Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Summer
I picked at my nails while Jonah navigated the roads home. When we drove past the place where the accident had taken place, Jonah slowed to a stop. He kept his lights on and the glow lit the ditch where Jonah’s pickup must’ve been after the crash.
“It’s different now,” he said. “When I drive by.”
“Easier?”
“Yeah.” His eyes glittered from the dash lights and we both contemplated the area for a few moments. “It no longer feels like a penance. Instead, I remember other times I drove past here. With him, you know. When we’d go fishing and come back to hang.”
“He was a good guy, and he loved his family. I think . . . I think all of this would’ve broken him.”
“Yeah,” he said roughly.
I tried to summon memories of riding with Eli to the cabin, but tonight, they weren’t coming.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said.
I had been subdued since Rhys had stopped at the table with his adorable daughters. He’d chatted with Jonah about buying Adam and Vera’s house. I couldn’t shake something Jonah had said.
She’s not getting the kids or the pink from me, so I’m glad you and your girls can help her out.
What was I supposed to do about that? Tonight had been our start. Our official announcement to the world outside of our families that we were together. And then he’d proclaimed that he wasn’t having kids.
Was he talking about at the moment? What about the future?
How long did I wait to find out?
Autumn’s advice rang through my head loud and clear. I had to talk to him.
I didn’t care to do it at the accident site, but perhaps it was a sign. This was the spot where our lives had been forever altered—his more than mine.
“Do you want kids?” I asked, my voice coming out small. I had to twist my fingers together or I wasn’t going to leave skin around my cuticles.
“What?”
“You told Rhys you weren’t giving your mom grandkids. Did you mean forever?”
A small laugh escaped him in a puff, then he caught my expression. Did I look as crestfallen as I felt? “I’m almost forty, sunshine.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t have kids.”
“I’ve never had a long-term relationship, so no, I never planned on it.” This time his laugh was scornful. “What kind of dad would I be? I can barely get on the floor with them.”
I was cutting off my circulation like he’d done earlier in Curly’s.
“I can’t teach them how to hunt or fish—”
“You can.”
He firmly shook his head. “Not like I would’ve been able to.”
I studied him. He had a thriving furniture-building business. He lived alone in the mountains. Any blame on his mobility was a convenient excuse. “People with all sorts of limitations raise kids.”
His jaw flexed and he punched the pickup into gear. When he pulled away, I couldn’t help but feel that he’d left that spot changed again.
“What do you want from me?” His hand was tight on the wheel, his hard gaze stabbing the windshield. “We’re dating. I’m getting out.”
“I want to know where this is going. Where are we going?”
He maneuvered a turn and the headlights bounced off trees, but he kept his speed under control. “I thought we were having fun together.”
“We are.” I sighed. My heart ached and tears were putting hot pressure behind my eyes, but I wasn’t crying. Yet. “Is this what you want?”
“I want you.” He turned up his driveway. The shop glinted in the dark.
When he parked in the garage and punched the button to close the door, I knew we couldn’t go into the house and pretend we hadn’t had this talk.
“I want you, Jonah. But I want more too. I was ready to get married two months ago, and I was willing to overlook a less than ideal partner to have a family. You’re my ideal man, but if we’re not on the same page, I have to know.”
Please be on the same page. Please.
The muscles in the corner of his jaw flexed. “I don’t want kids, Summer.”
I caught a tinge of regret, but his determination was strong. My heart broke.
I balanced on a precipice. Did I sever what we had and search for someone I was as mad about as Jonah?
I didn’t want anyone else. I wanted him. It’d always been Jonah for me, and now that I had him, what did I do? What did I sacrifice to keep this guy in my life?
“Then what’s our future?” Forget marriage.
I didn’t care to be a girl so wrapped up in nuptials that I settled for a Boyd.
But what we were doing now didn’t register as sincere.
We lived in different towns and carried on different lives until we decided to overlap once a week.
“Do I stay in my condo in Bozeman and you stay here and we just fuck around?”
“We’re doing more than fucking around,” he said tightly.
“No, we’re not.” I waved my hand between us. “If this isn’t leading to anything but more of this, don’t you find that . . . I don’t know. Unfulfilling?”
He ground his teeth together and glowered out the window.
“Long-distance dating isn’t enough for me.” The words were like glass shards on my tongue, but I forged ahead. “I’ve kept my unhappiness in relationships to myself too many times to keep quiet with someone as important to me as you.”
“So, what? I propose or this is over?”
I stiffened. “Is that what you think I’m saying?”
“Sounds like it. You dumped my brother, and now you’re dumping me. Neither of us could be what you want.”
I gasped and the light from the garage door went out. “How can you throw Eli in my face?”
He shook his head, his jaw working. Then he stilled, the angles of his face hard. “Because you can stick with a douche like Boyd to the point of walking down the aisle, but if the last name’s Dunn, you’re ditching him. Maybe you belong in the city. Find some asshole who won’t hit you this time.”
His attitude didn’t make sense, but I also didn’t care. “Just because you haven’t slapped me doesn’t mean using what you know about my life to hurt me is okay. It means you’re fine with being an asshole to me.”
I grappled for the door handle, and after two attempts the door finally opened and I spilled out.
“Goddammit, Summer.”
