Chapter Eighteen

Adam scrubbed his truck down, wondering what the hell he’d been thinking yesterday with Jules. I’m going to take you on a real date. I’ll be your boyfriend. He was setting himself up for failure. “I’m not staying, goddamn it.”

“Are you talking to yourself?”

He glanced over to find Quinn standing at the bottom of his mom’s driveway. “What are you doing here?”

“So damn rude.” His friend shook his head. “But I know what you really meant to say.” He grinned and waved, his voice ticking up an octave. “‘Hey, man, nice to see you. It’s been a hell of a week and your gorgeous face is exactly what I needed.’”

Adam shook his head. “No, pretty sure that’s not what I meant at all. And I don’t sound like that.”

“Sure you do.” He settled into the rocking chair on the porch, absolutely dwarfing the thin wood with his large body. “You still doing that thing with Daniel’s cousin? Because rumor has it that you were seen making out like high school kids on her front doorstep yesterday in the early hours of the morning.”

“Rumor has it, huh? This town never changes.”

Growing up, more often than not, it’d been his name uttered as the hell-raiser who couldn’t keep himself out of the back of the town’s lone police cruiser. It wasn’t anything personal—there just wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to talk about other than football, ranching, and who was getting into trouble this week.

“Sure, it changes. Just ask my old man.” Quinn deepened his voice and screwed up his face in a scowl. “‘Back in my day, we respected our country and didn’t act like damn fools.’”

“You are seriously god-awful at impressions.” Adam chuckled. “How’s Sir Charles, anyways? He made his peace with you working with Daniel instead of heading up his oil empire yet?”

“Hardly.” Quinn stretched his legs out and laced his fingers behind his head. “If anything, he’s getting more desperate to bring me back into the fold. At the obligatory family dinner last month, he invited two blondes with tits the size of melons and dollar signs in their eyes. Mother was thrilled. Naturally.”

“Naturally.” He crouched down and went to work on his wheels. When he was a teenager, he’d envied the fact that Quinn’s dad was determined to have him follow in his footsteps. Once he hit his early twenties, though, he recognized it for the ball and chain it was. Charles Baldwyn cared less about his son’s happiness than he did about continuing his family traditions. Adam still wasn’t sure if an overbearing ass of a dad was better than no dad at all, but he’d stopped envying his friend. “How long did he manage to go without offering one of them up in marriage?”

“A whole hour.” Quinn sighed. “You’d think they’d be bothered by him dangling them in front of me like a piece of meat, but they didn’t so much as blink.”

“Money makes people stupid.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” He crossed his feet at his ankles. “That was a nice subject change—very subtle. But you still didn’t answer my question about little Jules Rodriguez.”

He didn’t want to get into it. He could fool himself into thinking this wasn’t going to end in a complete train wreck—mostly—but Quinn would have no problem calling him out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Quinn dropped his hands and sat up straight. “What the hell is going on with you and that girl?”

“She’s only seven years younger than us. It’s not like I’m robbing the fucking cradle.”

If anything, his friend just looked more interested. “See, that’s the thing. I thought you guys were playing a game—you do her a favor and make that asshole ex of hers jealous, and she occupies you so you don’t drive your mom insane pacing around the house. But that’s not what it sounds like when you say stuff like that. Are you actually interested in her?”

Yes. He pushed to his feet and grabbed the hose, spraying down the truck. “It’s not like that.”

“Are you sure?”

Adam didn’t say anything until he’d finished washing off the truck and disposed of the soapy water in the bucket. “You know she’s just using me to create a scandal.”

“And?”

He sighed and turned to face his friend. “And that’s a temporary thing no matter which way you look at it. She doesn’t want to settle down with the hell-raiser who gets the gossip mill raging. She wants the slow and steady guy who’s going to be there with her every night and making her coffee and shit in the morning and…” He rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not me. That’s never going to be me.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. Maybe you just haven’t found a good enough reason to put down roots and be that guy—until now.”

That’s what he was afraid of. Not that he’d put down roots, but that he’d start to and then the restlessness in his blood would start up again. He’d turn back into a tumbleweed before a gale-force wind, yanked right out of whatever life he thought he could have here.

