Candace laid the tailgate of her truck down, and she and another girl sat while Melissa and I leaned against a truck across from them. As they passed out a round of beer, they talked casually and filled me in on who in their group was a couple and who was available. They let me know Andy was single and a pretty good catch, in their opinion.
“So the guy you’re here with, Justice, he’s not your boyfriend?” Candace asked.
“We’re just friends,” I answered stiffly.
“He’s awfully cute,” she cooed.
I gave her a plastic smile and tried to swallow. She was pretty, tall, with red hair—similar to his last girlfriend. Worst of all, she loved horses. In fact, she would be competing in the barrel racing competition later, and Justice loved the barrel competition.
Billi Jo came up behind me just in time to give Candace the lowdown. “Don’t waste your time on Justice, he’s hopelessly in love with somebody.”
Candace’s sugary smile dissolved.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a shame, because the girl doesn’t even realize it. She’s kinda loco.” Billi Jo motioned her finger in circles around her ear.
I gave her an undetectable pinch on the arm for that one, and she gave me a very satisfied smile back.
“Too bad.” Candace pouted.
Kat walked up with Kyle, and Zach and the rest of the crew followed. I guess we were there about ten minutes or so when Andy and Melissa’s boyfriend joined us. Melissa’s boyfriend stood beside her, which meant Andy ended up standing next to me—in my personal space.
“Hey there,” Andy said, looking a little too happy to see me. “Havin’ a good time tonight?”
“Sure.” I scanned the crowd for Justice. “I’m lookin’ forward to the bronc riding.”
“I used to ride the broncs until I hurt my shoulder.” Andy rubbed his thick shoulder. “Finally gave it up for a real job.” I guess he had to make sure I was well informed about his resume, in case I hadn’t overheard everything he’d already said to Justice.
I nodded because I didn’t know what else to say.
“Ya know, I couldn’t help but notice, that dress matches your eyes perfectly—looks nice.”
“Thanks.” I wiped my palms down the sides of my dress.
“Your friend Justice is a fool if he’s not tryin’ to date you.” He made a clucking sound.
“He, um, just got out of a relationship…and we’ve been friends for a long time.”
“What about you? I assume you’re not datin’ anyone.” His eyes cruised from my chest to my legs and back up.
I needed a shower. “Me? No. Dating hasn’t really seemed to work out for me too well.”
“But you’ve just been datin’ boys.” He said it like it was a fact, and his tone made my shoulders tense. “Maybe you should try out somebody more mature.”
He might have been older by calendar years, but maturity was still debatable. Not to mention, he was definitely full of himself—the cowboy version of Logan. “Um, I just got out of a bad relationship. I’m really not interested in dating right now.”
“Bet I could change your mind about that.” His eyes rested on the small amount of cleavage exposed by the stupid too-fancy-for-a-rodeo dress Kat peer-pressured me into wearing. Visions of my knee jamming into his crotch filled my head. Too bad assault was prohibited by my probation, too.
“I doubt it.”
He tipped his head, studying me with his sleepy-eyed gaze. “I know who you are.”
Of course he did. Everyone at this rodeo probably did, and I’d have to get used to it. I was fooling myself if I thought a two-hour drive would change that. I bit back the words I wanted to snarl at him—that he was exactly the kind of guy I’d never date. Lesson learned.
“But hey,” he shrugged, “I’m not judging you. Like they said on TV, it was self-defense.”
My spine tingled with anticipation of where he was going with his revelation. I had little faith this wasn’t about to be a repeat of the gas station incident with Red and his buddies, and I had no desire to tempt fate. “I’m…goin’ to find Justice.” I took a step back.
“He’s fine. I just saw him talkin’ to Candace.” His words stopped me.
But she had been right here; I stared at the empty spot where Candace had been sitting. I hadn’t even realized she’d walked away. What the hell?
I still had my mind on Justice and Candace when Andy brushed the back of his fingertips down my arm. Startled, I jerked away from his touch like it was an electric shock. Then, before I realized what was happening, something flew toward us and metal panged as Andy’s back slammed against the truck next to us. It was Justice.
With both of his fists wrapped around the front of Andy’s shirt, Justice gritted his teeth. “Don’t touch her, don’t ever touch her.”
“Whoa, buddy, I just touched her arm. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He held up his hands in surrender. Overall, Andy was much bigger, but the look on Justice’s face would have made anyone back down. “I thought you said she was just a friend,” he said with a crooked smirk. “Maybe you need to make up your mind about that.”
Stepping beside them, I managed a weak whisper. “Justice, we should go.”
Realizing he’d overreacted, Justice slowly let go of Andy’s shirt. “Sorry, man, I don’t know what got into me.”
Andy directed his head toward me. “She’s what got into you, I can tell you that much.” He straightened his plaid button-down and patted Justice on the back. “I told you, if you were smart you’d be introducin’ her as your girlfriend.”
Running his hand through his hair, Justice stepped back to give Andy his space.
