All feeling left Ross’s body. He was seventeen again, covering up his awkwardness by swaggering and shrugging while he lost the courage to ask the girl of his dreams on a date.

The girl of his dreams had just said, “Marry me,” like it meant nothing.

Except it meant everything.

Callie flushed bright red. “Ross. Damn. I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I said that. I’m not trying to trap you—”

Ross grabbed Callie by the shoulders and stilled her words with a kiss.

Callie stiffened, but she kissed him back, her mouth shaking. She tasted of dust and warmth, perspiration and agitation, but she sought him with mouth and lips, and pulled him close.

The mare’s nose bumped Ross. He eased from the kiss to find the horse eyeing them curiously, wondering why the humans had crushed their faces together.

He let out a chuckle and nuzzled the mare’s cheek. “She thinks it’s a good idea.”

“Ross, really, I don’t know why I—”

Ross touched his fingers to Callie’s lips. “It’s not a terrible thought. I’m liking it.”

Callie shook her head. “We’re not ready for that—I’m not ready. I told you, I didn’t want to use you on the rebound, hurt you …”

“Callie—”

“Let me finish. You wanted to take things slow, see what happened. Asking you to marry me is so not taking it slow …”

“Doesn’t matter.” Ross touched her mouth again, liking the satin of her lips, the heat of her breath. “You’re right. We team up. It was your idea for me to run against Hennessy, a good one.”

“We can team up without getting married.” Callie sounded desperate now. “I’ll fund your campaign. I want to.”

Ross shook his head. “No, save it for your rehab ranch. You need to put all your money into that.”

“I know how to budget, plus the grant from your family’s charity will go entirely to the ranch, with Nicole in charge of that funding. It will be a totally separate thing. You just tell me how much you need, and I’ll donate that.”

“That easy, is it?” Anger slowly replaced Ross’s elation. “What is this, a business proposition? Well, damn, darlin’, I thought you asked me to marry you because you liked me.”

“I do like you. I mean …” Callie trailed off and wet her lips. “More than like. I’m trying not to coerce you into something you don’t want to do. My dad can’t stand Hennessy and would be happy to help you oust him.”

“While his daughter decides whether or not to keep going to bed with me?” Ross scowled. “Forget it.”

“Ross, I didn’t mean …”

Ross wasn’t stupid enough to explode in rage while a horse stood next to him. He contained himself long enough to lead the mare through the gate, signaling to Callie’s stablemen to come fetch her.

The one who loped to them was Manny. Manny’s jeans were dusty but whole, his T-shirt with a Jumping J Ranch logo on it was likewise unripped. He stood a little straighter, and his eyes were clear, as though he’d gotten some decent sleep.

“Yeah, I work here now.” Manny gave Ross a proud if smartass look as he took the mare’s reins. “Callie gave me a job. A real one.”

Callie nodded as though Ross needed confirmation. She folded her arms, obviously uncomfortable.

Manny gazed back and forth between them. “Looks like you lovebirds need to talk. I’ll get back to it then.”

He led the mare away, breaking into a soft whistle as he walked her to the barn.

“That was real nice of you,” Ross said, gentling his tone.

Callie shrugged. “I know he might run off when he gets bored, but he needs someone to take a chance on him, to show they trust him.”

“Yeah, he does. But you aren’t getting out of this argument because you’re so damn nice. That’s how it started—you trying to be nice.”

“Offering to fund your campaign? Oh, I’m so sorry. Real thoughtless of me.”

“No, offering to marry me to fund my campaign. And then taking it back in the next heartbeat.”

“Because I thought you wouldn’t want that!” Callie shouted. “You were the one who said This is nothing. Keep it casual. Not important.”

“The hell I ever said you weren’t important.” Ross remembered spouting the other stuff though, like a dickhead.

“It’s what you meant.” Callie’s eyes flashed fury. “You gave me that sexy smile and said our sleeping together was just having fun, didn’t mean anything. Ross Campbell having it all his own way.”

“Where are you getting this?” Ross glared at her even as he rapidly went over the scene in his head. He’d learned long ago how to get his big, tough brothers to do anything for him, and he hoped like hell he hadn’t tried the same techniques on Callie. “I had to say something with you standing there apologizing for sleeping with me, like I was a notch on your bedpost or something.”

“A notch on my bedpost?” Callie’s blue eyes widened. “I’m surprised your bedposts can still hold up your mattress. Everyone knows Ross is a love-em and leave-em kind of guy. I didn’t want you to think I was another of your conquests, or that I was happy with your pity fuck.”

