“Ah. So he’s opposed to evil career women.” She looked over to where Cade stood laughing with Zane and Cam.
“That’s not really his problem, but again, it’s his story to tell. His past was rough. I might have gone to prison, but at least I got out. Cade gave himself a life sentence a long time ago. You just need to give him a little time.”
An almost serene look came over her face. “Nope. He doesn’t like me. I should know. I get it all the time. Look, I appreciate this. I really do, but you two share and I just came out of a relationship so it wouldn’t work.”
“You just came out of a relationship?”
“Well, I did. Like six months ago.”
“That’s not just coming out of a relationship. That’s moving-on time, baby. As for Cade, well, we’ve also had relationships separately. And honestly, if he sat down and talked to you like this, I think he would see you for what you really are.”
“And what’s that?”
“He would see that under all that hardness, you’re soft inside. You’re trying to protect that part of you that you’re afraid will get you in trouble. You’re afraid of everything. You’re scared of anyone getting close because you’ve been hurt. I don’t know if it was one spectacular ache or a series of little ones, but they affected you. And they affected him, too. If he sat his ass down for ten seconds, he might see how much alike you are.” He frowned. Everything he said was true. He just wasn’t sure it would help Cade. It might make him run even faster.
She stood up. “Look, I don’t know if you think you’re some sort of amateur shrink, but think again. I am who I am. I’m not hiding away or anything. If you think you can come in and change me, you’re wrong.”
It was time to really figure out if this could potentially work. No relationship with him could work without a little softness. “Sit down, Gemma.”
She stared at him for a moment and then made the decision. She sat back down, her mouth set in a mulish line. Rather like Cade. Why the hell was he here? He must just like stubbornness.
“Look, Gemma, I’m willing to put up with a lot of shit. It’s expected in a relationship and quite frankly, I know I’ll be the easy one to deal with. But I expect honesty, respect, and some politeness. I get that you won’t always be polite. I won’t either. I want passion and that doesn’t always leave room for courtesy, but I expect you to start being more polite to the people around you. This isn’t New York. This is small-town Colorado, and you’re going to put people off with the gruffness. You had to be that way in New York. You don’t here. I’ve just told you I’ll be honest so let me state this flat out. Any relationship with me is going to involve a little discipline. I tend to keep it to the bedroom, but if you’re mine and I catch you being blatantly rude to the people around you, I will likely spank you.”
It wasn’t just her face that flushed this time. Her whole body went bright pink. And her pupils dilated. Her breath hitched. “That would be assault.”
No, she wasn’t scared at all. “Only if I did it against your will, Gemma. If you were mine, we would have all sorts of rules. They would be set up so we both know how to make each other happy. We would talk about it. You could stop me, but you wouldn’t want to. I would make sure of it.”
She went quiet, and Jesse decided she’d had enough honesty for the day. It was time to back off and let her think about it. And it was time to go and work on Cade. He stood up and handed her the small package. It was addressed simply to Gemma Wells in Bliss, Colorado. The elderly mail carrier had asked Roger if he knew who she was. Jesse had jumped on that chance. And now it was time to let the whole thing go and allow Gemma to make the next move. It would be frustrating, but he wasn’t going to push her.
“Think about it, Gemma. That’s for you. I told the mail carrier where to send anything else you get. If you want to talk some more, you come and see me.” He started to walk away. He could smell the delicious aroma of sizzling steaks.
“I like baby and darlin’. I wouldn’t have said I like darling, but I like the way you say it. It’s the accent, I think. And for some reason, baby sounds sweeter than babe. But not honey. My mom calls me hon. So does Stella. Honey makes me think of maternal women trying to feed me.” She stood up, clutching her package.
He didn’t even try to stop himself now. He hugged her, wrapping his arms around her and letting himself breathe in her scent.
“Are you smelling my hair?” Gemma asked.
“Yep.” Honesty.
