“That’s not what I meant.”
She sniffed. “I think it is.”
“Well, think what you want,” he said. “I’m not in charge of that.”
“You’re not in charge of me at all,” she said.
But the conversation ended, because her parents parked in front of the building, and Jake parked in the space alongside them. And then they had no choice but to get out, and not linger awkwardly in the truck and create speculation.
So he put his hand on her lower back, and she squirmed against the heat of his touch as they walked inside the old building.
“My dad reserves the private dining room every year,” she said.
“Nice tradition,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was still touching her, though, and she couldn’t stop fixating on that point of contact against her back.
The fabric of the dress was just so thin. And the nature of the dress was really quite revealing. If he wanted to, he could take her back to the truck. Push the dress up past her hips. And the things that he would be able to do to her...
This was why people were crazy. She hadn’t realized it before.
Sex made you nuts.
It really took all of your good intentions and reasonable instincts and twisted them. Because for a long time, she’d had very simple thoughts. She’d wanted very simple things. And now she felt like everything had been splintered. Like she had seen her future clearly through a glass windowpane, and someone had taken a hammer and splintered it so that there were fractals of glass, confusing and complex. They fit together—she could see through them. But there were so many different angles, so many different ways something could be.
Wanting him was like that. Filled with absurd angles.
Because she didn’t know what she wanted it to become. Didn’t have any guess as to where it might take them, but she wanted him all the same. It wasn’t like wanting to ride saddle bronc. Wasn’t like wanting to get her trust fund. Those things had a clear, straight path. An easy end point. And she could see why she’d kept her focus on things like that for as long as she had. Men and sex and dresses were something she’d written off as stupid, because the reality was men and sex and dresses were complicated. Painful and just a hell of a lot more confusing than she’d ever given them credit for being.
The hostess was dressed in a dark green vest and white shirt with black slacks. An old-fashioned, Wild West look that went with the rest of the place. It hearkened back to another era. When this had been a gold rush town, and the people in it pioneers.
A hotel like this had only been reserved for the wealthiest, most successful members of the town, and those passing through. The lights were still primarily red lanterns, the seats covered in velvet, the tables polished.
And she knew that dinner would be just as elegant as the rest of the place, and for some reason right now she resented it.
Not for some reason. She knew why.
The reason was seated at her right hand. The reason was this man who was making it all feel high stakes when it should just feel like a regular family dinner. And instead, it felt like a date or something. With her friend that she was married to, and her entire family sitting there watching. Her dad had placed the order ahead of time, and when they sat, food began coming out. Braised short ribs and potatoes. Roasted carrots and fresh rolls. And her dad got good whiskey, and poured a measure of it for everyone.
“A toast,” he said. “To Callie, and to Jake. May they be happy. And may they go the distance, because I would hate to kill Jake.”
Her brothers laughed and knocked back their shots, and Jake did it, too. Callie went quickly, to avoid looking like she was hesitating.
Her mother did not take a shot. But that didn’t have anything to do with not joining in the toast, and everything to do with the fact that her mother didn’t like whiskey.
They dug into dinner, and chatter was happening easily all around her, but she couldn’t stop focusing on the way that it felt to be this close to Jake. Everything seemed to shrink down to that. To him.
But the food was amazing, and she did her best to keep her mind on that. Dinner was followed by a big marionberry strudel and homemade ice cream, along with port, though Callie opted for coffee, because after the whiskey she didn’t need to go layering more alcohol over top of it. She was already feeling shaky and vulnerable, and she didn’t need anything contributing to that feeling.
Then music started to come from the other room. The sound of live fiddles and stomping feet.
“It’s a line dance,” her dad said. “We should go join in.”
“I can’t move,” Jace said. “I ate too much. Go on, you ought to get my sister to dance with you.”
That was when she realized Jace was talking to Jake.
“I don’t dance,” she said.
“It’s just a line dance,” Boone said.
And then Jake was standing beside her, reaching his hand out, just as he’d done at the bottom of the stairs. And she found herself reaching toward him. Like she was being drawn to him by a magnet. Like she couldn’t do anything to resist.
She didn’t dance. But she didn’t wear dresses. And she didn’t kiss men. And she certainly didn’t go to bed with them. But she had done all that in the past few days. So really, refusing to dance was a little bit absurd.
He drew her from the room, and her mother and father followed, along with a couple of her brothers. The rest of her brothers were already digging out another bottle of whiskey.
They went into the room where there was a lively line dance taking place, and she was somehow hurried over to the side that the women were on, with Jake standing across from her. She did her best to follow along, and she was grateful yet again that she wasn’t wearing high heels, because she was already tripping over her feet, and if she’d had to add that to the whole pursuit it would’ve been a disaster.
She clapped and spun and twirled. And at one point linked arms with Jake, then got handed off to Kit, followed by her father.
When she went back to Jake, her stomach swooped.
She felt dizzy, and it was fun. And she just felt... Free. Out laughing with her family, not trying to play a part. Wearing a dress, but somehow still being herself.
Then the fiddles changed, and a mournful song began. Couples paired off. Kit spotted a pretty girl across the room and went toward her. Boone went back to the dining room. Her parents grabbed hold of each other, and she knew that was her cue to take hold of Jake. But she was frozen.
Jake reached out, took her hand in his and drew her toward him. He laced his fingers through hers, his other hand low on her back.
“I don’t dance,” she repeated.