“Lainey,” he said, walking toward her slowly.
“You don’t have to pretend or try and say the right thing. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you think I’m an idiot.”
Man, he’d really screwed this up.
He didn’t stop until he was right in front of her, and that reaction he had whenever she was close happened. It wasn’t something he’d ever experienced with anyone; it was like the universe was telling him something, like this woman meant something a helluva lot more than he’d like to admit. “I don’t think you’re an idiot,” he said, bending his knees so he could see her face. “I’d never think that. You have principles. Ideals. I may not share them, but I respect you for having them.”
She averted her gaze. “If we had slept together tonight, what would have happened tomorrow?”
“We would have woken up really happy?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, really. Would I have meant more to you?”
He straightened up and shrugged. “That’s a trick question. It’s not that the sex would have made you mean more, but it would have brought us closer together.”
“So the…women you’ve been with before have meant more to you after you slept with them? You became closer to them?”
He frowned. “Well…no, but you’re not them. It’d be different with you.”
“Where are those women now?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know.”
Her eyes narrowed on him slightly. He shifted from one foot to the other. “Exactly,” she said.
“Oh, so you’re implying that I sleep with them and take off?”
She shrugged and pursed her lips.
“Well, that’s not the case. None of the women I’ve been with have wanted commitment, either. It was a mutual understanding.”
“Fine. That’s wonderful. So here’s the problem I have—how will I know that if I sleep with you, I won’t fall madly in love with you and you’ll leave me heartbroken? I’ll enter into this relationship with you and give you everything of myself, and you’ll walk away without ever looking back? Because here’s what I’m thinking, Ty. If I sleep with you, that will be it for me. I will fall in love with you, and you’ll…”
His chest grew heavy as he stared at her, at the tears in her eyes. Her words cut him down, and the reality of what she was saying gutted him. “That wouldn’t happen. I’d never walk away from you without ever looking back. How do you know it wouldn’t be you doing the walking?”
She let out a small laugh. “Do you remember my mother?”
He gave a nod. “Vaguely. I don’t think I saw her more than once or twice.”
“She was a perpetual romantic. Her entire self-worth was determined by whether or not a man loved her. I mean, she ditched me for a guy. Kids are notorious for breaking up new romances,” she said with a smile that held the sting of bitterness. “It was guy after guy, and as I grew up, I realized what she was doing. I swore to myself I’d never be like her.”
His heart ached for her. “You wouldn’t be like that. It doesn’t have to be one extreme or another.”
“Well, maybe it does. For me. Maybe I only want to be with one guy for the rest of my life. Is that wrong?”
Right now, he’d say that if the guy were him, it wouldn’t be wrong. But that wasn’t right, because that would mean… Hell. He didn’t want her to be with anyone else. “Of course that’s not wrong. I just don’t think it’s realistic.”
“That’s fine.”
“Did you ever meet your father?”
She shook her head. “He wanted nothing to do with us. I wasn’t planned; I wasn’t wanted,” she whispered, and he knew he was the biggest asshole because that’s exactly what he was doing to her right now. He understood her—he knew what that rejection from a biological father felt like. It carved out this hole inside that could never be filled and made you feel like less of a person.
“It was their loss, Lainey.”
“Sure,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and avoiding eye contact with him. He stood there and he got it, he got what she was saying, more than she’d ever know, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. He’d held on so long to his secret, he’d been alone and needed no one for so long, he was afraid that if he let her in, he’d need her more and more. He didn’t want to need anyone but himself.
“I understand,” he whispered, taking that last step in to her and folding her up against him. She pressed her soft body to his and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“But you should know that if I ever revoke my policy, I’ll be knocking on your door first,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
He laughed as he kissed the top of her head before leaning back slightly.
“So where does this leave us?” she said.
“Just where we are. I can drive you home,” he said, stepping back. He didn’t actually know where this left them. He was a man. A guy in his thirties. How could he move forward with Lainey if he couldn’t go any further than kissing her? His teenage days of making out with a girl were long gone. He couldn’t go back to that…
She nodded, her face red, and she walked over to the dryer and pulled out her clothes. He looked away. “I’ll still do the dinners for your dad. We’ll continue our business arrangement with the rentals. It’ll be like nothing ever happened between us.”
“Lainey,” he said. He didn’t like that. It didn’t feel right. He didn’t want to lose her.
She shoved her legs into her jeans, and he looked away, his teeth clenched. How the hell did he get himself into these situations with her? “You really should have used dryer sheets,” she quipped. “Anyway, not to worry. We can be the best of friends,” she said, shooting him a smile.
He swore under his breath. “We can’t be friends. There’s no going back to friends.”
She zipped up her jeans, and the sound seemed to grate against all his nerve endings. She lifted her eyebrows. “Fine. Then enemies?”
“What? Never.”
She held up her shirt, mumbling about static. She turned around and glanced over her bare shoulder after she peeled his shirt off. “Frenemies.”
He shut his eyes, hoping she hurried up with getting her shirt on. He didn’t even know anymore what the most frustrating part of this exchange was. “That word is right up there with BFF.”
