“BEATRIX BAILED ON ME.”
Wyatt shifted, pressing his phone more firmly against his ear and looking around his kitchen. Jamie was sitting at the table eating bacon, bacon that Wyatt had been very close to indulging in himself.
“On what?” he asked, careful to keep his tone neutral. Not too intimate. He didn’t want Jamie asking questions. And his damn little sister was like a bloodhound when she caught the scent of something.
“The poster mission,” Lindy clarified.
“Oh no,” he said, “not the poster mission.”
“I’m serious. I don’t know how I’m going to get everything finished in time now. I mean, I understand. There was some kind of emergency at Bennett’s clinic.”
“Right,” Wyatt said.
“Something to do with an orphaned bear cub. And until Fish and Wildlife come...”
“Well, what else would it be but an orphaned baby bear?” He had a sneaking suspicion that Lindy needed his help. He also sensed that she would rather pull all her own teeth out with a pair of pliers than ask for it.
“I’m stressed,” she said.
“Did you need something, Lindy?”
There was a long pause at the other end of the phone. “I just have a lot to do.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to ask.”
The silence seemed to sprout claws. She wanted him to offer without having to ask. He wasn’t going to. That woman was stubborn as hell, and she needed to let go a little bit.
“Please,” she said tightly. “Can you help me hang up posters, Wyatt?”
“Sure can,” he responded in his most cheerful tone.
“You’re terrible.”
“But you need me.” He forgot to modify his tone then, and he looked over at Jamie, who was staring at him now, far too keenly.
“In this instance, yes.”
“Jamie and I will meet you at Sugar Cup,” he said, referencing the coffee shop in town.
Now, Jamie looked slightly like a distressed guppy, seeing as he had co-opted her time without her permission. She’d live. He hung up the phone and that was when Jamie rounded on him.
“You did not ask me if I wanted to... What are we doing?”
“Hanging up posters. It won’t take long. Not with all three of us.”
“Who is the third?”
“Lindy,” he said.
Jamie looked slightly gloating at that. “I thought it might be.”
“Did you?”
“You had that tone.”
“What tone?”
“That tone that you get when you think a woman is hot.”
He chuckled. “I’m a little bit disturbed that you know that tone.”
“Me too,” she said. “But then, you’re you.”
He snagged a piece of bacon off the plate and took a bite. “Let’s go.”
A few minutes later he and Jamie were loaded up in his truck and on the road into town. Jamie had her elbow rested against the window, her attention turned to the scenery outside. Sometimes it hit him, and hard, that his younger sister wasn’t a little girl anymore. And that made him wonder why she stayed. Why she did things like this. Going into town with him to hang up posters when she could have just told him where to stick it.
“Do you ever wish... Do you ever want to leave the ranch?” he asked.
She turned toward him, slowly, blinking. “What made you ask that?”
“You’re twenty-four,” he said. “I left home at seventeen. Made a lot of mistakes. Figured out what I liked. What I didn’t like.”
“Are you about to give me The Talk, Wyatt?” Jamie asked, her tone dry.
“Oh, hell no. Dad’s remarried now. His wife can do it.” He was joking. Surely Jamie didn’t need... She was twenty-four. Though, he knew for a fact that she had been pretty damn sheltered. And that most of the men in Gold Valley would be terrified to lay a hand on her, since she had three older brothers that would cheerfully tear them limb from limb.
Plus, the place was populated by cowboys, and Jamie seemed pretty immune to that type. Early exposure to him, to Luke Hollister, and to a lesser extent Bennett and Grant had probably helped with that.
“Do you think I should want to leave?” Jamie asked.
“Not necessarily. I just... It occurred to me that you’ve stuck pretty close to home. I don’t want you to miss out on anything. Not because of loyalty to me.”
She looked away from him. “Would it be so bad if part of it was loyalty to you?”
“Why would you feel loyal to me?” He had left home when Jamie was so young, and had only been visiting after that. He couldn’t imagine why she would feel...loyal to him.
“I know that you were the reason we were taken care of all that time. I know you were sending money to Dad. I saw the checks. And even before that... I don’t know what it was like before Mom died. I never knew her. But I had my brothers. Wyatt, you always took care of me. Considering Mom died from complications after...”
“You don’t blame yourself, Jamie. You can’t. No one else does.”
“I don’t know about that. But either way, you’re the reason we have the ranch, Wyatt. You’re the reason that I’m strong. Because you are so strong. And I wanted to be exactly like you, always. So maybe some of it... Some of being here... Maybe some of that is loyalty. But is that such a bad thing? It feels pretty good to have someone to be loyal to.”
Silence settled between them as they drove into the city limits.
“I’m done with the sincerity now,” she said finally.
“Good,” he said. “But, thank you.”
“It’ll be another twenty-four years before I say something that nice.”
“That works for me.”
He parked the truck in front of one of the old brick buildings, and when he got out, he felt a little bit lighter when he stood up. Which was impossible. What Jamie had said couldn’t have made him feel lighter just by speaking it. But somehow... Somehow it did.
