He lifted a brow. “How long have you been holding that in?”
“I’m serious! Why don’t you want to be loved? Why don’t you want something permanent? What has made you afraid of love?”
“Not afraid of love,” he answered promptly. “I just don’t love.”
“You love your brothers, and your mom—”
“And Granddad,” he agreed.
“So you love.”
“But I don’t fall in love. I have never fallen in love. There has never been that deep connection, or earth-shattering emotion and attachment that makes me think this is something I want forever, that without this person, I don’t want to live—”
“I don’t know that that is love. That’s storybook stuff, romance novels and Disney movies. Love is an attachment. That’s exactly what love is.”
“But I don’t feel it, and as I don’t enjoy hurting people, I discourage women from getting attached to me. Thus, hooking up works for me. I’m not causing anyone pain. I’m not disappointing anyone—”
“Just selling yourself short.”
“How?”
“Because you can’t become attached if you never spend time with anyone. You won’t ever feel connected if you don’t invest in someone. Love grows over time. Again, it’s not the fairy tale where you lock eyes across the room and suddenly fall in love. Love is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it is.” She looked down at the top of Beck’s cap covering his head. “You didn’t have any feelings for Beck when you first met him, but now you do.”
“He’s my son.”
“But it’s not just head knowledge. You’re connected now because you’re protective of him. You’re bonding by being together. You feel love in part because you’ve taken care of him, and you want him safe. Happy. That bond didn’t happen in one day, either. It’s been a progression—”
“Okay, Dr. Baylor, you’ve made your point. Love takes time, needs to grow, it’s more organic that the media portrays. Is that it?”
She nodded.
“Great. I’ll keep an open mind next time I meet a woman in a bar—”
“Billy.”
“What? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
“I do love it when you use big words.”
“Now you’re just trying to push my buttons.”
“Maybe.” He glanced out over the Bryce canyon and then up toward the slope they’d walked down. “I suggest we head back up. Beck’s going to get hungry and I don’t think I can handle any more talking without lunch.”
She nodded, feeling deflated, as well as somewhat defeated. Why was she so determined to give him ‘advice,’ especially when it came to women?
Why was she determined to share so much? Lecture so much?
What did she think she was going to do, change him and make him the man she wanted him to be? A man that would cheerfully retire from the rodeo, and get a nice, safe day job, and be the partner she wanted him to be?
That wasn’t Billy, and it wasn’t fair to try to make him over into the man she wanted. He was a good person, a wonderful person, the way he was. Women loved who he was. He loved who he was. And if he was happy with his world, and his choices, maybe she needed to stop weighing in.
Maybe she needed to accept that as much as she cared for him, as much as she was attracted to him, he wasn’t going to be the life partner she wanted.
“I wish I could take Beck from you,” Billy said. “It’s going to be a hike back up.”
“I’m fine with him,” she answered. “Honest.”
*
After leaving the national park, Billy suggested they grab lunch and he stopped at historic Ruby’s Inn. Lunch was quiet, but not uncomfortably so, and he was content to just focus on his pulled pork sandwich while Erika ate and gave Beck a bottle.
Lunch over, he drove them to Bryce to get shopping done and then midafternoon they were on the way back to his cabin near Hatch.
The drive home was even quieter than lunch. Billy shot Erika a couple of side glances, wondering what she was thinking as she kept her gaze fixed on the landscape beyond her passenger window. From her profile, he couldn’t tell if she was upset, but she’d lost her bubbly joy. She was back to being the serious Erika Baylor he’d met in the Wyatt kitchen in Paradise Valley.
He had a nagging sense that she was replaying their earlier conversation over and over in her head. With her psychology training, she could go any number of ways analyzing him, them, the conversation in general. But too much analysis was just as destructive as no analysis. Erika might be book smart, but from what he’d learned of her, she relied too much on books, and placed too much weight on the opinions of so-called experts, when in reality, she should listen to herself. She had a good head on her shoulders. She had strong values, and a solid work ethic. She should trust herself. He trusted her. And he did listen to her. She gave good advice, but she didn’t seem inclined to want to take advice from others.
“You okay over there?” he asked.
She nodded.
He wasn’t reassured. “What are you thinking about?”
She glanced at him, blue-green eyes somber. “I’ve been hard on you, and I have no right to be—”
“No harder than my family, and you haven’t said things that Mom or Tommy or Joe haven’t said.”
“But they’re your family. They have a right to weigh in. I don’t.”
“It’s because you care about me,” he answered. “I know that.”
“I do,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
He reached over and briefly put his hand on hers before returning it to the steering wheel since it was the only hand available for steering. “I care about you, too. No need to beat yourself up. Everything’s good.”
Her shimmering eyes met his. “Is it?”
“Yes.” But he wasn’t entirely convinced.
They were different people on different paths and at some point they’d go in different directions, and he wasn’t looking forward to the day their paths diverged, but until then, he was going to enjoy her, and be her friend, and fight the damn attraction that made him want to get her naked and do all kinds of pleasurable things to her, and with her.
His body reacted to the images in his head, the zipper of his jeans growing tight over the hardening of his body. “Did I ever tell you how I ended up with property in Hatch?” he asked, needing to be distracted.
She wiped her eyes dry and sat up straighter. “No. I’ve wondered, too, as it seems pretty much off the beaten path.”
“It was an impulse purchase. I was upset, a friend was trying to offload some of his property, and I bought it for cash. The transaction took a week and it was done. I owned land in Utah.”
“Why were you upset?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“That’s a given.”
He grinned. “You have become very sassy, Miss Baylor, soon to be Dr. Baylor.”
“You seem to like it, and I aim to please.”
“You can’t tell anyone what I’m going to tell you. You must swear to secrecy.”