Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Bailey
I’m not a fiction writer, but the second we step into the diner I’m itching to get it all down, every single bit of it, to build into a story.
It’s the kind of place I’ve read about or seen in movies all my life.
The linoleum floor, booths against the big windows with views of the parking lot, a backlit jukebox against the far wall, and decor that looks like it hasn’t changed since the sixties.
The woman at the counter’s wearing a pale blue dress with a white apron, and even has a pencil tucked behind her ear, for crying out loud.
When we walk in, she smiles at us, her lips painted a coral pink.
‘Why, you’re Beau Donovan,’ she says with a flicker of her eyelashes.
The hand Beau has on the small of my back drops.
Good boy. He’s been recognised, and the last thing I want is for someone to pull out their cell phone and snap a picture of him being all handsy with me.
I mean, it’s fine that we’re here together.
That can easily be passed off as work. But not that we’re anything other than two people in a professional arrangement.
‘Sure am, ma’am. How’d you do?’
I almost roll my eyes at the way he does that—switching into exaggerated cowboy-speak when the circumstances seem to require it.
Except I also kind of wonder if this is who he truly is.
Old-fashioned good manners are stitched into this guy, so too his deep, husky drawl.
You can take the man out of the ranch, I think, as we move toward the counter and the waitress slides a couple of laminated menus at us.
‘What do you recommend, Wendy?’ She beams as he refers to the name on her badge.
‘Chicken fried steaks are what we’re known for.’
I look around, wondering just how known for anything this roadside diner is.
Beau winks at Wendy in full-blown charm mode, and I swear she blushes.
‘Great. One of them for me. And for you, Bay Jay?’
I resist the urge to flick him on the arm, and bite back a smile. ‘Erm.’ I scan the menu, too distracted by the man at my side to think of food. I select something at random. ‘A tuna melt, thanks.’
‘And to drink?’ Wendy asks, scribbling down our order.
‘Just water’s fine,’ I say.
‘And a soda.’
Before I can pull out my wallet, Beau’s slid his credit card across to Wendy. I throw him a look as we walk toward a booth in the corner. ‘I’ll get dinner.’
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘You got lunch,’ I point out.
‘So?’
‘Expense account, remember?’
‘Old-fashioned manners, remember?’ he replies with a wink that makes my pulse race.
I bite back an exasperated sigh as I slide into the bench seat, and then a rush of something else as he slips into the seat across from me and our legs become enmeshed beneath the table.
He’s big and the booth’s not wide, so it’s not really anything other than circumstance, but that doesn’t matter to my tremulous heart.
I can’t keep track of whatever we were talking about, and Beau’s smirk shows that he knows it.
‘Do you get recognised a lot?’ I change the subject just to say something, because the air around us is sparking with need.
Heat slicks between my legs, unmistakable and urgent, so beneath the table I cross one over the other, then wish I hadn’t when my toe brushes his calf.
I see the way he reacts, eyes narrowing, shoulders bunching, and I recognise the same rush of desperate fire in his veins.
Which makes it even harder to blot mine out.
‘Beau?’ His name is like a plea on my lips, only I don’t know what I’m pleading for. For him to answer me, or touch me, or do something that makes me feel like myself again.
‘Around these parts.’ His voice is a little slow, like he’s fighting some urges himself. ‘And especially during the season.’
I can barely keep up, but somehow manage a jerky nod.
He leans forward, his tone suggestive. ‘Don’t you wanna pull out your notebook and write that down, Bailey James?’
Heat creeps up my neck, making my skin flush. ‘I’ll remember.’
His smile is knowing, like he sees that I’m totally knocked off my game by the way he makes me feel, by the way his big, strong legs are on either side of mine, so intimate and personal, so perfect.
When I breathe in, I taste him on the tip of my tongue, his masculine fragrance, soap and cologne, and his own unique blend of hormones that makes everything inside me go all loopy.
I clear my throat, trying to squash down on the longing that’s controlling me. ‘Does it bother you?’
His eyes crinkle at the corners. ‘Does it seem like it bothers me?’
‘You like the attention.’
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he repeats. ‘But I don’t go seeking it out.’
‘What’s it like at home?’
His laugh is a low rumble. ‘You think my family treats me like some kind of sports hero?’
‘I mean your hometown.’
‘In Goodnight?’
