Chapter Six
“Trust your friends. Even with the scary stuff.”
—Blu Johnson, life lesson #19
“I tried to seduce him.” Heather had called an emergency meeting at her house, sending out text messages well before the sun had come up Sunday morning, and though she’d allowed them to wait until dawn to show up, neither Jill nor Trenton had been pleased with the summons.
Her words, however, had them looking up from their coffee cups.
“You tried to seduce who?” Jill asked, while Trenton said, “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?”
“I tried to stay away from him,” Heather argued. But she hadn’t. Not really. If she had, then her trench coat would never have come into play.
Jill still seemed confused—she’d barely gotten halfway into her first cup of coffee—but Heather watched as she sorted through her thoughts, and she could see when the pieces started to click.
Jill bolted upright in her chair. “Do you mean Waylon? You tried to seduce Waylon?”
“Of course she means Waylon. Where have you been?”
“She’s been neck-deep in wedding details,” Heather replied. “With cameras following her every move.”
Jill pointed at Heather. “Yes. That. Cameras, wedding, renovations, ranch stuff. Retakes. Good grief, this having-your-own-show thing is exhausting.”
“But you’re still glad you did it?” Heather’s concern for her friend momentarily overrode her own issues.
“Oh, goodness yes.” Jill nodded. “I love it. But I’m sorry I’ve missed whatever has been going on with you.” She looked from Trenton then back to Heather. “What has been going on with you?”
“Nothing has been going on,” Heather answered. “Not really. Just Trenton worrying that I’d do something stupid since your fiancé’s new employee looks exactly like my idea of a dream man in a cowboy hat.”
Jill’s eyes continued to clear. “Crap. Of course he’s your type. Why didn’t that occur to me?”
“And she apparently did do something stupid,” Trenton added with a smirk. “Otherwise we’d all still be asleep right now.”
“But I didn’t,” Heather corrected. “Well, I didn’t go all the way stupid. I tried. But I . . . it didn’t happen the way I’d planned.” A child had thrown a wrench in her plans, and she still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “And anyway,” she continued, “I’m blaming Jill for my actions.”
Jill—who’d begun slumping over her coffee again—sat upright once more. “What did I do?”
“You did Cal in the barn.”
Jill’s mouth fell open at the announcement, and Trenton’s smirk shifted from Heather to Jill. “You did Cal in the barn?”
“It’s our barn,” Jill defended.
“But you did him in the middle of the day,” Heather exclaimed. She flapped her hands toward her friend. “And you weren’t quiet about it at all.”
“Well, I didn’t know you were listening!” Jill fired back. “And anyway, why were you listening?”
“Because Waylon dragged me up to his apartment when we heard Cal unzip his jeans.”
“Wait!” Trenton held up both hands, but Jill spoke before she could continue.
“I was the one who unzipped his jeans.”
“Whatever.” Heather blew out a breath. “I still didn’t need to hear it.”
“And I wish you hadn’t.”
“Hold on,” Trenton tried again. She rose from the kitchen table. “Let me get this straight.” She pointed at Jill. “You banged Cal in the barn.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re correct,” Trenton continued. “It’s your barn. You can ride your fiancé every which way to Sunday in there if you want to.”
Jill gave a knowing nod, and Trenton’s trigger finger adjusted its aim for Heather.
“And you hung around and listened to it? In Waylon’s apartment?”
“I couldn’t help it.”
“Right. Because he dragged you up there.”
“He did.” Heather rose along with Trenton. “We were heading to see the horses, and then we heard groaning . . . and then the zipper.”
Jill dropped her head into her hands.
“And what? You were so overcome with lust that you turned on the man and attacked him while Jill and Cal were going at it downstairs?”
“No!” Heather crossed to the living room. She’d clearly gone about starting this conversation all wrong, but she hadn’t known how else to do it other than just to blurt things out. She turned back to her friends. “Waylon’s apartment isn’t where I tried to seduce him. We only ate ice cream in there. While we waited on”—she nodded toward Jill—“them. And anyway, I wasn’t there for very long because Cal was rather . . . fast.”
Jill groaned into her hands. “He’s not always that fast.”
“Well, I would hope not,” Heather replied. “Otherwise . . . Jilly. Honey.”