He scrambled to get out of the pickup, but I raced away. I might’ve just called him an asshole, but I guess I was one too, because I took advantage of that limp to leave him and my broken heart behind.
I sobbed the whole way home. Ugly, wrenching sobs, and I had to pull it together every time I had to pass a car.
I would not crash because Jonah only wanted a fuck buddy.
I would not wreck my car and miss work because Jonah was a scared dick still wrapped up in his own world.
And I would not make the other drivers think I was having a medical episode and call emergency services on me.
Finally, I pulled into my garage. Only an hour ago I’d been in a different garage with a man I’d wanted to spend my life with.
Had I done the right thing?
Was I really not okay with sleepovers and dates? We could act young and carefree. I’d be the girl who ran a distillery with the mountain-man boyfriend. We’d be a couple everyone talked about in Bourbon Canyon.
Then I’d visit Scarlett and Tate and the envy would twine around my heart.
Same with Wynter. And if Autumn found the husband she so badly wanted and had the kids she’d dreamed about, would I start avoiding my family, telling myself I was too busy with dates and hot sex?
God help me if Junie settled down before me.
Adults didn’t need a life partner or kids to be fulfilled, but that life was what I wanted.
I didn’t get out. It was late, but there was only one person I wanted to talk to. Two, but Jonah wasn’t interested in me beyond the physical.
I called the person I knew would answer even if she’d been in a deep slumber.
Mama answered with an alert “Hello?”
“Mama, it didn’t work out.” The crying reignited.
It’d never actually stopped, but the thought that I hadn’t quit sobbing was even more pathetic.
“Jonah and I . . .” Broke up. Were those even the right words?
We’d talked about going out, but there’d been no labels beyond mountain man and brother’s girlfriend.
“Aw, honey. I’m so sorry. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
I did in giant, halting gasps. I recounted the date and what he’d said to Rhys and then our argument. “Months, Mama. And I never called him my boyfriend.”
“Sometimes simple words don’t do justice to how we feel.”
“But he didn’t think of me as his girlfriend either. Eli’s, yes. Boyd’s fiancée, yes, but not his girlfriend.”
“Maybe he just thought of you as his.”
The tempo of my crying changed. Openly weeping, I put the phone on speaker, set it on the dash, and searched for a tissue.
“Summer?”
“I’m still here.” I found a napkin I’d squirreled away in the glove compartment and blew my nose. “Sorry.”
“Get it all out.”
“I’m old enough to know better.”
“We can say that all we want, but it doesn’t hold water when it comes to emotions. You and Jonah are in a different place and it hurts. But you would’ve regretted it if you hadn’t tried.”
“I’ve only ever wanted him.”
“The problem is, others aren’t ours to have. They have to give themselves, and after what Jonah’s been through, he’s too afraid to put himself out there.”
Why did Mama have to speak such sense? I should’ve called Autumn. She’d have at least given me one “Fuck him.”
“The pain is fresh,” she continued. “Old pain and new pain combined tonight for you both.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Summer. You went right from Boyd to Jonah.”
“But—”
“I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I’m saying it might be affecting how you two are dealing with each other.”
I couldn’t see her point. I was over Boyd.
“You and Jonah went from nothing to each other’s everything when you were stranded together.
” She used the same gentle tone when she was talking to her chickens in the morning.
“Now you’re not together all the time, but you’re not really separate.
I imagine his thoughts are as consumed with you as yours are with him. ”
“I doubt that,” I said bitterly.
“Which is why some time to yourself might be a good thing. Give him time, Summer. Give yourself the same.”
Time to what? Frustration built and more tears rolled down my face with it. I’d called Mama for comfort. I’d wanted her to tell me that I was going to be fine and everything would work out, like she had when I’d first arrived at her house a scared little girl.
“Okay, Mama.” I wanted off the phone, to crawl into my bed and cry some more.
I wanted to cry for the little girl who was so scared she’d lose all her family.
For the older girl who knew she’d given in to the wrong guy.
For the young woman who’d ruined a whole family’s life standing up for herself.
And for the adult who never seemed to find Mr. Right, only a Mr. Right Now.
“I can talk more, hon.”
“I’m tired, Mama. Too much crying. Love you.”
“Love you too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
And I would pretend I was fine. I would answer with only a hint of sadness so she wouldn’t know that I probably hadn’t gotten out of bed to do more than go pee.
“Night, Mama.”
I hung up and let my head hang. God, I was pathetic. I swiped at my eyes and hopped out. My phone buzzed.
I thought Mama was trying to call back, but no. My heart did a hopeful leap and then stalled.
Jonah: I just need to know you made it home okay.
There went the tears again. Was I really not okay with our current arrangement?
I shook my head. I’m home.
Several minutes went by before I realized I was still standing in the dark garage, looking at my screen, waiting for him to reply. But he never did. He cared enough to check up on me, and that was it.
I went inside, tossing my purse and keys on the counter. Maybe Mama was right. I needed to make sure I hadn’t laid out unrealistic standards for Jonah to live up to.
The problem was, he was unrealistic. He was sensitive and caring, sexy as sin, and had muscles galore. He was vulnerable around me and only me. He’d made me feel special. He’d been everything I’d ever wanted in a guy. But even that hadn’t been enough.