Chapter 32
thirty-two
“You want me to go in first, sweetheart?” Tarr asked.
Briar, who’d pulled her hair back into a messy bun, looked at him with big, soulful eyes above her puffy white spa robe, and nodded.
He wanted to reach for her and tell her how gorgeous she was, but he reminded himself that he’d already done that right after bringing her a little cup of homemade granola and a glass of ice water infused with green apples.
He’d never indulged in the treats in the waiting room before a massage, but Briar had told him that was half the fun.
He could still taste the apples. They weren’t disgusting, but they certainly weren’t the best thing he’d put in his mouth that day.
Tarr let his fingers brush against Briar’s as he moved past her and followed his spa attendant into the couple’s massage room. His eyes adjusted quickly to the low light, and his attendant was a five-foot-nothing brunette with a wide smile.
“Any injuries I should know about?” she asked.
Tarr shook his head. “I called in about my girlfriend’s hip.”
“Her attendant will ask her,” the woman said. “Don’t worry—Wendy is our most amazing chiropractic masseuse.”
Tarr grinned at the woman he’d been assigned. “Okay. I don’t have any injuries, and I’ve done massages plenty of times.”
“Great,” she said. “I’ve got the Himalayan pink sea salt stones for both of you.” She indicated the counter behind her and another counter behind the second table. “And I have you both doing the Water aromatherapy.”
“That’s right,” Tarr murmured.
“There’s a hook here for your robe, and you can just leave your slippers there. Any loose items go over here in this bowl,” she continued, explaining that she’d then send in Briar and he should lie face down.
Tarr had been through all this before and knew what to do. She finally stepped out, and he shed his robe and hung it on the hook, practically dancing over to his massage table.
He’d spent plenty of his life with people watching him—millions through cameras—and he had to give interviews before and after his ride, but somehow he felt more self-conscious as he climbed under the blanket for his massage than he ever had in his life.
He got all settled, the heat from the table seeping into his bones and muscles and helping him relax. A moment later, a knock sounded on the door.
“Are you ready?” a woman asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he called, and he kept his eyes closed, though the light was already dim.
As the attendants brought in Briar, her masseuse went through the same quick instructions and stepped out. Tarr’s pulse thundered through his body, making his circulation feel like a herd of wild mustangs stampeding across the plains.
Briar said nothing—not even to double-check with him to make sure he wouldn’t peek. He heard the soft swishing of fabric and then movement on the table only a few feet from his. It made a slight noise as she laid down, and then she sighed, finally.
“This feels great,” she whispered.
“I’m glad,” Tarr whispered back, because it felt like they definitely couldn’t talk louder than that in this room.
“Is your table heated?”
“Sure is.”
It seemed to take the attendants a long time to come back, but they finally did.
The lights lowered even more, the music turned up slightly, and Tarr settled in for an amazing experience.
As his massage therapist put both hands on his upper back and leaned into him, he felt her grounding him.
He sighed out as she pressed her hands down his back, along his hips, and then came right back up to his neck.
Only then did she pull the blanket back, and she repeated the motion, this time with his bare skin against her hands.
Tarr breathed in deeply when she told him to, the scent of eucalyptus and orange further relaxing him, and he could tell with the first stroke of his masseuse’s hands down his right side that he was going to feel amazing at the end of this.
A couple of hours later, he opened Briar’s door for her, and she climbed into his truck. He joined her and glanced over to her, then leaned over, reached past her, and opened the glove box.
“I know it’s still early,” he said. “And we’re gonna go by the build site, but I’d love for you to choose the dinner menu.” He held up the file folder, wiggled it back and forth, and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s your birthday menu,” he said.
She eyed him for a moment, then flipped it open. He’d handwritten the menu on a single sheet of paper that spanned front and back and explained the starter, main course, and dessert.
“Tarr,” she said. “How are you going to make all this in one day?”
“Oh, the starters are easy,” he said. “It’s chips and guacamole or baked potato soup.”
“I do love baked potato soup,” Briar said, her eyes scanning the sheet.
That menu came with steak and roasted asparagus.
The one with guacamole came with chicken and carne asada tacos, and the third choice was something not quite as elaborate but just as delicious—at least in Briar’s world—green salad and spaghetti and meatballs.
“The desserts are all birthday cake,” he said. “But there is an assortment of ice creams.”
“I think that’s for you, cowboy.” Briar grinned over at him and flipped the folder closed. “I think I want the soup and steak.”
Tarr took the menu back from her and tucked it down into the side of his door.
“Is that okay?” she asked.
“Of course it is.” He glanced over at her. “It’s your birthday, sweetheart. You can have anything you want.”
“I think we’ve proven that that’s not true,” she said. “Because I wanted a really relaxing massage, where a certain someone wasn’t snoring next to me.”
Tarr scoffed and put the truck in reverse to pull out of the parking spot. “I was not snoring.”
Briar continued to giggle. “Yes, you were. Both of the masseuses even said so.”
“Oh, they don’t even know what they’re doing in there,” he said.
Briar full-on laughed, and she reached over and took his hand in hers. “I think it’s great you got a little nap, baby. You work too hard sometimes.”
He looked over to her, surprised. “Do I?”
