Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 120708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“And you don’t think that made her see herself as something more to you in her eyes?”
He shook his head and gave me a bemused look. “Why would she? You heard how she described me. She knew there was nothing and would never be anything between us. I was always up front with her on that. I liked her, but we were never anything more than friends with benefits. She’s shallow and trust me when I say she enjoyed bragging to everyone about our hook-ups.”
“You said she was a hook-up. When did it stop?”
“A while ago.”
Tanner looked out over the countryside, and before long his brows drew in and he almost looked annoyed. “Shit.” He scrubbed his hand over his face and cursed under his breath. “Maybe she did think there was something more. Last year my folks had an anniversary dinner. I asked Lindsey to go with me because, well, I needed a date.”
I nodded.
“After the party she wanted me to come to her place for a drink. I declined.”
“Why?”
Tanner turned and looked directly into my eyes. “I wasn’t in the mood for a mindless fuck that night. So I said no. She got pissed off and said something about getting tired of being used by me and that she wanted more. I had no idea what she meant, but all I had to hear was that she thought I was using her. I stopped calling her after that. I thought we had an understanding. I would have never intentionally led her on.”
“Ahh, so now you’re putting two and two together and realizing that Ms. Johnson wanted more, as in a relationship more.”
His eyes were still locked with mine. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, she didn’t say anything bad about you, so I’m sure she’s not going around spreading nasty rumors.”
When he didn’t answer me, I smiled and asked, “Are you upset she was talking about you at all?”
That seemed to break the weird spell he was under. “No, it was true at the time. Well, most of it.”
I raised a brow. “It’s no longer true?”
“I’m not sure,” Tanner said as he turned and stared off in the distance once more.
A part of me wanted to ask him what he wasn’t sure of and what hadn’t been true, but before I could, he stood and reached down to help me up. “We need to head on down and to the cabin. We should reach it about the same time as the guys.”
I let him help me up and tried to ignore the dip in my stomach that seemed to happen every time he touched me. His slight change in breathing told me he felt it as well, and that made me dizzy. This was happening too fast and I was starting to lose a bit of control over my emotions when it came to Tanner. One look into those baby blues, and I no longer seemed to care about keeping him at a distance. I liked the way we bantered back and forth. The way he looked at me like I took his breath away. No man had ever looked at me like that. Tanner made me feel different, in the most amazing way. But how could I be sure it wasn’t all an act? The few guys I had dated had been sweet, but it didn’t take them long to show their true colors. Most simply wanted sex. Plain and simple. How could I be sure of anything when it came to Tanner?
I was losing my focus and forgetting all the reasons that I was here. I pushed away all thoughts of my past and drew in a deep breath.
But a tiny voice inside me was saying that maybe, for once in my life, I needed to let go of my fears. The question was, could I actually do it?
Chapter Nine
TANNER
It didn’t take Timberlynn long to strike up a conversation as we rode back down to the valley. “Your older brothers all did bull riding?” she asked as we rode side by side.
“Not all of them. My brother Beck wasn’t interested in anything that had to do with the rodeo.”
I could feel her eyes on me. “I haven’t met Beck yet,” she said.
With a deep breath in, I let it out slowly. “Damn, I’m sorry. I thought you knew. My brother Beck died in the Marines a few years ago. My mother didn’t really like to talk about him until recently. For a long time, she sorta pretended he was off on a mission and would be back home.”
Timberlynn stared at me with a blank expression.
“Again, I’m sorry. I figured Kaylee told you about him. It’s okay, I don’t mind talking about it. In fact, it makes me feel closer to Beck when I do. For years, Ty and Brock followed my mother’s silence. It wasn’t until recently that we really started to speak about him a lot more. I think it had to do with Lincoln and Kaylee coming into the family. They showed us it was okay to talk about it. To begin to heal from the loss.”