Jill’s head jerked up. “He’s no—”
“Stop,” Trenton interrupted. “Cal’s staying power isn’t the issue here. It’s that Heather tried to seduce Waylon.”
“Right,” Jill agreed. “I know that. I’m just saying that—”
“And if I’m reading her correctly right now”—Trenton spoke over their friend as she kept a shrewd eye cast on Heather—“then she’s not yet convinced that she doesn’t need to . . . try . . . again.”
Jill’s head swiveled to Heather.
“I’m not saying that,” Heather argued. But she wasn’t certain she wasn’t saying it, either.
“Ah, dang it.” Jill stood as well. “I see what you mean.” She moved so she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Trenton, and the two of them faced Heather as one.
“I think we need details,” Trenton declared. “Because if you were only in his apartment until Cal got off—”
“I got off, too,” Jill objected.
“—then when, exactly, did you try to seduce him?”
“And how?” Jill added.
“And why didn’t it work?”
Both of them looked as curious as they did worried, and the humiliation of the previous evening returned. “I tried last night,” Heather muttered. She still couldn’t believe she’d gone over there like that. “He’d mentioned that he was moving into his new house this weekend, so I went over to . . . see him.” She pointed without looking, arm outstretched, toward the coat that now hung by the front door. Then to the red heels sitting directly below it. “Wearing those.”
Jill and Trenton took in the articles of clothing, and the small house grew unusually quiet. A songbird tweeted from outside as the sun continued to climb—while Heather’s mortification level rose right along with it.
“And you wore only those?” Trenton finally asked.
Heather nodded, her humiliation complete. It was just like her. See a man, like a man. Stoop to a new low because of a man.
“Oh, sweetie.” Jill rushed to her side, and within seconds the three of them were sitting together in the living room. Heather and Jill took the couch, while Trenton perched on a stool she’d pulled over from beside the fireplace. “Okay,” Jill said. “Start from the beginning. We’re here for you. We’ll talk you through this.”
“Better yet, we’ll talk some sense into you,” Trenton interjected. And Heather prayed that was true. Because she needed some sense talked into her. Or maybe knocked into her.
She took a deep breath and began. “The minutes in his apartment had been . . . electrically charged, you might say, and though nothing happened while I was there, it was clear that he wanted it to. That I wanted it to. The man is”—she puffed out a breath—“hot.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Jill agreed. “But back up a bit. What’s gone on between you two before this?”
“Like I said. Pretty much nothing. We’ve talked a few times,” Heather confessed, glancing at Trenton with guilt. “We’re both out at the ranch, so we’ve seen each other. And he’s flirted.”
“And I’m guessing that you’ve flirted right back?” Trenton accused, and Heather reluctantly nodded. Her friends knew her well.
“But I really don’t mean to,” she stressed. “It just seems to happen.”
“Which is exactly why I told you to stay away from him.” Trenton’s tone softened to concern. “Heather. Honey . . .”
“I know,” Heather whispered. “But I’m not falling for him. I swear to you. I only went over there for sex. I mean, why can’t I have sex if I want to? Other women do it all the time. Casual sex, casual dating”—she shot Trenton a look—“fuck buddies they call up whenever they want to.”
“Hey,” Trenton protested. “It’s not like I have them lined up just waiting for my call.”
“Well, it’s not like you have to do without, either.” Heather turned her gaze back to Jill. “And you. Rolling around in the barn in the middle of the day.”
“It was actually against the door.”
“I know!” Heather shouted in frustration. She could still hear that door rattling in her head. “I was there, remember? It’s a wonder the thing is still standing.”
Jill cringed in mock apology.
“Your point is valid,” Trenton said to Heather. “You’re a grown woman. You should be able to have sex if you want to. And I’m all for women taking sexual liberties. Sleep with all the men you want. Big men, little men, white men, black men. Heck, I say try out a woman if that’s your thing.” She reached over and took Heather’s hand. “But our point is that none of that is you.”
“And that’s okay.” Jill laid her hand on top of theirs. “Not all women are cut out to handle that type of relationship.”
“But I miss sex.” Heather pleaded with her eyes, but even she knew that she was saying more than that she missed the physical act. She missed having a man care for her. Touch her.
She missed being in love.