“I think so,” she said. “Especially now that spring is here and your house is coming along. Aren’t you going to put in the flooring yourself?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And Bobbie Jo told me that you took Tucker to the big hardware store to have him help you pick out paint. Are you doing that yourself too?”
“I’m not going to do all of the painting,” he said. “But I am going to do the flooring and the finishing work on the cabinets and shelving. I really like seeing those little details come together.”
“Yes, I can see that about you,” she said, and Tarr wondered what she really saw in her head when she thought of him.
They made the drive back to Deerfield quickly, and Tarr rumbled past her road and around the corner to the far end of the square where his house had come to life over the past couple of months.
All of the walls and roof stood proudly against the sky, and Tarr smiled as he pulled in and parked in front of the house. “Looks like they put the gutters on,” he said, eyeing the new rain gutters on the house.
“This barely counts as a cabin,” Briar said.
“Never once did I say I was building a cabin,” he told her for probably the fifth time. “It’s always been a house, Briar.”
He shook his head and got out. She joined him, and he led the way up what would become the front sidewalk to the house.
He had a two-car garage and plenty of room for parking bigger vehicles—like his RV or a boat, four-wheelers, or anything else oversized that Tarr wanted—down the side and toward the backyard, which he planned on fencing and replanting with some of the native trees that they’d had to take out to build the house.
“I do love this porch,” Briar said as she climbed the steps to it.
Tarr stopped and admired it as well. It extended across the full front of the house and wrapped around the far side, where it extended all the way to the back corner over there.
The master bedroom took up that corner, and he’d have a sliding glass door which led out onto a private side porch.
Tarr had admitted—only to himself—that he’d designed that for Briar, so she could take her coffee on the south side of the house, in that rocking chair she loved.
Tarr pushed open the door and walked into the house. “Oh, they’ve come a long way,” he said, as he could now see the kitchen laid out with spots for the appliances and the cabinets that had been brought this week.
The front door faced east and the back door west, and as he’d been spoiling Briar all day for her birthday, the sun had started its descent toward evening.
Tarr moved in that direction, where a pair of French doors would let him out onto a back deck and into his backyard.
He’d be able to see the arena from here, even if Bobbie Jo and Tucker grew big stalks of corn in the fields in between.
“It’s looking good,” he said, turning back to Briar.
“They’ve hung doors this way too, Tarr,” she said, peering down the hallway.
He joined her, drinking in all the new things that they’d done in the house since he’d been here last. He really tried not to come every day, because it simply fed his impatience.
“What do you think?” he asked, putting his arm around Briar.
“I think it’s amazing,” Briar said.
He swallowed, not wanting to ruin anything since they still had dinner to go for her birthday. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “What do you think, my thorny Briar? Do you think you could live here with me one day?”
Briar leaned further into him and looked down the hall as if someone had painted a gorgeous mural on the walls and only she could see it.
Irritation drove through him when she didn’t immediately say, Yeah, of course, Tarr, and he said, “Forget it. Don’t answer that, okay?”
“Tarr—” she said, but he had already turned to leave.
“Let’s get back to your place,” he said, making his voice as bright as he could. “I’ve got to put a three-course dinner on the table.”
She followed him, and when they were both in the truck and headed back down the lane, she said, “It’s not a hard question, Tarr.”
“Well, you didn’t answer it.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to start talking about marriage,” she said. “And I know that’s not the answer that you want to hear, so I was trying to figure out how to say, ‘Yes, I’m thinking about living in that house with you,’ without it turning into a big conversation about marriage.”
Tarr’s throat burned like he’d swallowed acid, and he forced himself to nod. “Why don’t you want to talk about marriage yet? Are we going too fast?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “But remember, I’m still getting used to the idea of me being married at all, and it has nothing to do with you, Tarr, and everything to do with me.”
He nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure he believed her.
Wouldn’t the heavens open and angels be singing for Briar if marrying him was the right thing to do?
Couldn’t God give her that reassurance or those experiences, or whisper in her ear, the way He had about other things, to help her along this road a little bit faster?
Tarr coached himself to be patient. He pulled up to Briar’s house, and they got out and went inside. He snatched her hand just before she reached for the doorknob. “Hey, I just want to ask you one more thing,” he said. “And then I swear I’ll drop it until you bring it up again.”
She sighed and turned back to him.
“And if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to answer.
It’s your birthday, and that’s always been our rule.
But I guess I’m wondering what you need to see, or have happen, or something in order to see yourself getting married.
Is there anything I can do? Because I don’t know the words to tell you that I think you’re absolutely stunning in every way, and you’re smart and you’re beautiful, and you’re funny, and you make me smile.
And I just—I don’t think you feel like you’re amazing, but you are, and I don’t know how to tell you that. ”
Her chin shook as she moved closer to him, stepping into his arms. “You just did, cowboy.”
“But you don’t believe it,” he said, finally putting the pieces together. “That’s it, right? You hear me say it, but you don’t believe it.”
She nodded, her eyes falling closed. “You’re right.
I don’t believe it. Can we please not talk about this on my birthday?
I don’t want to be reminded of the things that made me this way, or why I’m choosing to be like this.
Everything about this day has been perfect, Tarr.
Including you. So can we just table this until another time? ”
“Of course,” he said, because he’d gotten the answers he needed already. He didn’t have to like them, but at least he’d gotten them.