Dad rose and hugged Maisey, glaring at me over her head. “Hey, sweet thing. I hear you’ve had quite the week.”
When he let her go, she looked at me with wide eyes, as if asking what I’d told him.
“The rumor mill got to Dad before I could tell him about us.”
“I’m sorry you had to hear about it that way,” she told him, touching his arm.
He stared at her for a long moment. “All I want is for you and my boy to be happy. If you love each other and are willing to sacrifice and meet each other halfway, you’ll make it work.”
He’d emphasized the love part, and Maisey shifted uncomfortably.
My order was called, and I hesitated, not wanting to leave them alone while I went to get it, but when they called the number a second time, I stalked off.
When I came back, Maisey looked even more serious than she had been before. Now, I wanted to kick my dad’s ass, in addition to mine. But I’d been the one to start us on this path, not Dad.
Maisey had more than earned a fairy-tale kind of love.
And she’d get it, just not with me.
Why did that notion make my stomach turn sour?
Dad hugged us both goodbye and sauntered off to one of the ranch rigs.
Maisey and I followed him to the parking lot. When I tried to strap Vader to his safety belt in the back seat, he whined, sensing the strain in the air.
“Let him ride up front with me,” Maisey said.
I shook my head. “No. He knows his place. It’s safer back here.”
As Maisey took our things and climbed in the front, I snapped Vader in and whispered, “We both know our place, bud. We just got to be reminded of it sometimes.”
I ran my hands over his head and tweaked his ear before shutting the door.
As I drove home, Maisey remained silent and thoughtful, and my mind and body continued to war with each other. The trip to the lake had been a complete and utter failure. It had only stoked this new desire I felt for Maisey and had ended with her carrying a heavier burden than when we’d arrived. If that wasn’t proof I wasn’t built for relationships, nothing was.
? ? ?
At home, I refocused on my earlier objective of lightening Maisey’s mood. While she reheated the takeout and I fed the animals, I taunted Vader about the kitten.
“The way you’ve been collecting younglings, I should have named you Yoda or Obi-Wan instead of Vader. But I will go all Anakin on you if you bring another cat home.”
Her dad snorted, and my dog grinned, but Maisey remained serious.
“What’s the cat’s name?” her dad asked.
“It will not have a name as long as it is in my care. You name an animal, you keep an animal. This cat will be going to a family as soon as I can find one.”
Vader’s ears drooped, the kitten turned its back on me, and when Maisey finally looked at me, the expression she wore was as wounded as the animals’.
Shit. I didn’t need a cat. I didn’t have time for a cat.
When we sat down to eat, the silence from the ride home returned, and Lewis’s look bounced between us as a frown took over his face.
Maisey hardly ate, tugging her hair and giving away that she was struggling with her thoughts.
Even after being drenched in the lake and drying in the heat, her hair still looked soft and silky. My hands itched to lose themselves in it. In her.
If you’d told me a month ago that it would be nearly impossible for me to have Maisey here and keep my hands off, I would have laughed you out of town. But here I was, not even a day into this new arrangement, and all I could think about was touching her. Claiming her. Listening to her moan my name as we both came apart.