“You’re kind of kinky, aren’t you?” She said it with a little laugh. “And I shouldn’t have called you the Sweet One.”
He pulled back, but not before giving her a little kiss. Not on her lips. They weren’t even close to being there yet. On her forehead. “You have no idea, baby. And I can be very sweet. You just have to get me in the right mood. Good night.”
He turned and walked away, more hopeful than he’d been just moments before.
Chapter Three
Cade watched from his place at the grill. Jesse had started his whole herding thing. It was the way he handled a woman he was really interested in.
Damn, was Jesse going to fall for Gemma Wells and finally leave him behind? He wasn’t an idiot. Jesse had been ready for something serious for the last few years. Cade was the one holding them back.
Jesse would never understand why Cade wouldn’t, couldn’t do the whole relationship thing.
“He seems interested in the new girl.” Zane Hollister flipped over the steak he was grilling, his eyes trailing back to where Jesse was hugging Gemma. Really hugging her. Like rubbing himself all over the girl.
“Looks like it.” Cade looked around. Shouldn’t there be some beer around here somewhere?
“Hmmm.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?”
Zane shrugged. “I thought you two were, well, partners.”
They were, but Jesse didn’t blindly follow him. It would be easier if he did. Jesse tended to prefer to take a backseat, allowing Cade to make most of the day-to-day decisions because he didn’t really care, but when he put his foot down, the man didn’t move.
What the hell was Cade going to do if Jesse put his foot down over Gemma Wells? Would Cade be forced to make the decision he’d dreaded for the last couple of years? Would he leave and not look back? Would he finally be alone—like he’d always known he should be?
“We’re best friends. We’ve shared a woman before, but that doesn’t mean we always will.” He’d never expected to share a family. He’d kind of expected to be that sort of sad-sack best friend who hung around way too much and creeped out Jesse’s wife. And then they’d come to Bliss and Jesse had started talking about a real family, a shared wife, and kids they both raised. Fuck. He loved Bliss, and it terrified him, too.
“You don’t like her?”
Cade stared back her way. She clutched the package in her hand as Jesse walked away. It was the softest he’d seen her, her blonde hair nearly glowing in the light from her porch. She was a little thin, but she had curves in all the right places. If she did belong to him and Jesse, he would cook for her, make sure she filled out those sweet curves. He couldn’t think that way.
He was terrified of her. She was just his type—the type to rip his heart out when things went bad. “I don’t know her. I don’t just throw myself in the way Jesse does.”
Jesse was walking toward him with a grin on his face. Gemma turned and disappeared inside her house.
Zane tested the steak, cutting slightly in the middle. “You’ve been here for a couple of months, and you haven’t even tried dating anyone.”
“Oh, I’ve tried. I don’t think you’ve noticed, but there’s a distinctly low available-female-to-male ratio in this town.” He and Jesse had actually been very interested in a couple of women. They’d hit town and it had seemed like they were kids in a candy store. The town was full of attractive, sweet women who looked like they could use a man or two to take care of them.
r />
The trouble was every woman they got interested in was unavailable for one reason or another. Lucy Carson reminded him of his sister who’d died in the same car accident as his parents. Hope McLean had flipped his switch, but she was married to James Glen and Noah Bennett. He’d been really attracted to Holly Lang, one of the waitresses at Stella’s, but he’d decided to keep his head on his body after a single, deeply confusing conversation with Alexei Markov where he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to keep the balls of his eyes off the Russian’s girl or his grill. Either way, the dude sounded serious, so he was giving both a wide berth. And he’d heard some horror stories about how thorough the doc could be during a physical when he was pissed off. Yeah. Holly was safe from his roving eye.
Then the new girl comes into town with her honey-blonde hair and swaying ass, and she turned out to be such a hot mess. Fuck. She moved him in a way the others didn’t. He really kind of liked them with just the right amount of psycho chick.