“You think that’s what it was?” Ross heard himself roar. Ross never yelled. Said exactly what he thought, pointedly, but he never shouted. He didn’t have to. “A pity fuck?”

Callie balled her hands. “It’s what you let me know it was. Poor Callie got left at the altar. I’ll let her do the rebound thing with me so she doesn’t feel like such a loser.”

“Are you shitting me? What the hell kind of person do you think I am?”

“A Campbell. Everyone knows they do exactly what they want, and don’t care that a woman is eating her heart out over them.”

Was Callie saying she ate her heart out? No, not her. Not the cool debutante with the hospitable smile who’d held her head high and faced the town after she’d been publicly jilted.

“What was I supposed to say to one of the cool-as-snow Jones girls?” Ross demanded. “One of the we’re-richer-and-better-than-anyone-in-the-county family? Oh, thank you for blessing me with your presence? For deigning to get your hands dirty with a cowboy? Who was giving the pity fuck?”

“Son of a bitch, Ross—here I was thinking you were the kind of guy I could have an actual conversation with, who didn’t care about my family. I thought you saw me as me. I guess I was deluding myself with a hell of a lot of wishful thinking.”

“I do see you as your own person, damn it. I hate that asshole who took away your confidence. I see you as a beautiful, smart, generous woman I want to know better. And I’m not gonna marry you so you can bestow the gift of your money and family on me. I don’t want that from you. I want you. And I told you before I didn’t believe in friends with benefits. I want a lot more than that with you. A hell of a lot more.”

Callie had drawn a breath to keep arguing, but now she stared at him, red lips parted. “I didn’t know that.”

Her simple statement made Ross tamp down his hot words. Of course she hadn’t known what he felt about her. He’d lain there and told her they’d keep things cool, not rush into a relationship.

He realized now that he’d already been falling in love with her, and trying to keep it from her so he wouldn’t look like a total fool.

Ross drew a breath. “I guess the question is, what do you want?”

Callie’s chest rose, stretching her tight riding shirt in enticing ways. Ross’s need flared, but he clenched his hands and didn’t reach for her. He had the feeling he’d ruin everything if he did.

“I don’t know,” she said, the words soft. “I think I haven’t known my whole life.”

Her words touched his heart, stirring feelings long suppressed. Growing up in the shadow of talented, well-liked, sought-after brothers hadn’t been easy for Ross. Everyone had expected him to become a clone of them, follow in their footsteps, be another Adam or Grant or Tyler, to be like them in both the good ways and the bad.

Carter alone had seen Ross as his own person, and that only because Ross had been young and vulnerable, bringing out the protectiveness in the damaged Carter. Ross had saved Carter from himself, and Carter had taught Ross the courage to pick his own direction.

Callie had gone through the same thing, Ross realized with a jolt. She was a Jones, rich and privileged, and because of that, the world placed her in a box and put the lid on it. She wasn’t allowed to be anything other than a Jones girl, her future mapped out for her. Why she’d want something other than being a man’s pampered plaything was beyond anyone’s comprehension.

Never mind Callie’s own hopes and dreams, her needs as a human being. She wasn’t allowed to have those. By these rules, Callie’s place was as fixed as Manny’s—if she chose to give it up and work at what she wanted, she was ungrateful. If Manny chose to work at what he wanted, he wasn’t trusted.

“Callie,” Ross began.

Callie squared her shoulders. She didn’t fold into herself, but the look in her eyes shut him out.

“Could you please leave, Ross?” she asked. “I need to think about a lot of things.”

“Shit.” Ross’s curse was a whisper, and he knew he’d just blown it with her, irreparably.

Somehow they’d gone from friends to maybe in love to uneasy acquaintances in the space of ten minutes.

“Sure.” Ross retrieved his hat from the post, brushed it off, and plopped it on his head. “You want to talk to me, you call me.”

He made himself turn from her sad face and hurt-filled eyes and walk away.

He’d only gone ten paces when his feet turned him around again. “I mean that. You can talk to me about anything, anytime. Even how much you hate me. Don’t care if it’s the middle of the night. I don’t have a job now. I’ll be home.”

She only looked at him, still as a marble statue. Her riding togs outlined a body Ross had dreamed of holding on to for a long time to come.

Once more, he made himself turn and go. He caught sight of Manny as he walked toward the truck he’d arrived in—Carter’s—he’d had to borrow it. Manny opened his mouth, his entire body betraying his distress that Ross hadn’t swept Callie off her feet and carried her away.

