himself back under control. He walked back into his bedroom, then tried not to wince at the way she sat on the bed, feet pulled up to her chest, like she was hiding herself from him.
“They’re a little dirty, but wearable,” he said holding up her clothes.
She shot him a tight smile, reaching out for them.
Handing them over, he sat next to her on the bed while she wiggled into her outfit.
“You a coffee drinker?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’d suck on some coffee beans right about now.”
“Great,” he rose.
“On second thought, I’ll just grab some once I get back.” Her words were hurried and nervous. He hated it. “Lexi, I don’t know you well enough to be able to tell exactly what’s going on, but did I do something to make you feel bad or mad or something?”
She immediately bit her lip, a look of chagrin crossing her face. “No,” she shook her head. “Kinda the opposite, actually.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Care to explain?”
She looked back at him, her eyes trailing down to his bare chest. Suddenly, she was standing, striding over to his dresser and rifling through the drawers. She tossed him a shirt.
“Put that on,” she said. “I can’t think when you look like that.” She waved her hand at his chest like his attractiveness was annoying to her.
He bit his cheek to keep from smiling. Happy that she was talking, and beyond happy that his bare chest was scrambling her brains a little bit.
“You’re really great. I like you a lot and last night was…” she cleared her throat. “A hall- of-famer as far as I’m concerned.”
Eric couldn’t help but grin and nod. “Me too.”
She matched his smile for a second. Electricity zipped between them again before her eyes skittered away and her smile faded.
“But I’m leaving town today,” she said on a deep exhale, tracing her hands through her hair before she jammed them in her pockets.
Eric’s eyebrows rose even as his stomach plummeted. “For vacation?”
“No,” she shook her head. “For good.”
His chest constricted, cutting off his breath. “Where to?”
A light pink stained her cheeks. “L.A.”
Eric felt his mouth drop open. Of course. Of course he’d feel this amazing connection to her only to learn she was moving to the one place he’d never live again.
“I know, I know.” She said, misinterpreting the look on his face. “I don’t look like an L.A. kind of girl. And I know it’s hard to hack it there. But if I don’t do it now…”
Right.
That, at least, was a feeling Eric could relate to. He knew what it was like to jump into something because not doing it meant never doing it. He had a ramshackle barn and 50 acres of land to prove it.
“What’s waiting in L.A. for you?”
“I’m a screenwriter,” she replied, her cheeks going even pinker. “Well, at least, I want to be one. I’ve written a bunch of stuff on my own. But even with the internet, it’s really hard to get it into the hands of the right people. Based on everything I’ve read, I really need to live in L.A. if I want any chance of making it so…”
She raised her hands and let them drop.
“Makes sense. Where will you be living?”
She jammed her hands even harder into her pockets. “Not sure yet?” She said it like a question.
“Wait, so you’re moving to L.A. without a place to live?” He heard the judgment in his voice and immediately wished he could take the words back.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I’m not going there right away. I’m taking the summer to make my way down there. I need to pick up some odd jobs along the way to raise the money. And hopefully by the time I’m down there, I’ll have something lined up.”
She shrugged like it was no big deal, but he could see the nerves in her eyes. He also felt a little ray of hope light in his chest. Her timeline wasn’t as short as she’d made it seem.
“If you don’t need to be in L.A. until the end of the summer, then why are you leaving here today?”
At that, she came back to sit on the bed, tracing her hand through her hair again. “Because I didn’t sign up to stay here for the summer. Because I’ve lived in town after town just like this. And I can tell you one thing they all have in common.” She turned to him and her eyes were like bright lights pinning him in place. “Quicksand.”
His stomach dropped again. “You mean you’re scared you’ll get stuck here.”
She nodded and looked away, playing with the frayed hem of her jeans. “There’s a million ways that girls like me get stuck in a place like this. Fear. Being broke.” She glanced at him again. “A really great guy.”
It all clicked into place for him. She hadn’t been acting distant and nervous because she didn’t like him or want to be around him. But because she did like him and did want to be around him.
“Ah,” he nodded his head in understanding. “What do you mean ‘girls like you’?”
“You know. Broke. Not much family. A handful of friends scattered across the states. Reasonable amounts of talent. A lot of dreams. And a big old bleeding heart that puts everybody before myself.”
He wasn’t sure she was painting an altogether accurate picture of herself, but he didn’t know her well enough to argue.
“So you figure slowly moving south toward L.A. gives you a much higher chance of making it there. Even if you don’t make as much money as you would if you held a steady job here. Say, at a hardware store?” He couldn’t say why he was offering this to her. He barely knew her. All he knew was that the thought of her leaving so soon was making his chest squeeze. He knew, without a doubt, that if she left that day, he would never see her again. He couldn’t stand the thought. Offering her a job was, perhaps, a little pushy. It was a shot in the dark, and if she walked away from it, well, that was her choice.
