“I’m a special brand of fucked-up.” He speaks with detached certainty, like he’s a book that has already been written and the writer has thrown away their pen.
I laugh once, a mirthless sound. “Aren’t we all?”
I look into his eyes, and what I see there breaks my heart. He doesn’t believe he’s worthy of love. It’s as simple as that.
Suddenly, I’m exhausted. Maybe it’s the whiskey. Or maybe it’s Wes. Either way, I’m done. “I need to go back to my room. I have to move two sleeping children into my bed so they can wake up beside me.”
One side of Wes’s mouth tugs up into a sad smile. “That sounds like a good way to wake up.”
I squint at him, willing him to hear what he has just said. That very sentence is exactly what I mean about confusion tactics.
I don’t have the energy for more discussion. Instead, I slide from the booth. Wes follows me out to the lobby.
“Will you at least consider my offer?” He looks hopeful, and it strikes me just how much he wants me to say yes.
Seeing this makes me… well, pissed. His mixed signals would make any woman angry.
I reach up, cupping his cheek, my fingers scraping over his coarse five o’clock shadow. His head moves the tiniest degree, leaning into my touch.
“No,” I answer, my voice sweet. “And also? Go fuck yourself.”
14
Wes
“The fuck’s wrong with you?” Warner strides across the backyard toward me, his eyebrows pinched together as he studies me.
“Nothing,” I grit out, continuing my work of cleaning the grill because the last person who used it was apparently too busy to clean it. I highly doubt the people who come to our annual barbecue want to eat charred bits of who knows what.
“Did the grill hurt your feelings?” Warner asks, grinning as he gets in my face.
I shoulder him away and keep scrubbing. “Unless you want our guests to eat whatever was last cooked on here, shut up and let me clean it.”
“I think it’s clean, Wes.”
He’s right. It’s clean. But damn, the physical exertion feels good. My nerves are snare-drum tight.
“When was the last time you got laid, Wes?” Warner sinks down into a seat and leans back, his legs stretched out and his hands cradling the back of his head. “By something other than your own hand?”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, replacing the lid on the grill.
He shrugs. “Who the hell knows, maybe I will get the fuck off… I hear the gorgeous Dakota is making an appearance today. She can give me a hand.”
My head snaps to attention. “I’ll use pliers to slowly pull out your fingernails if you go near her.”
Warner slaps his thigh and howls with laughter. “I knew it. Wes has a crush.”
I stare at him for a second, watching him enjoy this moment too much, then decide against giving him an open palm on the side of the head. Leaving behind his waning laughter, I walk into the house. My mom’s standing in the kitchen, mixing up a giant bowl of her famous potato salad.
“Hi, Mom.” I pull a beer from the fridge and twist off the cap, bringing it to my lips and drinking deeply.
“What’s got your panties in a twist?”
My eyes roll up toward the ceiling and I take one more drink of my beer before lowering my chin. “Why do you think I’m mad?”
She eyes me knowingly. “The way you stomped in here and angrily drank that beer.”
“You can’t angrily drink a beer,” I argue.
She snorts. “Oh yes you can. And you just did.”
“I’m fine, Ma.”
She passes by me and swats my arm. “If you say so.”
I stand at the sink and finish the beer while I look out the large window that faces the backyard, and beyond that, hundreds of acres of Hayden property. I want that land almost as much as I want to see Dakota, which is to say I want it a fucking lot. If she thinks my behavior is confusing, she should be thankful she doesn’t have to live inside my body. These days, every thought I have seems to contradict the previous.
My breath sticks in my throat as images of Dakota roll through my mind. That strawberry blonde hair, the fair skin, the way her nose crinkles when she really smiles. I’ve been in plenty of scary situations in my life, but Dakota strikes a fear deep inside me I’ve never felt before.
She reaches into a part of me I keep locked away, and for good reason. She makes me lose control, and losing control means feeling. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to feel. I don’t want to experience my last mission. I want to keep it all locked up tight. Dakota is a threat to that desire, and yet I can’t force myself to push her away like I should. No, instead I asked her to marry me in the most unromantic and unceremonious way possible. What an asshole.
I finish my beer, toss it in the trash, and leave the kitchen. I stop in the living room and peek out, just to see if Dakota’s here yet. She told my dad she’d come, but after last weekend at the bar, I’m not so sure. All week long I wanted to call her, but I’ve been too chickenshit.
A swing of blonde hair catches my eye. Jessie’s out on the front porch, sitting in a chair with her knees pulled up to her chest.
She looks up when I step outside. “Hey, Wes.”
Her unlined skin, her scattering of freckles and pimples, remind me of how young she is. When I was seventeen, I was getting shit-faced at desert parties and leading girls to my truck bed for make-out sessions where I would go as far as they would let me. Is that what she’s doing? Lying down in some horny teenager’s truck when we think she’s at her friends’ house?
The big brother in me shifts into protective mode. It was okay for me to do that with girls, but it’s not okay for my baby sister to be the girl doing that. Because it’s just… not. Pushing aside that thought, and the realization that many of those girls who laid in my truck bed likely had a protective brother too, I settle down next to Jessie.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?” I ask her.
She gathers her long hair over one shoulder and starts braiding. Instead of answering, she shrugs.
“Right.” I nod. “The shrug. A universal teenage response. I believe I was a grunter.” I make the sound, deep and low in my throat, and am rewarded with a half-smile from her. “Anything you want to talk about?” I’m hopeful now that I got fifty-percent of a smile. And knowing Calamity Jessie, it could be anything.
She gives me a look of horror, like she can’t believe I’d dare to ask her to talk. Her cheeks turn pink, and she shakes her head.
Well, shit. And I thought I was making progress.
In the distance, a car catches my eye. Dakota.
It rained during the night and tamped down the dirt, so there’s not much dust from the approaching car. I lean forward, watching the car get closer, my heartbeats picking up the pace.
“And here I thought you came out here to talk to me,” Jessie says, a smirk the size of our property in her voice.
“I did,” I respond, my eyes on Dakota’s SUV.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Jessie counters, moving her chin back and forth in that sassy way only a teenager can accomplish. I’d probably tweak my neck if I tried that.