Ross shook his head at Manny, but he knew the kid was right. He should have done just that.

It was a hell of a thing to take a perfectly good life and fuck it up as much as Ross had done today.

* * *

“You okay?”

Callie jerked her head up to see Anna standing by one of the pillars on the shady back veranda. Callie had retreated there once Ross had gone in a cloud of dust. She’d had the idea to fix herself an iced tea and think about things, but once she’d reached the porch, she’d collapsed into a chair, too numb to move.

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully as Anna leaned against the pillar and watched her. Anna’s boots were covered with dust, as were her jeans, though she’d obviously washed up a little down at the stables.

With all the animals on the Jones ranch, Anna was a frequent visitor, and at the moment, Callie was grateful for her presence.

“Did Ross piss you off?” Anna asked. “He seems like such an easygoing guy.”

Callie came to her feet in frustration. “He is easygoing. I pissed him off. Which backfired on me. I am seriously confused …”

“No, you’re not,” Anna said. “You’re in love with him.”

Callie stared at her. “I can’t be. I’m brokenhearted. I was dumped. I’m working through my pain.” The words came out in a monotone, and Anna laughed.

“You forget, I was at that wedding. I remember your fiancé declaring he was too busy to wait for you, and me thinking you were better off if he went. Pretty much everyone thought so too.”

“I’ve come to that conclusion,” Callie admitted. “But still, being humiliated in front of a couple hundred people is not easy to take.”

“Honey, I saw your face when your sisters told you Devon was gone. You were shocked, naturally, because who stands up a bride on her wedding day? You were angry too—I’d have been spitting nails. But you also looked relieved. Like you’d talked yourself into marrying the guy and now you were off the hook.”

Callie blinked at her, startled. “I did?”

“Yep. And instead of collapsing into a sobbing puddle, too heartbroken to go on, you ran down the steps and jumped in the truck of the gorgeous Ross Campbell. You know what Karen Marvin said? ‘Hey, that was smart.’”

Callie bit back a laugh as Anna’s words penetrated her numbness. She tried to remember exactly what she’d felt when Montana had said, “Sweetie, he’s gone. I’m so sorry.”

She’d been stunned, embarrassed with all those people around her, and furious. She’d agreed to marry Devon and put up with a lot of his shit, believing she had to make allowances for him because he was a successful businessman and didn’t have lots of time for people.

She’d been angry that her sisters had let her down, mad at the rain, and outraged that Devon hadn’t had the patience to wait a mere hour or so for his own wedding. Callie had sought the one person she’d known could comfort her. Ross.

Callie sucked in a breath as she realized Anna was right. In the moment her sister had told her, in the seconds before mortification had overcome her, Callie had been relieved.

Relieved she wouldn’t have to listen to Devon belittling the rehab ranch, or Riverbend, or her family and friends, or anything else important to her. She’d seen her friends’ husbands—including Trina’s—tear them down so often, she’d started to believe it was normal. What husbands did. Her father had never done such a thing to her mother, but they were an older generation. Maybe times had changed.

Devon would have ridden her until he’d broken her spirit.

Ross never would.

“Oh, shit, Anna, what the hell did I just do?” Callie dropped into her chair, face in her hands. “I practically told Ross to get the hell out of my life, when he’s the best thing that’s been in it for years!”

She heard the scrape of a porch chair and then Anna’s work-worn hands covered Callie’s and eased them down.

“Talk to him, sweetie. Ross actually seems like a reasonable guy. You’ve had a lot happen to you—I bet he’ll understand if you’re real nice about it.”

“Eat humble pie, you mean.”

“If that’s what it takes. Not too humble, though. You don’t need to stroke his ego.”

Callie blew out her breath and leaned back in the chair. “He told me to call him when I figured myself out. I’m picturing myself choking when he answers the phone. I won’t know what to say. At all.”

“It will come to you. Just be sweet. Tell him he’s cute and adorable and you can’t stop thinking about him.”

Callie laughed weakly. “He won’t believe me.”

“He’s a guy, honey. Yes, he will.”

Callie continued to laugh, feeling a little better. “You are so cynical.”

“I’ve been around the block. The Campbells, from what I’ve seen, are susceptible to flattery.”

Callie sent Anna an interested look. “I can see you’re not into stunt riders. Bull riders, now—that’s more your style.”