Things with a woman like Gemma Wells would go one of two ways. Either she would view them as nothing but a hot fling or she would want way more than Cade was willing to give. The first would please Cade but hurt Jesse, and the second would hurt them all. Why her? He loved really intelligent, ambitious, creative women, and they tended to see him as a Neanderthal.
Bare-Chested Ape Man. Yep, that was him.
The fact that he came with a built-in partner, ready set for a permanent ménage, had really aided in his quest to find a little sex. He could see the personal ad. Bare-Chested Ape Man seeks incredibly intelligent mate to share with his over-the-top Dom partner. Must like being topped in the bedroom and small spaces since neither makes a decent paycheck.
Yes, he would get a ton of hits on that one.
“You look morose again.” Jesse stared at him, a frown on his face.
Great. Now he was Morose Bare-Chested Ape Man.
“He’s waffling,” Zane said. “I’ve seen it a hundred times. Done a bit of it myself.”
Zane Hollister was one of the happiest men Cade had ever met. He was also one of the most sarcastic bastards, but he seemed like a guy who had it all together. “You waffled about marrying Callie?”
The big guy’s eyes went a little soft as he looked over to where Callie and Nate were playing with their twins as they talked to a couple of women Cade didn’t know. “She’s just about perfect, you know. The first time I met her, I was in a bad place. I was a stupid asshole and chose my career over her. I chose my friend over her. The second time, I was in an even worse place, and I was practically certain I was bad for her.”
Cade felt himself smile a little. Not because he was happy that Zane and Callie had trouble in the past, but because it was easy to be shocked by it. They all seemed so happy. The Harpers, Stef and Jen, all of them. But every family had its own problems. The strong ones came through it. His family never had the chance. Cade had made sure of it. His family had died. All of them. “What made you realize you could be good for her?”
He was merely curious. He wasn’t good for anyone, but he was interested in how Hollister had known.
A wide grin crossed Hollister’s scarred face. “Who said I am? But I know one thing. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I might not be good enough for her, but I try my best every day to be the best husband I can be. Now I have the twins and I have to be the best dad, too. I didn’t even have a dad, but I have to step up to the plate, you know. It didn’t scare me the way it should have because I knew I could learn. And I had Nate. Nate did have a dad. We talk it over. We figure out what Nate’s dad would have done and do the exact opposite.”
Jesse laughed. “I think I learned that lesson young. My dad walked out. The most important thing about being a father is just being around.”
Cade felt the pit of his stomach roll. His father hadn’t walked out. His father had fought. His father had tried so hard before the water had taken him, before his eyes had gone a glossy blank.
He forced the image down. Jesse was thinking about kids? Cade thought about them, but in a vague, undefined way. Kids were something that might happen in the distant future.
But he was almost thirty. The distant future wasn’t that far off.
He didn’t like to think about the future. Today was what he had. He’d learned that a long time ago. Parents, even when they loved a kid, didn’t always show up for baseball games and school plays. Sometimes, parents walked out the door and they didn’t come back. Sometimes kids walked out the door only to discover the ones they loved and left behind were gone forever.
He wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to give Gemma a chance, no matter how pretty she was or how much she moved him. He had to acknowledge for the first time that he might never be ready. There might be something inside him that was simply broken. He’d used Jesse as a crutch. If Jesse wanted to move on, then good for him. It wouldn’t have really worked long term anyway.
He was surrounded by working ménages, but he didn’t think it would work for him. He might have some issues. And damn Gemma Wells for making him see them.
He’d been just fine. He’d been happy. He’d been settling in, but no, now Gemma was forcing him to think.
“What’s wrong with him?” Zane asked.
Jesse had found where the beers were stashed. He took a short sip, keeping the shit-eating grin securely on his face. “That’s his thinking face. Don’t worry about it. It won’t last too long. Cade prefers to shove his problems as far under the surface as possible. Every now and then he’s forced to confront them, and that’s the look he gets.”
Cade shot his best friend the bird and decided he’d had just about enough of this damn party. He stalked off toward the car.