“That’s because you have problems expressing your feelings,” she said once dressed, turning around and patting him on the shoulder.
“Right,” he managed through clenched teeth.
“We never would have worked out anyway,” she said, picking up her purse and walking to the door.
He frowned and followed her. “Why not?”
She tilted her head to the side and winced. “Well, I don’t really like arrogant men.”
“What? Me?” He scoffed, taking a step back.
She nodded and held out her hand, examining her nails, which he knew perfectly well weren’t manicured. “Also, the whole cowboy shtick was never my thing. I can’t even ride a horse. I’m a city girl at heart.”
“Lainey, you live in a town of one thousand. With one streetlight. That’s hardly city living.”
“Fine. You’re probably too old for me anyway.” She tapped a finger against her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Judging by the gray hair and fine lines around your eyes, I’d estimated you to be pushing forty.”
He closed his eyes and racked his brain for some kind of prayer. When he came up blank, he opened his eyes and stared at the woman who was so effective at pushing all his buttons. “Lainey, you know I’m not pushing forty. I’m not even close to pushing thirty-five.”
She was picking at some imaginary lint on the front of her shirt and let out a patronizing mm-hmm. “It’s fine. We all tell ourselves things to make ourselves feel better.” She put her hand on the door, and he grabbed her other one, torn between laughing and showing her his birth certificate.
She turned around slowly, an
d he saw it then—the hurt beneath the banter. Because they weren’t just friends, and they could never go back to being friends. “Like how we’re telling ourselves we can’t be friends? Like how you want to blame this on me?”
“I’m embarrassed,” she whispered, looking anywhere but at him. “You can’t have sex with me, so now you have no use for me. You’re just going to discard me, like yesterday’s leftovers. That’s not a lie. That’s the truth.”
Despite all the warning bells going off in his head, despite how his actions gave him away, he pulled her into his arms and framed her gorgeous face with his hands. Hell, he didn’t know why he was speaking the truth, why he’d ever go down this road, but all he knew was that hearing Lainey speak about him like that, knowing he was discarding her just like everyone else in her life, hearing the hurt in her voice, made him want to fix it all.
“Don’t ever be embarrassed with me. Don’t be ashamed of your ideals or your dreams, and don’t ever think that your self-worth or importance hinges on whether or not you have sex. So that’s my truth. Not a lie. I admire you, Lainey. Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve accomplished, and everything you believe in. One day you’ll get married.” He had planned on continuing, on saying that one day she’d get married to some great guy and she’d be glad she waited—but he couldn’t. Because he didn’t want to picture her in bed with another guy. He didn’t want to picture her married. Because he wanted her. For himself.
Hell. He almost backed up a step.
She nodded. “Thanks. So, um, what do you say about getting me back to my car?”
He dropped his hands, feeling the loss of whatever had been building between them. He didn’t know where to go from here. He wasn’t enough of a pig to keep seeing her and hoping that their chemistry would slowly wear her down. But he wasn’t enough of a good guy to ever think about marriage, either.
He stared into her eyes for a moment before looking away. “I’ll just, uh, put out the fire and get you back.”
And he walked away from her, hating himself, hating the man he’d become.
Chapter Fourteen
Ty stared up at the ceiling of his cabin from his bed as the somewhat-appealing smell of frozen pizza cooking in the oven wafted into the bedroom. He’d been lying motionless just thinking about Lainey. He hated that he’d hurt her, but he didn’t know what the hell he was going to do about it. He’d hurt so many people here: his father, his friends, and now Lainey.
Another week had gone by without seeing her. He had to stay away. Lainey was trying to change him—not deliberately—but it was there. She wanted him to be someone he wasn’t. Part of him wanted to be that guy who could give her everything she wanted, but he wasn’t capable of it. He didn’t want that life. He liked being on his own. So he’d been avoiding her for a week now, to protect her.
But here was no better. His father wasn’t speaking to him, even though he knew his health was improving daily. His friends still weren’t talking to him. It was starting to wear him down. Everywhere he went, there was some kind of glare in his direction.
He’d been spending his nights going through his father’s records, dating right back to eight years ago after he’d left. His father had never thrown anything out. He’d even found all the bills from his mom’s funeral. But he’d also found out his father had lent money to a lot of people around town. Some would pay him back in little chunks, while some hadn’t paid him back at all. Why the hell would his father even do that? He’d always been such a stickler when it came to money and spending.
He cursed out loud when he heard the knock. On the off chance it might be Lainey, he got up and made his way to answer it. He opened the door, and Dean and Cade were standing there, each holding a bottle of whiskey.
No one said anything—they just stared at one another, and it reminded him of the time the three of them had been smoking outside the bunkhouses and his father had found them. They’d stood there, coughing and trying to step on the butts, and not saying a word. None of them had ratted the other out, even though it had been Cade to bring the cigarettes.
“You going to let us in?” Cade asked.
“That depends,” he said, gripping the edge of the door. “You sharing that?” He gestured to the bottles.