She was rewarded by watching the unflappable Anna go beet red and look anywhere but at Callie.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anna mumbled.

“Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

Anna swiftly unbent to her feet. “What’s to like about bull riders? It’s a stupidly dangerous sport, they can break every bone in their bodies, and it’s hard on the bulls.”

“Tell you what,” Callie said, getting up with her. “Become a rodeo clown. That way you can help the rider and make sure no harm comes to the bull.”

Instead of laughing like she was supposed to, Anna looked thoughtful. “You know …”

“I was joking,” Callie said quickly. “Joking. Dangerous.”

Anna nodded, a little too readily. “You’re right. Letting that go. You sure you’re okay, Callie? I have to get on with my calls.”

Callie knew an excuse to depart when she heard it. If Anna’d had that many stops to make, she’d have left right away. She didn’t like to make sick animals wait.

“I’ll be fine.” Callie let out a breath. “You’ve both cheered me up and given me good advice. Now I just need to figure out how to act on it.”

“Like I said, Ross seems to be a reasonable guy. See ya, Callie.”

Anna gave her the briefest of hugs then she hurried down the veranda and back to the stables where she’d parked her truck.

Callie watched her drive out, a little too fast. She knew she was right about Anna’s absorption with Kyle Malory—this would be interesting to watch.

She groaned and sank back to the chair. Callie needed to sort out her own love life before she tried to fix everyone else’s.

* * *

Ross spent the rest of the day putting things in order for his coming campaign. He hung on to Carter’s truck, reflecting that he’d need to buy his own truck or motorcycle to get him around. He hadn’t bothered, living so close to work and groceries.

He hadn’t been a civilian since the few months between graduating from high school and swearing in as a sheriff’s deputy. He’d fit commuting to college for his criminal justice degree around the job. Being unemployed would take some getting used to.

Keeping busy and planning the rest of his life helped him not think about Callie—almost. His gut churned every time he pictured her beautiful face, the confusion in her eyes when he’d yelled at her that he didn’t want her half-assed marriage proposal.

Not how it was supposed to happen. Ross had planned to win the election by a landslide then run to her, go down on one knee, and hand her the biggest diamond ring he could find.

The bottom had fallen out of his world when she’d said, Marry me and I’ll help you run your campaign. As though the marriage part of that suggestion wasn’t important.

It kept falling, like an endless pit. Ross pounded the steering wheel and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“What am I—stupid? The most beautiful girl in the world asked me to marry her, and I said No? Son of fucking bitch!”

Callie wasn’t a desperate, sad woman needing a man, any man to make her feel better. She was over that asshole—Ross could see it in her eyes. Callie had a family behind her, her own life, her own money. She didn’t need Ross, and that worried him.

Why? Because he was afraid he had nothing to offer? Nothing that would keep her by his side? What the hell was wrong with him?

Callie liked him, had said she wanted to be with him. That should have been enough for Ross.

But no, he wanted her to fall in love with him, as hard and strong as he’d fallen in love with her.

In the end, Callie had told him to go away.

Maybe she’d call. He’d told her to call. His phone lay beside him, ready to be answered.

“I am so fucking pathetic,” Ross said out loud. “Fucking dumbass.” His brothers had been right. He hadn’t taken Callie seriously enough.

Ross drove around until he couldn’t think of any excuse to not go home. He’d have to move out soon—he could manage a couple more months rent before he ran out of money.

His mom planned to use the apartment over the garage at Circle C as a guest house now that Tyler and Jess and family had their own home. The small, two-room place with refurbished kitchen and bath was good for a bachelor.

“Because I’m going to be a bachelor for the rest of my sorry life,” Ross muttered as he pulled into the alley. He’d have to return Carter’s truck tomorrow. Ross now had no vehicle and no job, and soon, he’d have no home of his own.

“Dumb fuck,” he told himself.

He opened the garage door and slid Carter’s truck into the small space.

The passenger door was yanked open, and a man Ross knew only from reputation slid inside.

Ross never locked his doors when he drove around, because, well, this was Riverbend. Everyone knew everyone else, and besides, a would-be carjacker might find himself looking at the business end of a loaded shotgun.

The back doors of Carter’s big cab also opened to admit two very large men.

“Ross Campbell?” his front-seat passenger asked. He wore a gray suit with a bolero tie and one tasteful ring on his right hand. His hair was dark brown, his eyes a piercing blue, and he set his cowboy hat on the seat between them. “I’m Dell. Let’s go for a ride, shall we?”