He heard Jesse groan and begin to follow. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” He wasn’t sorry, and he wasn’t wrong, either.
“I am sorry about putting it out there like that. It just felt like we were among friends, and I was teasing you a little. Okay, a lot.”
He rounded on Jesse. Cade might be avoiding his past, but Jesse was sorely overestimating their future. “You think I didn’t see you with her? What are you doing? She’s not a good-time girl. She’s going to get serious, and she’ll do it fast. What the hell is going to happen when she figures out what you make for a living?”
Jesse’s eyes rolled. “Not every woman in the world thinks a man is nothing more than a dick and a paycheck. Besides, she’s not exactly a catch herself. She doesn’t have some great job.”
And that wouldn’t last forever. She wouldn’t let that degree go to waste. Not for any real length of time. She’d spend the winter here in Bliss with her mother, but by the time spring rolled around, she would be in a big city somewhere with a high-powered career. She wouldn’t go to her company’s parties with two mechanics on her arm. “She will. She’s going to leave.”
“Maybe we can make her want to stay.”
“God, that is so naïve. It’s not going to happen.” He hated to bring it up. Hated that he had to be the asshole who tore down his friend’s hopes. “She won’t stay here because of us. What is that woman going to think when she finds out you spent a good portion of your teen years in prison?”
A hint of a smile showed up on Jesse’s face. “She’ll think I should have had a better lawyer. She was quite mad about it, but not because she looked down on me. She thought the sentence was overkill. I kind of think so, too.”
“You told her?” He’d just freaking met her.
Jesse took a step forward. “I did. I like her. I would rather get all the crap out of the way, Cade. It’s better to be honest up front. Go knock on her door and talk to her. Ask her flat out what she thinks about blue-collar guys. Tell her that you’ve been hurt before and would prefer to avoid it. Just talk to her. No bullshit. And when she tries to avoid questions, top her.”
Holy shit. “You got into the discipline stuff with her? Damn it, Jesse, you haven’t even asked her out. Or did you? The way y
ou’re going the engagement should happen sometime next week.”
Jesse’s whole body stiffened. “I was honest with her. I didn’t ask her to marry me. I have no idea if we’re even really compatible, but I would like to try. I’m tired, Cade. I’m tired of constantly being on the move. Since we turned eighteen, we’ve been like gypsies.”
“We had a job to do.”
“No. I get that. I’m talking about before. Always moving on to find something new. The next town, the next party, the next woman. I want to settle down.”
That was Jesse, brutally honest, even when it fucking hurt like hell. “And she’s the one?”
Jesse’s frustration rolled off him in waves. “How will we know if we never fucking try? I’m not saying anything except that I want to try.”
And Cade didn’t. He just didn’t. She was beautiful and kind of crazy, and she scared the fuck out of him. “Then you should try. You should ask her out.”
It had been years since they’d dated a woman separately, but maybe the time had come. Who the hell was he to hold his friend back?
“I don’t want to date her without you,” Jesse said evenly, obviously holding on to his emotional state. “But I will. You have a week to think it over. I’m going to get to know her a little. Nothing formal. You can work with me or you can just think about it. If you can’t even try, then I’ll ask her out myself.”
The idea of watching Jesse settle in with a woman stirred an odd jealousy. He would be jealous of Jesse for finding something that might work. He would be jealous of Gemma for taking his friend.
God, he really did need to think. His first impulse had been to tell Jesse to ask her out right away, but maybe he owed Jesse the courtesy of a little time. “All right. One week.”
But he still turned and walked away from the party. If he was going to think, he’d better start now.
* * * *
Gemma watched them. She couldn’t help it. She had been reduced to peeper status.
Jesse and Bare-Chested Ape…Cade…seemed to be having some sort of argument. Over her almost certainly. Cade wasn’t interested. That much was obvious. He couldn’t stand her. She had that effect on some men, a lot of men. She just wished she knew why he’d decided she was trouble. What sort of rumors were already going around?