She only wanted what her parents had had. Was that so much to ask?
“And anyway,” she went on, “me showing up at his house in a trench coat and stripper heels wasn’t even the worst part of it.”
Jill sat back on the couch. “What could have possibly made it worse?” And then her mouth dropped open. “Please tell me he wasn’t there with another woman.”
“I’m surprised he was there at all,” Trenton added. “Doesn’t he normally leave town for the weekend?”
“That’s the rumor. But I think I might have figured out where he’s been going all these weeks. And no, he didn’t have another woman at his house.” Heather looked from one friend to the other, and she thought about Rose’s pink bedroom and the two toy rings the girl dug out of her jeans. Then she thought about the Texas cowboy with pink paint splattered all over him. “He was there with his daughter.”
Both women froze at Heather’s words, and she could read the shock on their faces. They looked pretty much exactly how she’d felt when Rose had opened the door.
“He has a kid?” Trenton was the first to recover.
Heather nodded. “Cute thing, too. Looked to be four or five, red hair, dimples, loved my shoes.”
All three of them stared at the shoes.
“Burn the shoes,” Trenton demanded.
“And stay away from Waylon,” Jill added.
“I know.” She hated to admit it, but her friends were probably right. “But guys . . . you didn’t see him with her. He’s crazy about her. That has to be where he’s been going all these weekends, right?”
“Then why not just bring her here?” Jill pointed out.
“To the barn apartment?” Heather questioned as if outraged. The cramped quarters were a nice benefit accompanying the job, she was sure. But the reality was, the place had been bare bones. And if she had a daughter, she wouldn’t want her living in the rafters of a barn.
“Why hide her existence at all?” Trenton added. “Why not share with everyone that he’s a father instead of allowing stories to be made up about him? Assuming they are made up, of course.”
“I know that at least one story isn’t,” Jill confessed. “He definitely has cheated people out of money. I don’t know how many or exactly how long ago, but Cal asked around before hiring him. That’s why it never occurred to me that you’d be interested. Because—”
“I know,” Heather interrupted. Because she was a sucker for a con man. She got it. “And that’s exactly why I’d never get serious about him. But I just can’t sort out the man everyone says he is and the man that I saw last night. It doesn’t add up.”
“Maybe you don’t need to sort it out,” Trenton suggested. “Because like you said, you’ll never get serious about him.”
“Right.” She stood and moved to the fireplace. She wanted this thing with him to end right then and there. She’d made a mistake, she wouldn’t do it again. And it shouldn’t matter that what she’d heard and what she’d seen didn’t correlate.
Yet nothing was ever that simple. At least not for her.
She turned back to her friends. “There’s still that attraction thing,” she admitted. “And trust me. It’s strong.”
Jill nodded, looking as troubled as Heather. “And there’s your renewed need for sex.”
“I have the solution.” Trenton rose with her announcement, her voice climbing in excitement. She turned to Heather. “I’ll hook you up with one of my friends.”
“Ewww.” Heather recoiled. “No! I am not sleeping with a guy that you’ve slept with. Plus . . .”
But she bit the inside of her lip instead of expanding on the “plus.” Because she didn’t want to say it out loud.
“Plus,” Trenton said for her, showing what Heather assumed to be only a portion of her disgust. “Waylon is the one you want.”
“Just for sex,” Heather argued.
“Which is now off the table,” Trenton stated. She then shook her head when Heather didn’t immediately concur. “There’s no way you can do casual when a kid is involved, Heather. Don’t kid yourself. If you don’t nip this thing in the bud, then the next thing you know, you’ll be baking for him.”
“No, I won’t.”
“You always do,” Jill pointed out. She rose once again to stand united with Trenton. “We watched it with Danny three years ago, and you told us yourself that’s how you were with Chris and Dustin. That’s how you always are.”
“But I don’t have to bake.” Heather knew she was arguing for a cause she wasn’t sure she wanted to take up. Hadn’t she already written off sleeping with Waylon at least ten times since Rose had opened that door?
But at the same time, she also couldn’t stop herself from still wanting the man. Because now that she had opened the door to the idea of having sex again, she really wanted sex again.
And if Waylon only got Rose on weekends. Which seemed to be the case . . .
