Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“When Ben first told me, I was so surprised, I tripped and fell on my ass, knocking my head on the way down.”
“Dramatic much?” Rose teased.
I laughed. “I was more shocked than anything. But my feelings for Ben had already been changing, or maybe they were never what I thought they were to begin with.”
I quickly filled them in on what had happened that day. How I’d been having feelings for Maverick since taking care of him while he was sick—and everything that took place during those few days. Also, how those feelings were a thousand times stronger than anything I’d ever felt for Ben. I also told them Ben and I weren’t speaking any longer.
Both of them gasped.
“Wait—you saw Maverick naked before you slept with him?”
I grinned. “Yes. He was trying to get into the shower and nearly fell, so I helped him. I also stood in that same shower just before he used it, and…” One quick look around, and I focused back on them. “You know…relieved some of that desire as I thought about the naked man in question. While he was lying in the other room.”
“I love when relationships first start out,” Kipton said with a dreamy sound to her voice.
I laughed. “We worked together a lot the next couple of weeks, and then I saw him out with Bradly and a few of his friends. We had the most amazing night in the parking lot of The Blue Moose, dancing to Taylor Swift—whom, by the way, he’d never listened to before.” I smiled at the memory of that night. “We would have kissed in the parking lot, had it not been for Bradly rushing out to tell me about Grams.”
“What happened after that?” Rose asked.
Drawing in a breath, I slowly let it out. “Well, the thing with Grams happened, and you know he was at the hospital with us. Then I drove home with him.” I paused, thinking of our conversation that night, before he kissed me.
“Why are you frowning?” Kipton asked.
I looked down at my drink, then back up to my best friends. They may be family, but they were also friends I knew I could confide in.
“Maverick grew up being bounced around from foster house to foster house.”
Rose drew in a breath. “I didn’t know that.”
Nodding, I went on. “There was one family who was going to adopt him. He was so happy. The mom taught him how to dance—and he’s still an amazing dancer,” I added. “But they both died in a car accident, and he was tossed back into the system. He left when he was sixteen and started making his way around to different ranches to work.
“He’s made a few comments to me about how he has nothing to offer me, and that he comes from nothing. I also get the feeling he’s afraid to completely commit. Like, he has a wall up around his heart and is afraid to fully give it to anyone. The only two people he ever loved left him tragically. A part of me gets that, but the other part of me wants to shake him a little bit and tell him to trust in us. But even though he’s been here for years, everything is still so new for him. Heck, us being together is so new.”
They both nodded.
“He doesn’t want to give me his heart for fear it will get broken, but he has already made it clear that he wants to be exclusive. Which reminds me of another thing that sort of hurt—when we were together, he said the next time a man’s lips touched me, he wanted me to feel him. It’s like he’s already planning for us to be over before we’ve barely begun.”
Before Rose and Kipton could respond, the waitress brought over our pizza and plates. Once she was out of earshot, Rose spoke.
“That has to be hard for him. And what I mean by that is, his whole life, he’s essentially been on his own. Though I know since he’s been working for Tanner and Timberlynn, he’s been pulled in and treated like one of the family.”
I nodded as I held my plate up for Kipton to put a slice of pizza on it. “He has. He comes to dinner a lot, and my mom and dad adore him. So does Nathan. When he came to dinner the other night, my father even teased him about us being together, in a weird, threatening kind of way.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Those Shaw men. Poor Bryson is scared to death of my father, and I don’t know why. He’s a pussy cat, but all he has to say is one thing to Bryson about hurting me, and my husband is cowering in a corner with his knees to his chest, rocking.”