Chapter 33
You should go .
The words echoed in my head as I put my dress to rights and shook the straw out of my hair. Adam was quiet as we walked back to the big house to enjoy the rest of the celebration, but he held my hand the whole way, not letting go until we needed our hands to eat the burgers Ted had grilled for us. Even then, he kept me close to his side, never letting me get very far without following me. Every time I looked up, his eyes were on me.
Strange behavior for a man hell bent on pushing me away.
You should go.
After everyone had cleared out, he didn’t ask me to spend the night. He walked me home, kissed me good night like he hadn’t told me to go back to California, but didn’t ask to stay—not that I expected him to, because of course he couldn’t leave Ben overnight. Despite the way his tongue lingered against mine and the very hard dick he pressed against my belly as we kissed, he felt distant. Aloof.
I went to sleep confused. I woke up mad.
I wasn’t going to let him throw a grenade like that and then pretend the explosion had left everything the same. I had told him I wouldn’t suffer in silence, and I meant that. We were going to talk this out.
Mom and I had brunch plans, but I swung by the barn before I picked her up from her cabin, knowing that’s where Adam would be. I found him mucking out a stall, his back to me. His muscles bunched and shifted as he worked, which did nothing to improve my mood. I glared at his firm, round ass. Only Adam could look this good shoveling shit.
“Why don’t you want me to stay?” I demanded.
He froze, pitchfork loaded with manure, not turning around. “Of course I want you to stay.” And then he tossed the shit into the wheelbarrow. “You’re the best trainer Lodestar has ever had.”
If I had been wearing gloves, I would have scooped up a handful of manure and thrown it at him. “Oh. You want me to stay because I’m good at my job. Got it.”
Finally, he turned to look at me. “You know that’s not it, James. But Blue Skies has always been your dream. I understand. I won’t stand in the way of that.”
He sounded so damn reasonable. But I didn’t want him to be reasonable. I didn’t want him to understand and nobly step aside so I could pursue my childhood dream of working with my father. I wanted him to beg me to stay. Tell me he couldn’t live a day without me.
I wanted him to fight for me. For us.
Was that too much to ask?
Stupid me, asking a question when I already knew the answer. And goddamn, I was so tired of men letting me walk away.
“This was good. You and me,” he said, and I flinched at the way he had already put us in past tense. He leaned on the pitchfork, his blue eyes searching my face beneath his furrowed brow, like he needed me to reassure him that he wasn’t being the bad guy here. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
And there it was. Adam didn’t want can’t-live-without-you love. And I…I did want that. I wanted that with him.
But I wasn’t going to chase him to get it.
Love wasn’t the sort of thing you could force someone into feeling.
“Yeah,” I croaked, forcing the words out of my dry throat. “It was good.”
“This place is adorable,” Mom, quite possibly the most adorable person on earth, said as we slid into a booth at Shenanigans, a restaurant in downtown Aspen Springs recommended to me by Chloe.
I glanced around, taking in the black-and-white tiled floor, the hanging plants, and the rattan furniture. If a tropical garden and a French bistro had a baby, it would be this restaurant. “Yeah, Mom. It’s cute.”
Mom gave me a sharp look at my flat tone, but before she could question me, a server—also cute—popped by to take our order. Mom asked for a bloody Mary, I went with a blood orange mimosa, and we both ordered French toast and a carafe of coffee to share.
“All right,” she said when our drinks had arrived. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I lied.
She arched an immaculate brow. “Please. You love brunch. Why are you sitting there all glum? It can’t be the company.”
I tried to smile but succeeded only in lifting the corners of my mouth a fraction. It didn’t fool my mother at all.
“Oh,” she said sagely. “Boy troubles.”
I snorted. One thing Adam Hale wasn’t was a boy. No, that grumpy cowboy was all man. I kept myself busy pouring coffee for both of us and adding cream, her eyes on me the whole time.
“Have you given any thought to coming back to Blue Skies?” Mom added sugar to her mug and gave it a brisk stir.
I blinked and then blinked again. I had spent a lot of time last night staring at my ceiling, wide awake when I should have been dead asleep, turning Adam’s reaction over and over in my mind. You should go.
I had spent precisely zero minutes contemplating how I felt about returning to Blue Skies. Did I want to go back?