“Like the one you currently run?” she narrowed her eyes even further.
He shrugged. “Look, I need help over the summer. There’s no way I can run it the way my grandparents need me to and focus on getting this ranch up and running at the same time. I
could hire some teenager who’s going to text at the cash register all day. Or I could hire somebody I trust to help me run it with integrity.”
She said nothing. Just furrowed her brow and kept playing with the hem of her pants.
He decided to go for broke. “If you’re asking my opinion, which I know you weren’t, but hey, here it is. Saving up at a steady job, not having to worry about income, or where you’re going to live, or whether or not your car is going to start in the morning, all of that makes it far more probable you’ll make it to L.A. at the end of the summer. And if you want, I’ll fire you in August so you have to go.”
She grinned at him for just a second before she bit her lip again, nerves and uncertainty taking over.
He turned to her and took her hand in his. “Plus, I lived in L.A. for a long time. So maybe I can help you figure some stuff out.”
For the first time that morning, hope lit in her eyes.
“I swear, Lexi,” he said, squeezing her hand for emphasis. “I wouldn’t contribute to your quicksand. In fact, I’ll be your quicksand lifeguard.”
She grinned at that one. “Will you wear a whistle and one of those red floaty things?”
He nodded solemnly. “I’ll even wear the teeny tiny bathing suit.”
She laughed outright now. “I’d like to see that.” But then she was biting her lip again. “I need coffee if I’m going to make this decision.”
He was tugging her downstairs before she barely even got the words out of her mouth.
He lifted her up onto his kitchen counter and immediately started making the coffee while she looked around.
“Pretty empty in here,” she noted.
He shrugged. “I’m still figuring things out.” In more ways than one.
She nodded. “I’ve never been good at decorating either. I pretty much need a toothbrush and a pillow and I’m set.”
“Where are you living now?”
Her eyes skittered away from his as she told him the intersection.
He narrowed his eyes and poured her the first cup of coffee he could squeak out of the rapidly filling receptacle. He knew that intersection. “There’s only motels over there.”
She shrugged. “I only thought I would be in town for a few nights.”
“You had an odd job here?”
“No,” she cast her eyes down as she took the cup of coffee from him. “It was my horse. Maple. I sold her yesterday to a guy on the other side of town.”
Eric couldn’t help the noise of distress that eeked its way out of him. She’d sold her horse to be able to afford to make her way to L.A. That’s how badly she wanted to go. His heart immediately went out to this woman. “Lexi, say yes to the job. It’ll pay well and I swear, it’ll only bring your dreams closer. Plus, I could really use the help. It’ll be a win win.”
She took a huge slug of the coffee, set the cup aside and stared him in the eye. “If I’m working for you, I’m not going to be sleeping with you.”
He choked on his own coffee. “I’m sorry?”
“Look. I’ve been down on my luck enough times in my life that I can’t afford to blur the line between being paid for work and being paid for sex. It’s not good for my self worth.”
“Lexi, I wouldn’t be paying you for sex. I swear. You’d be working an honest-to-god job at the store.”
“I won’t sleep with you while you’re my boss,” she repeated staunchly.
Eric sighed. “Fair enough. Wouldn’t be my first choice, since last night was the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced, but I’d respect your wishes. The offer is still on the table, sex notwithstanding.”
She stared at him like he was a mystery she was trying to solve. “You really are a good guy, aren’t you?”
“I sleep just fine at night.”
She hopped down from the counter. “So, I’d work for you. You’d help me figure out the best way to start out in L.A. We wouldn’t sleep together,” she summed up.
“And you’ll live here with me,” he finished, pretty certain how she was going to react to that one.
“Excuse me?” she stopped in her tracks, raised an eyebrow. “I most certainly will not be living with my boss who I will not be sleeping with.”
He grinned and raised his hands up. “Alright, alright. Can’t blame a guy for trying. But look, just because we won’t be sleeping together doesn’t mean I want you staying in those sketchy motels by the highway.”
She shrugged. “So I’ll find a place.”
He snapped his fingers and reached for his cell in his pocket. “You know what? I know someone who might want to take you in.”
“Who?”
“Marina, the bartender from last night.”
Lexi leaned forward on the counter, sipping from her coffee cup. “You plan on kissing her in front of me again?”
Eric fired off the text he’d just composed and grinned up at her. “That wouldn’t be very professional of me, now would it?” He leaned over the counter toward her. “Speaking of professional. You don’t technically work for me yet, you know.”
