by Maisey Yates
She had stood in front of him and said she wanted love more than she wanted to be safe. And he had turned her down.
He was afraid. Had been all his life. But before this very moment, he would have rather cut out his own heart than admit it.
But now, standing with his sister looking at him like he was the saddest damn thing she’d ever seen, a hole opened in his chest. A hole Hayley had filled.
“But doesn’t it scare you?” he asked, his voice rough. “What if he leaves?”
She reached out, putting her hand on his. “It would break my heart. But I would be okay. I would have you. And I would...still be more whole than I was before I loved him. That’s the thing about love. It doesn’t make you weak, Jonathan, it makes you stronger. Opening yourself up, letting people in...that makes your life bigger. It makes your life richer. Maybe it’s a cliché, but from where I’m standing you need to hear the cliché. You need to start believing it.”
“I don’t understand why she would want to be with me,” Jonathan said. “She’s...sweet. And she’s never been hurt. I’m...well, I’m a mess. That’s not what she deserves. She deserves to have a man who’s in mint condition, like she is.”
“But that’s not how love works. If love made sense, if it was perfectly fair, then Gage West would not have been the man for me. He was the last man on earth I should have wanted, Jonathan. Nobody knows that more than me, and him. It took a miracle for me to let go of all my anger and love him. At the same time... I couldn’t help myself.
“Love is strange that way. You fall into it whether you want to or not. Then the real fight is figuring out how to live it. How to become the person you need to be so you can hold on to that love. But I’m willing to bet you are the man she needs. Not some mint condition, new-in-the-box guy. But a strong man who has proved, time and time again, that no matter how hard life is, no matter how intensely the storm rages, he’ll be there for you. And more than that, he’ll throw his body over yours to protect you if it comes to that. That’s what I see when I look at you, Jonathan. What’s it going to take for you to see that in yourself?”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to,” he said slowly, imagining Hayley again, picturing her as she stared up at him on the street. Fury, hurt, love shining from her eyes. “But...if she sees it...”
“That’s a start,” Rebecca said. “As long as you don’t let her get away. As long as you don’t push her away.”
“It’s too late for that. She’s probably not going to want to see me again. She’s probably not going to want me back.”
“Well, you won’t know unless you ask.” Rebecca took a deep breath. “The best thing about love is it has the capacity to forgive on a pretty incredible level. But if there’s one thing you and I both know, it’s that it’s hard to forgive someone leaving. Don’t make that the story. Go back. Ask for forgiveness. Change what needs to be changed. Mostly...love her. The rest kind of takes care of itself.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HAYLEY HAD JUST settled back onto her couch for more quality sitting and weeping when she heard a knock at her door.
She stood up, brushing potato chip crumbs off her pajamas and grimacing. Maybe it was Cassie, bringing up baked goods. The other woman had done that earlier; maybe now she was bringing more. Hayley could only hope.
She had a gaping wound in her chest that could be only temporarily soothed by butter.
Without bothering to fix her hair—which was on top of her head in a messy knot—she jerked the door open.
And there he was. Dark eyes glittering, gorgeous mouth pressed into a thin line. His dark hair tied back low on his neck, the way she was accustomed to seeing him during the day.
Her heart lurched up into her throat, trying to make a break for it.
She hadn’t been expecting him, but she imagined expecting him wouldn’t have helped. Jonathan Bear wasn’t someone you could anticipate.
“What are you doing here?”
He looked around. “I came here to talk to you. Were you...expecting someone else?”
“Yes. A French male prostitute.” He lifted his brows. “Well, you told me to find another man to tick my boxes.”
“I think you mean a gigolo.”
“I don’t know what they’re called,” she said, exasperated.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Well, I promise to be quick. I won’t interrupt your sex date.”
She stepped to the side, ignoring the way her whole body hurt as she did. “I don’t have a sex date.” She cleared her throat. “Just so you know.”
“Somehow, I didn’t think you did.”
“You don’t know me,” she grumbled, turning away from him, pressing her hand to her chest to see if her heart was beating as hard and fast as she felt like it was.
It was.
“I do, Hayley. I know you pretty damn well. Maybe better than I know myself. And...I think you might know me better than I know myself, too.” He sounded different. Sad. Tired.
She turned around to face him, and with his expression more fully illuminated by the light, she saw weariness written there. Exhaustion.
“For all the good it did me,” she said, crossing her arms tightly in a bid to protect herself. Really, though, it was too late. There wasn’t anything left to protect. He had shattered her irrevocably.
“Yeah, well. It did me a hell of a lot of good. At least, I hope it’s going to. I hope I’m not too late.”
“Too late for what? To stick the knife in again or...?”
“To tell you I love you,” he said.
Everything froze inside her. Absolutely everything. The air in her lungs, her heart, the blood in her veins.
“You...you just said... Don’t tease me, Jonathan. Don’t play with me. I know I’m younger than you. I know that I’m innocent. But if you came back here to lie to me, to say what you think I need to hear so you can...keep having me in your bed, or whatever—”
Suddenly, she found herself being hauled forward into his arms, against his chest. “I do want you in my bed,” he said, “make no mistake about that. But sex is just sex, Hayley, even when it’s good. And what we have is good.
“But here’s something you don’t know, because you don’t have experience with it. Sex isn’t love. And it doesn’t feel like this. I feel...like everything in me is broken and stronger at the same time, and I don’t know how in the hell that can be true. And when you told me you loved me... I knew I could either let go of everything in the past or hold on to it harder to protect myself.” He shook his head. “I protected myself.”
“Yeah, well. What about protecting me?”
“I thought maybe I was protecting you, too. But it’s all tangled up in this big lie that I’ve been telling myself for years. I told you I didn’t love people, that I love things. But I said that only because I’ve had way too much experience with people I love leaving. A house can’t walk away, Hayley. A mountain can’t up and abandon you. But you could.