It should have been a no-brainer. Working at Blue Skies with my father had always been my dream. So why did it feel like a big question mark now when Dad was offering me everything I ever wanted?
Maybe it wasn’t what I wanted anymore.
Maybe what he was offering was only a pale substitute for what I had wanted anyway.
“Why do you look like you’re having an epiphany?” Mom asked.
I looked up. “Nothing has changed. He still isn’t sure about me.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Do you mean your dad or Adam?”
“Dad. Of course.” Both. I swallowed hard. Why did I do this to myself?
“Oh, honey.” Mom leaned back with a sigh. To her credit, she didn’t try to pretend Dad was anything but himself. “Your dad loves you so much. If he had his way, you never would have left Blue Skies. You’d marry someone who would take over the business someday and raise our grandbabies there. It’s all he ever wanted.”
“And all I ever wanted was to be enough. No husband or grandkids. Just me, doing the job I’m great at.” Our conversation paused as our food arrived. After the server disappeared again, I stabbed into my French toast. “Why am I not enough for him?”
“He loves you, James, but he’s not going to change. Maybe it’s time for you to stop asking him to be something he’s not.”
“Mom,” I said, exasperated. “It’s not like I’m asking him to go vegan. I’m asking him to be a little less sexist, that’s all. I don’t know how you put up with it.”
She shrugged. “It’s not like he thinks women are stupid or incompetent. He is well aware that I run his life for him and that he’d be lost without me. The difference is that what I want aligns with what he wants. It’s a partnership. He wants the same for you, for you to be happy like he is. He can’t wrap his mind around the idea that you might want something else for yourself.” She reached across the table to squeeze my hand. “He loves you, James. So much.”
“I know he loves me.” I paused, frowning, and considered my words. “But I’m never going to be good enough for him. I’m not the daughter he wants me to be, and it doesn’t matter how good I am at my job, I’m never going to be the trainer he wants me to be, either. And you know what? I’m done trying. Because these last few months have taught me that I am good enough. For myself, for Lodestar, for Belle. I’m enough.”
“For Adam?” Mom asked, her voice soft, her gaze sharp.
“Well.” I sawed off a bite of French toast. Mom winced as the knife scraped against the porcelain plate. “I thought I was.”
Mom tilted her head, studying me, and took a ladylike sip of her bloody Mary. “What makes you think you’re not?”
You should go.
“You know, I spent years trying to convince Dad I’m right for the job. Years trying to get him to see me as more than the deliverer of grandbabies. And he always told me I wasn’t what he wanted for Blue Skies. He never hid that. So I left. I went to college where he wanted me to go. I went to other stables for experience. But the second he crooked his finger at me, I’d run straight home again.”
“What does any of that have to do with Adam?” Mom asked.
“Everything.” I blew out an exasperated breath. “What I learned from Dad after futilely chasing his approval is that when a man tells you what he wants, you should take him at his word. And Adam...he told me to go.”
“So you’re going to come back to Blue Skies after all?” she asked, sounding more confused than actually hopeful.
I growled. I didn’t want to go to Blue Skies. I wanted to stay at Lodestar. I was happy here. Even taking Adam out of the equation, I didn’t feel done yet. There was so much more I could accomplish with Belle and the ranch.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Mom delicately dabbed her mouth with a napkin, somehow managing to avoid smearing her lipstick even a smidge. “What did Adam say, exactly? I can’t imagine he’s disappointed with your job performance. Why did he tell you to go?”
“He knows how much I love Blue Skies and you and Dad. He said he couldn’t stand in the way of my happiness.”
“Of all the nerve,” Mom said dryly. She shook her head. “I love your father, but that doesn’t sound like anything he would say. Adam must care for you a lot to put your needs before his.”
I sighed. “You don’t understand. Adam won’t let himself care for me that much. He’s been in love before. It was a disaster, and he doesn’t want to go through that again. It doesn’t matter if I stay at Lodestar or go somewhere else. Adam won’t ever love me like that, and I’m not going to tie myself in knots trying to convince him to.”
“Like you did with your dad,” Mom said. “Hmm.”
“Right,” I said.
Except it didn’t feel right.
Dad had always loved me, but I was never enough. Adam wouldn’t let himself love me, because—my knife clattered on the plate as the epiphany hit—because he didn’t believe he was enough.
Well, shit.