“You’ll start showing up to clean his house after that,” Trenton mused out loud.
“Doing his laundry while there,” Jill added.
“And hey, why not pick him up a little something every time you go shopping?”
“Stop it.” Heather’s voice raised. “I know.” She clenched her fists at her sides. She knew what an idiot she was with men. And she knew the guys stood passively by and allowed her to do it. They broke her heart, they stole from her. And they took a piece of her soul when they left. “I know, okay?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I know what I’m like, so don’t make fun of me. Because what if even one of those guys had been the one?” What if loving them had righted her world back to what it had been before her parents’ deaths? “Would it have been so wrong to do all those things then?”
“Sweetie.” Jill crossed the room and wrapped Heather in a hug. “We love how you are. You’re the most softhearted, loving person we know. And you so deserve a guy who would return all your goodness right back to you. We’re not making fun of you, and you know it. We’re only telling you the things you made us promise to remind you of if you started to fall again.”
“And especially if you’re falling for someone who’s questionable,” Trenton added.
“But I’m not falling for him,” Heather whimpered. “I know the kind of guy he is.”
Only, she really wished he wasn’t that kind of guy at all.
“And you know that neither of us can truly tell you what to do,” Jill went on. She pulled back and looked at Heather. “But be careful, okay? None of us really know anything about him. Cal does like him, I’ll give you that. He’s a hard worker and he knows what he’s doing. And that’s what you want in a ranch manager. But sweetheart, we’ve all known plenty of ‘good’ people who aren’t so good for us.”
“Fine,” Heather mumbled, feeling even more dejected than she had the night before. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I won’t have sex, okay?”
Dammit.
“But I am going to have to talk to the guy again,” she went on. “I showed up at the man’s house in a trench coat for crying out loud. He’s going to want to talk about that.”
“Then talk to him,” Trenton told her. “And tell him that you made a mistake. Tell him that you don’t want sex.”
Heather frowned. Because she definitely did want sex. But they had valid points.
Waylon was iffy in the morals department to begin with, and for that alone she should steer clear. Also, Waylon had a kid. Which only made him sexier. Therefore, her choice was clear.
She had to say no to Waylon.
Waylon barely got his truck stopped in front of the three-story San Antonio home before his back door was wrenched open.
“Grandma,” Rose called out. Pure happiness lit her face. “I had the best weekend ever.”
“Did you, now?”
Waylon watched in his rearview as Madelyn James unhooked his daughter from her car seat. The sour pinch to Madelyn’s face didn’t bode well for an easy drop-off.
“I did.” Rose started searching for the toys she’d scattered during their hour-long drive. “We got a new house this time and then we painted my room—and it’s the most beautifulest pink I’ve ever seen—and then we went to this huge, huge store and bought me a new bed.”
After extending her arms to show how huge the furniture store had been, Rose crawled onto the floor, still gathering toys, and Madelyn turned to meet Waylon’s gaze in the rearview. “A house?” Her eyes appeared almost black in the waning light.
Waylon said nothing. He didn’t have to answer to this woman about anything.
“Yep,” Rose answered from the floor. Her voice was muffled, likely due to her cramming her head up under his seat to look for her sheet of stickers. “You and Papa need to come see it, too,” she continued. “It’s old, but it’s so, so pretty. Not big like yours, though. And it only has one floor. We don’t have any steps ’cept the ones to the porch.”
“I’m sure it’s quite nice.” Madelyn plucked the small suitcase off the back seat. “Is that why you’re late getting home?”
Rose jerked up from the floorboard at Madelyn’s harsh tone, and Waylon opened his door to put an end to the interrogation. He hated when Rose picked up on her grandmother’s nastiness. “We’re not late.” He reached past Madelyn for Rose’s seat, and Madelyn skirted back and away from him. “I told you when I picked her up that we wouldn’t be back until bedtime.”
“Which is late,” Madelyn reiterated. “She has school tomorrow.”
Waylon was well aware of Rose’s preschool schedule. Her grandparents had refused to let him attend the first day with her only two weeks before.
“Daddy?” Rose looked from him to her grandmother, and her hesitant voice shattered his heart.
He puckered his lips and blew his daughter a quick kiss. “We’re fine, Rosebud. Your grandma was just worried about you, I’m sure. She probably forgot that since I didn’t get to pick you up until Saturday morning that I said we’d be back later than normal.”