He pushed open the scarred black door, allowing Jamie to go in before him. Lindy was already waiting, sitting at a table with three to-go cups in front of her, and a stack of posters.
“Caffeine,” she said, gesturing to the cups.
She looked between him and Jamie, and he could tell that she felt slightly uncomfortable with the presence of his sister. He knew more than anything that she didn’t like being thrown off, and this whole morning was throwing her off.
“I suppose we should split up,” she said softly.
“I used to work at the Gunslinger,” Jamie said. “I can start there. Canvass that side of the street. Everyone knows me.”
“I appreciate that,” Lindy said. She was being so funny and formal, and he knew that she acted that way a lot, but for some reason it was jarring now. Maybe because now he had seen her naked. Had had her beneath him and crying out his name.
“I can head to city hall, see if they have suggestions for places it might go. We can hit Mustard Seed.”
“Okay,” Lindy said. “That means I’ll take the other side of the street.”
“We can meet back here. Good to see you again, Lindy,” Jamie said, taking the cup of coffee from the table and her posters and leaving.
Wyatt had a feeling that his sister was actually strategically giving him alone time with Lindy.
She was a dark horse, was Jamie Dodge.
“I guess I should...”
He looked around the room, and then reached out, taking hold of her hand. She paled. “It’s okay.”
She pulled away from him, nervously touching her hair. “I just don’t... You know.”
He did. And it shouldn’t bother him. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him that it did. If he was in the market for a relationship that included feelings, it would make sense. But he wasn’t. Been there. Done that. Had the emotional scarring to prove it.
“Why don’t we see if they want to hang up a poster here?”
Without waiting for her response he walked up to the counter, and was greeted by a blonde girl with her hair in a bun, and the flattest expression he’d ever seen on someone manning a cash register.
“I was wondering if we could hang up a poster here,” he said.
The girl tilted her head to the side. “I don’t know. We have really strict rules about it. It has to be local.”
“It is,” Lindy said, stepping in quickly. “And in fact, we have some vendor opportunities available, if you might be interested in coming out and serving hot drinks.”
“It’s summer,” the girl responded.
“But it cools off in the evening,” Lindy pointed out.
She held out a poster, and the girl took it. “I’ll talk to my manager.”
“Thank you,” Lindy said.
“Uh-huh.”
Then, she turned away from both Lindy and Wyatt, busying herself with something else. Lindy and Wyatt exchanged a glance, but didn’t say anything until they were out on the sidewalk.
“She wouldn’t be my first choice to be the face of the coffee shop,” Wyatt said.
“It is a very...unfriendly face.”
Somehow, they ended up not splitting up. They went to several businesses together, as well as city hall. But, she still didn’t touch him.
It was strange to hang out with her like that now that they’d slept together. Now that they had spent some time together alone, and he had a much better idea of who she was beneath all her reserve.
But now he had to pretend there was nothing going on. But even still...he could feel it. As much as he could always sense her, he could feel it even more now.
When they were finished, they walked back toward Sugar Cup to meet Jamie, but he stopped her by the truck, just before they went in. The truck provided a small barrier between themselves and the road. A little bit of privacy.
“See? Asking for help wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She let out a breath. “It’s not that it’s bad. I’ve never been able to depend on anyone in my life. Not anyone but myself. My mother raised us to never take anything from anyone. And when I married Damien... I never wanted to admit that I needed help. I didn’t want to become a charity project.”
“I don’t see you as a charity project.”
“Give the sad divorcée orgasms?”
“No,” he said. “And you well know it. Getting help hanging up posters is not being a charity case. You organized this whole thing for me. And I’ve already told you how impressed I am with what you’ve done with Grassroots. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, Lindy Parker. You’re amazing. You’ve earned respect. That doesn’t mean people will give it. But you’ve got mine. For all that it’s worth.”
Lindy didn’t deserve to feel the way she did about herself. If anyone deserved to be proud, it was her. And needing help didn’t have anything to do with pride. Shouldn’t dent it at all.
“You know,” he said slowly. “When I was a kid I would have given anything for someone to reach a hand out to me. My dad couldn’t do it. He needed me to stand on my own. To be bulletproof,” he said, echoing the words that she had said about him at the waterfall. “But we are just people, aren’t we? Not any more bulletproof than we have to be. There’s no harm in letting someone in.” But even as he said that, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to do it. But that was different. That was him.
He didn’t deserve it. But she did.
“I’m not sure I know how.”
“Well that’s too bad,” he said. “Because I sure as hell don’t. I might be able to make proclamations, but I can’t give any lessons.”
She looked at him, her blue eyes pleading for something. Something he wasn’t sure he knew how to give. And wasn’t that a bitch? He wanted her to want more for herself, but he sure as hell couldn’t be the one to give it.
No matter that the realization made his chest feel tight.
Jamie appeared on the sidewalk a moment later, looking at them both speculatively. Lindy took a step back from him.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “Lindy’s busy.”
Lindy nodded. “I am.”
“And anyway, we have our small barbecue to organize,” he said. “But if you need any more help...ask me.”
She hesitated for a moment. “I will.”
And dammit all, when he got in his truck, he felt even lighter.