Dean grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “I think you’ve suffered long enough. Also, Lainey threatened to not serve us at the diner. We hear lasagna is going to be on the menu soon, and neither of us is willing to sacrifice that.”
Lainey. Dammit. Why the hell did she care about him so much?
Ty opened the door wider to let them in, trying not to look like he was happy his friends had actually decided to forgive him. Cade punched him in the shoulder—a little harder than necessary, in his opinion—and walked in. He gestured to the couches, and they all sat around the fire, Cade and Dean on one couch, while he brought three mismatched glasses over and then sat on the opposite. He tried to tell himself he was irritated that she’d meddled, but the truth was that he was pretty damn happy they were here. He may have fooled himself into thinking he didn’t need them, but it felt right. They were family.
Dean poured the first round, and they held up their glasses. “To stupid choices and starting over.”
He wasn’t sure that was the most flattering toast, but he drank to it anyway. They all put their empty glasses down and sat there, no one saying anything.
Cade wisely decided to pour another round. This time he held up his glass to make the toast. “To old friends and starting over.”
They all finished off their whiskeys and sat there awkwardly. Ty took the bottle and refilled their glasses. He held his up. “To best friends and starting over.”
They paused for a moment, and he wondered if they were going to call him out for his sentimentality, but then they clinked their glasses and drank in unison, and it seemed like a heavy weight he didn’t even know he was carrying lifted.
He settled back in his seat and put his feet on the coffee table. They did the same. “So, miss me?”
“Like I’d miss a burr up my ass,” Cade said.
Tyler grinned.
“So are you going to share whatever it is you have baking in that oven?” Dean asked, flicking his chin toward the kitchen.
“Don’t expect a home-cooked casserole. It’s frozen pizza,” he said as the timer rang. He stood, and Cade followed him into the small cooking area like he owned the place.
“That’s fine. We’re not picky. Anything else? I’m starving,” Cade said, opening his fridge.
Tyler bit back his smart-ass reply in an effort to be amenable. “I wasn’t expecting company,” he said as Cade shut the fridge with a disappointed huff.
He did have some pleasure in opening the oven door abruptly, which forced Cade to jump back to avoid getting burned. “Why don’t you go sit down?” Tyler said. Cade got the hint and sprawled himself across the couch.
Tyler took the pizza out of the oven and slid it onto a cutting board, grabbed a knife, and placed it on the coffee table.
“Wait,” he said as Cade started cutting the pizza in four giant pieces. He handed him paper plates and napkins from the handy lower shelf of the coffee table. “No crumbs. I don’t have time to clean this place.”
“Sure, Martha,” Cade joked, taking a huge bite of the pizza.
Tyler grabbed his own slice and leaned back on the couch. They ate their food in silence for a few minutes.
“So, you been seeing a lot of Lainey?” Dean asked casually after inhaling his slice and refilling his glass. His friend had changed over the years. They all had. He was still tall and lean, in good shape, but his face looked as though it had weathered a few storms. He noticed a few strands of gray mixed in with the black.
Ty shrugged, idly watching as Cade helped himself to the remaining piece of pizza. “I guess. She’s here all the time because of my dad.”
“I’m sure you’re not complaining about that,” Dean said, a smile in his voice.
He didn’t want to talk about Lainey because he didn’t even know what their relationship was. He knew he cared about her, though. And then there was the Cade complication. “Nope.” That was all he was saying. He poured them all another round. “And you actually made it through med school? You like being a doctor?”
Dean grinned and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s what I always wanted. It’s long hours, but it’s always been my dream.”
“You still have the family ranch, too?”
Dean nodded. “Like I said, long hours.”
Cade let out a short laugh. “Long hours, but he manages to make time for women.”
Ty smiled. “Well, it’s what gets you through a rough day sometimes.”
Conversation was a bit awkward, as a part of him was waiting for one of them to ask where he’d been, why he’d left the way he did.
When neither seemed willing to broach the topic, Ty decided to just take the bull by the horns. He knew they’d never really get back to a true friendship if he didn’t. “I, uh, I’m sorry I left town the way I did. I know neither of you saw it coming.” Surprise registered across both their faces, but not anger, so he continued. “I had a lot of shit to work through, and I couldn’t get my head screwed on straight after my mother died. Everything went wrong with my father. You know we didn’t have the best relationship.”
He paused and took the refilled drink that Dean had poured while he was talking. “The last night at home, we got into it pretty bad. Said some shit to each other that I regret. And I snapped. I left. I should have told you guys, but I just couldn’t deal with any of it. And I didn’t want you to convince me to stay.”
That’s exactly what they would have done. Maybe they’d have been right. If he had gone to them that night, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe his dad wouldn’t have had the stroke and the ranch wouldn’t be on the brink of bankruptcy. Regret rendered him motionless and speechless.
“You don’t owe us anything. We’ve all made our share of boneheaded decisions,” Dean said.
Cade nodded. “I’m not one to talk. I never even had a father to fight with, so I don’t know what it’s like. And I don’t know what it’s like to lose a mother who was like yours.”
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