Madelyn made a grunting noise behind him. “It’s not my fault her friend wanted a sleepover during your time.”
But it is your fault you’re a bitch.
Waylon kept that thought to himself, though, and helped his daughter gather the remainder of her things. Madelyn headed for the house, apparently satisfied that he truly was going to leave his daughter with them once again, and after Rose climbed into his free arm, he turned for the house to follow. He set the extra car seat beside the garage for Rose’s papa to put in his truck, then squeezed his daughter tight as he climbed the steps to the porch. He hated Sunday nights. They were the worst. Some weeks he’d swear he left there with his chest split wide open.
“I’m going to miss you,” Rose whispered in his ear.
Pressure built behind his eyes. “Not as much as I’ll miss you,” he whispered back. Their ritual drop-off whispering soothed his soul as much as it did hers. “But I’ll Facetime you every night,” he promised. “And I’ll see you again in only five days.”
She held up one hand, all five fingers splayed. “This many, right?”
“Right.” Waylon kissed each of her fingers, wishing nothing would ever cause the uncertainty he could see in his daughter’s eyes. “And next weekend I’m going to introduce you to some of my new friends.”
Her small mouth turned into an instant grin. “Will we see Miss Heather again?”
Rose had talked about Heather nonstop since the night before. “I’m not sure if we’ll see Miss Heather or not, but you might meet her friend. The one who’s going to have butterflies at her wedding.”
Rose’s eyes sparkled. “That would be awesome.”
They were at the top of the steps now, but he had yet to put his daughter down. This was getting harder to do.
“You’ll see your other grandfather the next time I get you, too.”
“Grampa?” The eagerness in her voice made his heart heavy.
“The one and only.” His dad was one of his daughter’s favorite people. “He’s going to be living with us now. That other bedroom is for him. I just have to paint it and get it ready for him this week.”
“That’ll be fun.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “I wish I could help, though.”
Her excitement waned, and Waylon made a silent vow that he would get his daughter back. Whatever he had to do, he would be the one raising her.
“ls Grampa there now?” Rose asked. He could see matching sadness in her eyes as she peered up at him, her mouth twisted to the side. She didn’t want him to go any more than he wanted to. However, Madelyn had returned, and she and her folded arms now stood waiting impatiently in the open doorway.
“He’s not there yet”—Waylon ignored Rose’s grandmother—“but I talked to him on the phone the other day. He has one more week of working at his job, and then he’ll come here to see us.” Waylon bounced her in his arms and forced a smile to his face. He couldn’t let Rose know how badly this hurt him, or it would make it harder for her. “Do you think we should cook dinner for him his first night there?”
“I do.” Rose nodded. “Can we fix him macaroni and cheese?”
“Absolutely. I bet he’d love that.”
Marcus, Madelyn’s husband, appeared in the doorway beside her, sharing a conspiratorial wink with Rose, and Waylon greeted the other man with a nod. It helped knowing that at least one of Rose’s maternal grandparents could remember that these moments weren’t about the grown-ups. That the root of their disagreements wasn’t over who got to have their way.
It was just a shame that Madelyn was the mouthpiece for both of them.
“Hi, Papa.” Rose crinkled her nose at her grandfather when he made a silly face at her. She loved both of her maternal grandparents, but as with Waylon’s dad, she held extra fondness for Marcus. “Are you taking me to school tomorrow?”
“I sure am, kiddo. Did your dad wear you out good so you’ll sleep like a log tonight?”
Rose snickered, and Waylon finally made himself put his daughter down. He never passed her off to either of her grandparents. That felt too much like giving his daughter away. So he set her down, and then he squatted in front of her as he was doing now.
“I love you, Rosebud,” he whispered. His hunkered position burned a stake of fire through his bad leg. “And I’ll think of you every single night.”
“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered back. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “And I’ll draw you a picture every single day.”
After hugging her close, Waylon leaned back and looked at the one person who loved him no matter what. And his guilt threatened to suffocate him. He’d failed her. He had to get her back.
“I’ll see you soon,” he promised. Then he did as he’d done for far too many weekends. He turned his back, and he walked away from his daughter.