“Maybe you two should get on the same page.” He eyed us both cautiously. Had Andy not known Justice and his usual mild temperament, I’m pretty sure there would have been a serious throw-down. But instead, Andy seemed to get a kick out of seeing Justice so fired up—especially over a girl who he claimed was only a friend.
Justice nodded and we walked away from the crowd of our friends to his truck. He opened the door for me and I climbed in. After he got in and closed the door, he hit the palm of his hand against the steering wheel and breathed a huge sigh.
“Justice, what…?”
“I’m sorry. I know I overreacted, but when I walked up and he was putting his hands on you…” He bit down hard on his lip. “It just reminded me of…and I know how sensitive you are about…” He massaged his temples. “Why didn’t you tell him to get the hell off you?”
“I didn’t have time; you came after him like a bat out of hell.”
“I know. I know, I’m sorry,” he whispered as he stared at the steering wheel.
After a few minutes of silence, his voice was tired as he spoke, “River, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stand by and watch you go out with anyone… Andy was right; I have to make up my mind.” He turned to face me with a pained expression. “I can’t introduce you as my friend anymore.”
Kat and Billi Jo were right; this ‘friends only’ thing was a train wreck. “Then don’t.”
“If we can’t be friends, then we don’t have anything.” He leaned his head against the back window and closed his eyes.
“Is this your way of tellin’ me you wanna be more than friends?”
He sighed. “I don’t know what it is.”
“Well, is that what you want?” I prodded.
He straightened in his seat, draped his bent arm over the steering wheel, and angled to face me. “Hell yes, it is.” His intense green eyes searched mine, and I had to think hard to remember what I wanted to say next.
“What about everything you said over the phone yesterday?” I gripped the door handle. “About wanting to only be friends? You’ve changed your mind?”
One side of his mouth curved and his eyes twinkled. “I never changed my mind. I just told you we were never cut out to be more than friends so you wouldn’t cancel our rodeo date. I knew if I pushed you too much, you’d take off.” A boyish hal
f-smile spread across his lips. “I hoped that by the end of tonight I could charm you into changing your mind.”
“Yes,” I scrunched my eyebrows, “that whole scene with Andy—very charming.”
“Yeah, not part of the plan.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Being around you makes me do crazy things—things I wouldn’t normally do. Like tell you how I really feel when I know it’s not mutual. You’ve made up your mind; you’re leavin’,” he briefly closed his eyes and swallowed, “giving up on us before you ever gave us a real chance.”
My fingernails picked at the stitching on the hem of my dress. “What if I told you that what you’re feeling is mutual?”
His shoulders straightened and he licked his lips. “What are you sayin’, River?”
“I’m saying I want to be with you, too. Only you.” I paused a few seconds to clear my head. “I’m saying that if you can deal with all of the fallout from what’s happened with me in the past few months, then I’m willing to stick around, give us a try. I can’t promise you a smooth road or a happy ending. I don’t know how things will turn out. There’s a lot of things I don’t know yet. But if you’re willing to be patient with me, the one thing I do know is that I want to be with you.”
He shook his head like he wasn’t sure he was hearing me correctly. “Are you sure? Do you really think that’s what’s best for you right now? And what about—”
“You’re what’s best for me, Justice Braden.” I smiled. “I’ve known it for a long time.”
His eyes crinkled and he tipped his head sideways. “How long?”
I mashed my lips together but couldn’t contain my grin. “Only since the ninth grade.”
“What?” His eyebrows shot up like I’d told him I wanted to take up bull riding. “And you never bothered to tell me?”
“I tried—several times, and you made it clear you weren’t interested.”
He shook his head back and forth repeatedly. “I didn’t make anything clear…”
“Okay, best example: ninth grade formal. After you agreed to go to the dance with me, you turned around and dumped me to ask Sally-fancy-red-hair-Warren.”
He moved his mouth in several different vowel-sound configurations but no sound came out. “I thought you meant you wanted to carpool.”
“Carpool?” Were we even living on the same planet?
“And besides, you liked Freddy Parsons.”
“I had to act like I liked Freddy Parsons so you wouldn’t see how devastated I was about you taking—”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
I tugged at the frayed piping on the edge of his truck seat. “I was too hurt. I shut down.” I winced. “It’s what I do, remember?”
“Did. It’s what you did”. He took a deep breath and a minute for everything to sink in, then continued, “If this is gonna work between us, you’re gonna have to be honest with me from now on.”
I sighed. “I know.”
“And speaking of honesty,” a grin began to creep across his lips, “I’ve always preferred brunettes.”
I shook my head in protest. “I specifically remember—”
“As in one,” he held up his index finger, then pointed it at me, “particular brunette.”
I gave him a sideways glare, not convinced. “Always?”
He nodded. “Always.”
“Is that why you tried to pawn me off on your cousin my freshman year?”
“You don’t forget anything.” He chuckled. “Actually, I had a couple good reasons for doing that.”
“I’m listening.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“The first was because he’d been begging me to set him up with you, and I owed him a favor.”
“So you tried to set me up with a kitten killer because you owed him a favor?” His cousin, Gilbert, killed my favorite calico kitten with a sling-shot when we were eight. Accident or no accident, I never wanted anything to do with that boy again.