And, really, what did he have to offer Jules? He was a few years out of being a washed-up bull rider who’d been lucky enough not to be permanently injured but who didn’t exactly have any applicable skills otherwise. The thought tightened his throat. Rationally, he knew he couldn’t ride bulls forever, but he didn’t have any long-term plans beyond working the rodeo in whatever capacity he could. Which was pathetic when he really sat down to think about it.

And his mama…

“I’m not that man.” He said it more firmly, as if that could quell the growing thing in his chest that was determined to take on a life of its own. It was all twisted up with his dread about what might happen to his mama, a weird mix of fear and hope and something else that he had no name for. He tried to smile. “You know me—I am what I am.”

“Sure—before. But you’ve been back in town almost three weeks now, and you’re not going insane or fleeing at the first chance you get.” He motioned at the truck. “Hell, you’re downright respectable these days.”

His gave his front door a long look. “I have my reasons. They aren’t permanent.”

“Sounds like you have more than one these days.” Quinn held up his hands when Adam glared. “Sorry, sorry. Can’t help that I miss you when you’re off living life like a country song.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Adam ducked into the garage and grabbed two beers. He walked back, dropped into the chair next to his friend, and passed one over. “You’re ridiculous.”

“It should be my middle name.” Quinn took a long drink of his beer. “So why are you getting your ride all shined up?”

He didn’t want to admit it, but his friend would pester him if he tried to avoid the topic. “I’m taking Jules out on a real date.”

Quinn threw back his head and let loose a booming laugh. “Oh God, that’s the funniest shit I’ve heard all day. Sounds like you’re doing a hell of a job of keeping things in perspective with her.”

“Something like that.” He was doing such a good job, he’d gone from pretending to date her to actually dating her. He took a deep breath and turned the conversation, grateful when Quinn allowed it this time. They chatted about cattle and Adam told a few of his wild rodeo stories, and before he knew it, it was time to go pick up Jules.

His friend stopped by the driver’s door and Adam rolled down the window. The joking expression on Quinn’s face dropped for the first time since he’d shown up. “Daniel’s cousin is a good girl.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He expected this from his mom and the townsfolk in general—it even made sense for Daniel to be warning him off since Jules was his cousin. To have Quinn doing it, too…it stung. A lot. “I’m not stringing her along. I’ve been honest with her from the beginning, and she’s been with me every step of the way. Jules is a grown-ass woman, and I doubt she’d take kindly to everyone and their dog being so sure that I’m going to break her heart.”

Quinn raised his eyebrows. “Touched on a sore spot, didn’t I?”

“I get tired of everyone thinking I’m a piece of shit.” Even if he agreed with them most days.

“Nobody thinks that—or at least no one worth mentioning.” He shook his head. “All I was going to say, jackass, is that I think she might be good for you.” He turned around and walked off without another word, leaving Adam staring after him.

He’d done a spectacular job of proving to his friend that he was managing to keep calm and rational about this situation. He headed for Jules’s place, kicking himself again for letting what everyone else thought of him get under his skin. She knew the score. Fuck, she was the one with a future that didn’t fit him in the least. She’d be a fool to let her heart get involved.

Except she asked you to be her boyfriend. And you said yes.

It didn’t mean anything—not really. Even if they were dating for real—which wasn’t that different from them pretending to date—she knew he was leaving. He knew he was leaving. The entire fucking town knew he was leaving. It’d be fun while it lasted, but it couldn’t last.

He stopped in front of her café, shut off the engine, and headed inside, still arguing with himself. He wasn’t some monster, taking advantage of little innocent Jules Rodriguez. She’d come to him. She was the one who wanted sex. Yeah, he’d taken them all the way up to that point, but she’d pushed them over the edge.

If anything, people should be worried about how he was going to take the goddamn breakup. He’d never been with a woman like this before—someone who seemed to bring joy into any room she stepped into, someone who always had a new and wacky perspective on life, someone who was happy. Grant might have set her on her heels temporarily, but that wouldn’t last. Jules was the type who bounced back, better than ever, and she would this time, too.

Just like she would after he left.

It was Adam who wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to go back to life on the road after he’d known what it was like to hold her in his arms.