She bit the inside of her cheek like she was trying to keep from smiling. “We have a gentleman’s agreement.”
“So I don’t even get some celebratory nookie?” he asked hopefully.
She shook her head, swallowing the rest of her coffee.
“Fair enough,” he said again, putting their coffee cups in the sink and heading out to his car to drive her to pick up her stuff. He was bummed that they wouldn’t be sleeping together again. In fact, he really hoped she changed her mind about that one. But he knew what it was like to chase a dream while the seedier aspects of life chased you. He knew what it was like to live in fear of failure. And he liked this girl enough that he was going do everything in his power to make sure she shook that fear once and for all.
Chapter Four
What the hell had happened? Lexi flopped back on her bed feeling like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Well. Sort of. She was, after all, staunchly refusing to be a whore. So it wasn’t the same thing at all really.
But the sudden switch to glitz and glamour was certainly similar to the movie. Not that Marina’s house was particularly glitzy. But it was a big step up from the seedy motels she’d been staying in. And about a monster step up from sleeping in the backseat of her car.
Marina had been overjoyed at the idea of a roommate. Well, at least at the idea of somebody to help out with the rent. Lexi hadn’t actually seen her yet but they’d talked on the phone and Marina had left her spare keys under a fake rock in the garden.
Lexi propped herself up on her bed. The room was a little plain, but clean. And it had only taken her about 45 seconds to move all her crap from her car inside. She surveyed her little suitcase that she’d tossed halfway into the closet after unpacking her two drawers-worth of clothes. Her old crappy laptop sat on the desk and a cup of water sat on the nightstand beside her.
And that was it.
In the context of the cute little room, with its light yellow walls and a plush creamy bedspread, her meager belongings looked pitiful. Reaching into her back pocket, Lexi pulled out her wallet. From there she peeled out the picture she kept inside.
Lexi was about eight years old, lanky and skinny, her hair in a messy ponytail. She had her legs kicked out in a can-can pose while her dad laughed down at her, one arm around her shoulders. A ratty baseball cap covered most of his handsome face.
Lexi sighed and carefully leaned the picture up against the wall behind the nightstand. Her handsome father. Always hiding that face of his. He’d put aside his dream to act when Lexi was born, and after her mother died, he’d put the dream away permanently. He’d had to rely on skills he’d learned as a kid to be able to put food on the table. That’s when he and Lexi had joined the rodeo circuit.
It had been a strange place to grow up, for sure. Lots of sun-hardened men with drinking problems, cheating on their wives back home and smoking two packs a day. But Lexi couldn’t help but feel a
n affection for the circuit. She’d gotten to spend time with her father every day. Gotten to see little stretches of America while traveling with the rodeo. She’d fallen in love with movies in the back of her father’s R.V. He’d plug her into a movie whenever things got too rowdy for a little girl. Maybe not the most classically wholesome life, but it had treated her well. She’d learned how to ride a horse. Hell, Maple had been sold to her cheap on her sixteenth birthday from her father’s best friend.
But after she’d turned eighteen, she’d longed for more. She’d left, set out to find her own path. Little did she know that she’d spend the next seven years doing a circuit of her own. Bouncing from town to town, job to job. Scraping by while she carved out time to write and ride Maple.
A tear slid down Lexi’s cheek. The check the man had written for her horse still burned a hole in her pocket. Lexi hadn’t cashed it even though she desperately needed it. The minute that money ended up in her account, it would become real. All of it. Her horse would be gone and she’d be on her way to L.A.
Suddenly she didn’t feel ready. Suddenly everything was moving so fast. Without giving it a second thought, she reached for her cell phone. Checking the time, she knew her dad would be getting ready for the big show. If he wasn’t riding tonight, he’d be helping some other cowboy get ready. It wasn’t the right time for a call. A quick text wouldn’t hurt though.
-Hey Papa
As always, his reply was immediate.
-Hey pumpkin, what’s shaking?
-Not much, just a little sad about Maple.
And a little confused about the hottest man I’ve ever met fucking me into next Tuesday. But, of course, she didn’t text that part.
-It was a tough decision, kiddo, and you made sure that horse had a good thing going for her. Nothing wrong with that. I love you, kid. But I gotta get on with the show here. I’m next. Wish your old dad good luck and I’ll call you tomorrow.
-Love you too, Papa.
Lexi smiled as she thought of her dad in his chaps and cowboy boots, swinging a leg over a horse. He’d given up bull riding a long time ago, after he’d been tossed and broken some ribs and his wrist. After that, he’d decided he couldn’t risk his daughter seeing him get trampled like a rag doll. He stuck to calf roping now. Some barrel racing on occasion.