“Yeah, that was the second reason: you have a long memory and I knew you’d never go out with him because he killed Muffin.”
I scowled, trying to make sense of his confession. “So, you tried to fix us up, but you really didn’t want me to go out with him?”
“I didn’t want you to go out with anybody, River.” He stared down at his hands, then back to me, his moss green eyes pleading. “Except me.”
Butterflies erupted in my stomach. “What?”
“I didn’t want to risk messing up what we’ve always had together.” He sucked in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I’ve always been crazy about you.”
My heart swelled as I tried to absorb what he was saying. “Then…why not take a chance and tell me before now?”
He filled his lungs with air and slowly released it. “How many people do you know who’ve dated all through high school and stayed together?”
I thought of my own parents, who according to their letters loved each other more than any two people I’d ever known. None.
“Even back then, I knew you were the one. But I wanted forever, not one of those high school flings where we’d break up and then hate each other for some stupid reason. It wasn’t worth the risk of losing your friendship. I’d always believed and hoped someday that we’d end up together…you know, when the time was right.” His eyes glistened in the light cast by an overhead lamppost near the truck. “But after almost losing you, after not knowing when or if I’d ever see you again, or thinking you could go to prison, waiting for someday seemed like too big of a risk.”
Tears pricked my eyes, then I remembered. “But when I came back…you still had a girlfriend.”
“Yeah, that…at first I went out with her thinking she’d help keep you…you dating Logan off my mind.” He rubbed at his chin. “It didn’t work. I told her from the beginning that I didn’t want anything serious, but she had different ideas.
“I was about to stop seeing her after you left town, but then the cops started coming around asking questions. One day I was at your house and almost had Jamie convinced to give me information about you when they showed up. They were persistent; no matter what I told them, they were convinced you’d try to contact me at some point. I figured if I finally wore Jamie down and could find a way to help you, I couldn’t risk them being suspicious of me. I decided calling things off with Trina might raise a flag so I…didn’t.”
I put my fingers over my lips to stifle a snicker. “You kept your girlfriend on my account?”
“You mean my fake girlfriend?” He grimaced. “Guess that makes me a pretty big jerk, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe just a little,” I grinned and pinched my fingers together, “but it’s the best damn reason to be a jerk I could ever think of.”
Justice’s smile matched mine, then fell, and his eyes grew serious. “I’m laying it all out there, River.” He rested his arm across the back of the seat. “I want you to be my forever.”
My eyes searched his, trying to comprehend the gravity of what he was saying, so he continued, “You lead the way, I’ll follow. I’m the puppet to your strings, the beat to your drums, the sprinkles to your ice cream, whatever,” he laughed. “Whatever you want, just say the word. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
I smoothed my skirt against my legs repeatedly. “What about you, Justice? What about what you want: your life here, your college plans?”
“I’d already planned to stay in Dahlia for this year to help take care of the farm and go to community college. After you graduate, I can transfer. If you still plan to travel, I can take online classes so I can go with you. I can find construction work anywhere. We’ll make it work.”
A thickness formed in my throat, and I put my hand to my neck. “You’ve really given this some thought.”
“That’s what happens when you screw up and let the person you love slip through your fingers.” His knuckles went white when he gripped the steering wheel. “You think about how you’d fix it if you ever got a second chance.”
“Oh, you’re gonna get your second chance, Justice Braden.” I beamed. “Because I plan to be your forever.”
His shoulders relaxed and his eyes lit like Fourth of July sparklers. “You just made me the happiest guy on the planet.”
“I can think of one thing that might make you even happier.” When he lifted an eyebrow I continued, “If I used my time-out. Right now.”
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Mmm… as much as I want to grab you right now and tangle my fingers in all those gorgeous curls…” He mashed his lips together, stopping himself from saying out loud all the things I was thinking myself. “I want to do this right. I want to start all over—I don’t want another desperate make-out scene like in my bedroom when you were leaving to turn yourself in. I mean, that was awesome, but it’s not how I want to start our relationship. And I don’t want the first date to be remembered as the night I slammed some guy into a truck for touching you. You deserve better; I want our first official day as a couple to be special.”
I looked at him from beneath my eyelashes, daring him. “It’s always special with you.”
He nodded. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
Grinning, I shook my head.
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m going to take you somewhere special.”
“So, I’ll use my time-out tomorrow.”
“You get one, and after that, it’s game on. The ball’s in your court; you’re gonna have to call all the shots.” He held up a finger. “Just like we agreed. As much as I’m dyin’ to, I won’t touch you until you ask me, not even holding your hand—personal space and all that.” His eyes sparked with mischief. “You’re gonna have to beg me when the time comes. You know that, right?”
“Deal,” I said, extending my hand for a shake.
Justice held his hand out, and then at the last second ran it through his hair instead and smirked. “I’m not that easy anymore.”
I couldn’t resist. “Speaking of easy; Candace would have a heart attack if she knew you gave up a chance to go out with her so you could date an ex-con.”
“Who’s Candace?”
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