Dakota levels me with a steely stare, but she speaks to Jericho. “Wright Design + Build wants the property, Jericho. I understand you have other interested buyers, but let me be the first to throw my hat in the ring.” She strides back through the desert, headed for my truck, not waiting for anybody to follow.
Jericho says, probably to me but I’m too busy watching Dakota’s retreating form to look her way, “I can’t tell if I like her.”
No worries, Jericho. I’m afraid I like her enough for the both of us.
I start for my truck too, but I’m careful to walk at Dakota’s pace to maintain our distance. It seems best that way.
8
Dakota
I knew it.
The asshole remembers me. I almost feel like calling Paige, one of the friends I went to the party with that night, except I haven’t talked to her since the morning after my night with Wes, when I showed up at her lake house. I don’t even have her number anymore.
Our falling out was my fault. I was sad about Wes, and somehow what he did brought into question for me all the decisions that I had been making. That’s when I decided that I’d worn out my welcome in that phase of my life. It was finally time to go home. Too chicken shit to call first, I’d showed up on my parents’ doorstep only to learn that my mom had suffered an aneurysm two days prior.
Two days.
Two fucking days.
What had I been doing on that day? Nothing. I should have been with my mother. I should’ve never left my parents’ house. I shouldn’t have been so headstrong and wild, acting like I had the market cornered on being a teenager and wanting freedom, as if my parents had never felt such feelings before.
After I came home, I read up on everything I could find about aneurysms. I kept seeing the word stress. And hadn’t I caused my mother enough stress over the years? In my grief, I saw this correlation as causation.
“Did that make you feel better to stomp away?” Wes asks as he climbs into the truck. He looks at me expectantly, as if the question isn’t rhetorical.
“Did it make you feel better to pretend not to remember me?” I ask, but I don’t look at him. I’m too busy watching Jericho step gingerly in those dumb high heels. To be fair, they’re super cute. Right now, I might think any high heels are cute, seeing as how my only pair broke a few days ago.
“For the record, no, it did not,” Wes answers. He starts the truck and turns it around, driving it back to where we turned off the main road.
“You can take me back to my car at your house,” I tell him.
He looks at me, bewildered. “Why? Don’t you want to go to town and talk to people?”
My answering laugh is empty. “I learned last night that I’d be better off doing that by myself. Waylon told me—”
Wes waves his hand dismissively. “Fuck that guy. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
I glare at him. “He knows you, your daddy, and your granddaddy. His words, not mine. And he told me you rarely come to town. So, no, I don’t need you to show me around town. Maybe it’s me who should be showing you around town. Seems I already know more people than you.”
He lets out an irritated sigh and shakes his head. The truck reaches the main road and he goes left toward town, not right toward his house and my waiting car.
“Stubborn ass,” I murmur.
I think he’s going to give me one of his signature hard looks, but he shocks the hell out of me and almost chuckles. An almost chuckle from the world’s most impenetrable man. Imagine that.
I don’t say anything else on our way into Sierra Grande. In my side mirror, I spot Jericho’s little black car. I don’t know what her deal is, but I know what I saw when she walked into Beau’s office yesterday. Her eyes slid over Wes like they were her hands taking off his clothes.
I don’t blame the woman. He’s gorgeous, has a nice body, and he’s rugged and manly. I could tell her that he ghosted me and then pretended not to know me, but it probably wouldn’t even make a difference. The heart wants what it wants, or some horseshit like that.
Well, not this heart. This heart is closed off. I learned the hard way that men are more trouble than they’re worth. I believed Barrett was a good man, and then eventually ended up following him home from the farmer’s market to a two-story cookie-cutter house, parking down the street and watching him hug a little boy and play basketball with an older child. That same night he’d shown up, fresh from his ‘business trip.’ Confronting him didn’t even make me feel better. I’d packed my apartment, paid thousands to break the lease, and then right after that, I lost my job. I was lucky to have my sister and a place to go, but I also had a hefty dose of guilt. Then the guilt doubled when Barrett came for his things on move-out day and told me about his wife. And that’s when I made my next choice, one that I thought was good but now feels more like falling on a sword.
Wes circles around looking for a parking spot big enough for his truck. He finally finds one and we park and hop out. It might be my imagination, but I feel eyes on him. When I look at people’s faces for confirmation, I see nothing but polite nods.
Jericho meets us in front of Waylon’s daughter’s nail salon.
“Getting your nails done?” she asks me, but it’s in this patronizing voice that tells me how badly she thinks I need the service.
Nope, I just bite the cuticles off myself and spit them on the ground. I’m dying to say it just so I can see the look of disgust in her eyes and the poor attempt to cover up a shudder.
“This is the first place Waylon directed me to. His daughter and granddaughter work here, and he thinks they’ll have some good ideas as to what the people of Sierra Grande would like developed in their town.”
Jericho nods tightly, looking down at her own fresh hot pink manicure. “I think I’ll just slip into the coffee shop and wait for you to do your research.” She looks hopefully at Wes. “Care to join me? I’m sure nail salons aren’t really your thing.”
Wes opens his mouth to respond but I answer first. “Great idea, Jericho. I won’t be long.”
I don’t intend to glance at Wes, but my eyes are drawn to him. His lips are pulled into a thin line, his posture stiff.
I turn away and open the door of the nail salon, a little bell ringing above my head.
The place is half-full, and a blonde woman looks up from where she sits with another woman’s hand in hers. She pauses her filing and asks, “What can I do for you, honey?”
“I’m looking for Stacia Guthrie?”
“That would be me,” the woman says, not exactly cheerfully but not rudely either. More like she’s curious and a tad reluctant. I don’t blame her.
I walk closer to her workstation. The woman having her nails done gives me a look that lets me know I’m interrupting her.
“Pardon my interruption,” I apologize, smiling at her glare. “That’s a lovely shade of purple.”
“Thank you,” the woman says, mellowing.
“Did you need something?” Stacia asks, resuming her filing.
“I met your dad last night at the Bar N, and—”