“I’m not you. I don’t have your money. I don’t have your ranch. I don’t…” She cleared her throat, swallowed. “I don’t have these kinds of choices, Dan.”
She had a way of saying things that jabbed somewhere in his chest—a dull, aching pain right in his center. Things he didn’t think she fully understood the weight of.
Because in some strange twist of fate, the things she said hit him like a ton of bricks. He had no way of fighting her words, escaping the emotions in them. And he knew, like he’d always known, at some point he would be unable to escape.
Making things too hard on Mom so she’d left Dad, walking away when Grandpa had wanted to tell him the story of the ranch that was his heart. When he hadn’t recognized Dan for the first time. The mess with his team. And here, there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run away to.
“You’re the one who said I needed a truck,” he snapped.
“Yes. But, you should pick it!”
It was not the way she usually yelled at him. It was the way she’d yelled at him this morning, like yelling was the only thing that was keeping her from crying. That…that he couldn’t be irritated by or pissed about. This woman had some serious stress on her plate, and while he was in no way up to the challenge of dealing with it, the least he could do was offer a distraction. “Let’s go eat.”
“What?”
“You’re about to break, Cowgirl. Let’s take a lunch break.” He rested his hand on her arm in an attempt to guide her toward her truck.
She jerked her arm away from him. “I told you I’m—”
“You’re human, Mel, whether you want to be or not.” A human who needed something to give, and it didn’t take a genius to realize the give wasn’t going to come from her. “I’m hungry. We’ll do the truck some other day.” A day when they could both handle it. So, maybe never.
She opened her mouth, presumably to argue more, because God knew the woman didn’t breathe without arguing, but then her eyes took in the trucks again, the lot, and her hands shook as she pressed fingers to her temples.
“You’re such a pain in the ass,” she said in a wobbly whisper.
“Yup, that’s me. We gonna go eat?”
“Yes. Yes, food. That’s what we need. Food.”
He didn’t think that was what they needed at all, but he wasn’t about to argue. Not until her hands stopped shaking. Not until something around here started to make sense.
So, maybe that was just never going to happen.
Chapter 7
Mel did not like being steered.
Scratch that. She liked it. She did not like the fact that she liked it.
But sometimes it was nice to be the one following instead of leading, acting out the decision without having to have made it. She let Dan drag her along, grumbling about Montana and its lack of fine dining.
Fine. Dining.
Bozeman had never felt like an alternate reality until she’d stepped into it with Dan Sharpe at her side.
“Here we go.”
Dan pushed her into some restaurant that immediately made her feel out of place. The lighting was dim, and the strains of some classical song played somewhere over the hostess podium. There was a couple at a table facing them—the man in a suit, the woman in a pencil skirt and blazer—and it was clear they did not approve of her and Dan’s jeans and T-shirts.
“I don’t think we—” But before she could whisper her suggestion that they didn’t belong, Dan was greeting the hostess, a pretty young blond in black slacks and a white button-up shirt. Bright red lipstick and some fancy eye makeup.
She hated herself for thinking it, for feeling it, but she immediately scowled. That was Dan Sharpe’s type of woman. Someone who knew how to put makeup on and flirt as if she had the key to the damn world hidden in her smile, and it was the guy’s job to find it.
Dan would have no trouble finding it.
She tried again. “We really shouldn’t—”
He waved a dismissive hand at her, and if she weren’t so out of her element, she might have punched him for that too.
“I know we’re a little underdressed,” he said to the hostess, leaning on her podium, oozing that self-assured charm. Ugh. “But do you think we could get a table? I’d really appreciate it.” He smiled and extended a hand to the woman.
She took it eagerly, and then smiled, looking up at Dan from under her lashes. “It’d be my pleasure,” she said in a husky voice.
Mel knew it was small of her, but she wanted to sucker punch the girl, much like she’d sucker punched Dan in the dealership parking lot, except harder.
A lot harder.
Which…seriously, she’d never been the jealous type. Tyler had actually gotten irritated that she hadn’t been angry when she’d found him cozied up to Kyrie Watson at some stupid party senior year.
But she hadn’t cared. Not really.
Why did she keep comparing Dan to Tyler? First of all, Tyler was ancient history, her ex-fiancé for almost five years. Second of all, Dan was not her boyfriend or fiancé or anything. And he wasn’t going to be.