“One day, you could wake up and regret that you tied your future to me. When you could have done better... When you could have had a man who wasn’t so damn broken.” He cupped her cheek, bent down and kissed her lips. “What did I do to earn the love of someone like you? Someone so beautiful...so soft. You’re everything I’m not, Hayley Thompson, and all the reasons I love you make perfect sense to me. But why do you love me? That’s what I can’t quite figure out.”
Hayley looked into his eyes, so full of pain, so deeply wounded. She would have never thought a man like him would need reassurance from anyone, least of all a woman like her.
“I know I don’t have a lot of experience, Jonathan. Well, any experience apart from you. I know that I haven’t seen the whole world. I haven’t even seen the whole state. But I’ve seen your heart. The kind of man you are. The change that knowing you, loving you, created in me. And I know...perfect love ca
sts out all fear.
“I can’t say I haven’t been afraid these past couple of days. Afraid I couldn’t be with you. That things might not work out with us. But when I stood on Main Street... I knew fear couldn’t be allowed to win. It was your love that brought me to that conclusion. Your love was bigger than the fear inside me. I don’t need experience to understand that. I don’t need to travel the world or date other men for the sake of experience. I need you. Because whether or not you’re perfect, you’re perfect for me.”
“You’re perfect,” he said, his voice rough. “So damned perfect. I want...to take you to Canada.”
She blinked. “Well. That’s not exactly an offer to run off to Vegas.”
“You want to use your passport. Why wait? Let’s go now. Your boss will let you off. I’m sure of it.”
Something giddy bubbled up in her chest. Something wonderful. “Right now? Really?”
“Right the hell now.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, let’s go to Canada.”
“It’s not the Eiffel Tower,” he said, “but I will take you there someday. I promise you that.”
“The only thing I need is you,” she said. “The rest is negotiable.”
His lips crashed down on hers, his kiss desperate and intense, saying the deep, poetic things she doubted her stoic cowboy would ever say out loud. But that was okay. The kiss said plenty all on its own.
EPILOGUE
JONATHAN HATED WEARING a suit. He’d never done it before, but he had come to a swift and decisive conclusion the moment he’d finished doing up his tie.
Hayley was standing in their bedroom, looking amused. The ring on her left hand glittered as bright as her eyes, and suddenly, it wasn’t the tie that was strangling him. It was just her. The love on her beautiful face. The fact she loved him.
He still hadn’t quite figured out why. Still wasn’t sure he saw all the things in himself that Rebecca had spoken of that day, all the things Hayley talked about when she said she loved him.
But Hayley did love him. And that was a gift he cherished.
“You’re not going to make me wear a suit when we do this, are you?” he asked.
“I might,” she said. “You look really hot in a suit.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to his chest. “You look hottest in nothing at all. Think we could compromise?”
“We’ve created enough scandal already without me showing up naked to my wedding. Anyway, I’m wearing white. I am a traditional girl, after all.”
“Honey, you oughta wear red.”
“Are you calling me a scarlet woman?”
He nodded. “Yes, and I think you proved your status earlier this morning.”
She blushed. She still blushed, even after being with him for six months. Blushed in bed, when he whispered dirty things into her ear. He loved it.
He loved her.
He couldn’t wait to be her husband, and that was something he hadn’t imagined ever feeling. Looking forward to being a husband.
Of course, he was looking forward to the honeymoon even more. To staying in a little apartment in Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
For him, trading in a view of the mountains for a view of the city didn’t hold much appeal. But she wanted it. And the joy he got from giving Hayley what she wanted was the biggest thing in his world.
Waiting to surprise her with the trip was damn near killing him.
“You have to hurry,” she said, pushing at his shoulder. “You’re giving the bride away, after all.”
Jonathan took a deep breath. Yeah, it was time. Time to give his sister to that Gage West, who would never deserve her, but who loved her, so Jonathan was willing to let it go. Willing to give them his blessing.
Actually, over the past few months he’d gotten kind of attached to the bastard who would be his brother-in-law. Something he’d thought would never be possible only a little while ago.
But love changed you. Rebecca had been right about that.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go then.”
Hayley kissed his cheek and took his hand, leading him out of the bedroom and down the stairs. The wedding guests were out on the back lawn, waiting for the event to start. When he and Hayley exited the house, they all turned to look.
He and Hayley still turned heads, and he had a feeling they always would.
Jonathan Bear had always been seen as a bad boy. In all the ways that phrase applied. The kind of boy no parent wanted their daughter to bring home to Sunday dinner. And yet the pastor’s daughter had.
He’d definitely started out that way. But somehow, through some miracle, he’d earned the love of a good woman.
And because of her love, he was determined to be the best man he could possibly be.
* * * * *
From reader-beloved and New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates comes the sizzling second book in her new Gold Valley Western romance series.
Untamed Cowboy
Shy tomboy Kaylee Capshaw never thought she’d have a chance of winning the heart of her longtime friend Bennett Dodge, even if he is the cowboy of her dreams. But when she learns he’s suddenly single, can she finally prove to him that the woman he’s been waiting for has been right here all along?
Order your copy today!
Love finds you when you least expect it in the charming small town of Copper Ridge, Oregon. Be sure to collect all of the stories in this sweet and sexy series!
Slow Burn Cowboy
Down Home Cowboy
Wild Ride Cowboy
Christmastime Cowboy
“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy her small-town romance.”
—Booklist
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ISBN-13: 9781488029332
Smooth-Talking Cowboy
Copyright © 2018 by Maisey Yates
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual work as follows:
Seduce Me, Cowboy
Copyright © 2017 by Maisey Yates
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