The same spark of something shifts inside me that did when I first started researching Beau, and read about the town he grew up on the outskirts of.
Goodnight, Arizona sounds like a quaint out-of-the-way place, with all the requisite ingredients of a quintessential small-town, from a saloon-style bar to a general store run by a local everyone knows.
The streets are wide, crime low, people friendly—at least, that’s the way it seems, going from what I’ve read.
‘In Goodnight, I’m more known for being Cole Donovan’s son than anything else—my dad was Cole, too, but no doubt you already know that.
’ He rubs the palm of his hand over his jaw.
‘My old man was something of a legend around those parts, on account of how he was always helping everyone. If someone had a busted fence, he was there. A problem with stock, Dad knew how to fix it. A stray, he was finding them a home.’
‘Sounds like a man with a heart of gold.’
Beau nods, something wistful in his expression. ‘Yeah, that pretty much sums him up.’
‘So you’re saying no one cares that you’re setting the bull-riding world on fire?’
His legs move closer together, trapping mine between them, and I suck in an audible breath, my eyes flaring when they lift to his. A quirk of his lips shows he’s seen and understands. He knows what he’s doing to me.
‘There’s more to life than this, that’s all.’
‘Beau Donovan? Is that you?’
He laughs, low and gruff. Wendy appears with two plates, which she places down between us before weaving back to the counter to grab our drinks.
‘Bull riding’s the beginning and the end for me, but even I know it’s just a sport.’
‘You’re twenty-eight,’ I say thoughtfully, as I bite into a fry.
He stiffens, and I drop one hand to my bag, pulling out my notepad on autopilot, placing it on the table. Wendy returns with the drinks, and before she’s even put mine down Beau’s grabbed his, like he’s desperate to quench his parched throat.
‘Yeah?’
I open the notebook, aware of the way his gaze is tracking every movement I make.
‘How long do you think you can do this for?’
His jaw tightens, a barely noticeable gesture of restraint. Of concern?
‘I haven’t thought about it.’
‘Liar.’
Our eyes lock and the heat between us flares with something different. A challenge. But from him to me, or vice versa?
He grins, but I know the way he is now. I can see it’s the kind of smile he’s offering as a shield, to hide whatever’s going on in that big head of his.
‘I never lie about sport.’
‘You’ve thought about the end.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because we’re the same person.’ I regret it almost as soon as I’ve said it, and quickly clarify. ‘When it comes to our sport, I mean—our passion, our first love. You live and breathe this, and I’d put my last penny on you living in fear of the day you have to give it up. Just like I did.’
‘You still miss it?’
I close my eyes, wanting to shut down his question and knowing I can’t. It’s not fair. I’m asking him to reveal his innermost thoughts to me, to make himself vulnerable for the sake of my article. I can meet him halfway on that.
‘Yes.’
His lips twist, but not with amusement, so much as a grimace of shared understanding.
‘I’d have loved to see you dance.’ And the way he says it, I know he really feels it. I know he means it, and that sends a throb of something through my body.
I ease back in my seat without moving my legs, because I like the way they feel, trapped by his. ‘There’s probably some footage somewhere,’ I say, before I can think better of it. ‘But, you know, if you’ve seen one ballet, you’ve seen them all.’
‘Don’t do that,’ he says quietly, and beneath the table he puts a hand on my knee, drawing my focus sharply back to his face. I look around, but no one’s watching us. And even if they were, beneath the table is hidden from view, unless you happened to get down on your knees.
‘Do what?’
‘Don’t downplay it.’
I’m caught off guard by the thickening in my throat. ‘Was I?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, you didn’t even answer my question,’ I point out.
‘I thought I had.’
‘You lied.’
He’s quiet. The hand on my knee squeezes a little, then disappears.
‘Yeah, I lied.’ He drags his other hand through his hair.
‘I think about it all the fucking time. I wish I didn’t.
I wish I didn’t wake up conscious of every ache and creak in my body, conscious of how different it feels this time around. ’
I wince, his honesty pulling at something deep inside of me, his pain so raw that I don’t know how to help.
‘Beau.’ I lean forward, frowning. None of this is my business. It’s his life, and I’m a very temporary part of it. Meaningless, just like we agreed.
‘You have a lot to offer beyond bull riding,’ I say instead.
He grunts.