No, it was fucking glacial.
I had to clamp my mouth closed to ensure I wouldn’t let out some sort of hoot, holler, or curse. Once I was certain of that, all there was left to do was wrap my arms around my chest and curl up as tight as I could and wait it out. So much for saving me from the freezing cold. Josie had simply removed the threat of one form and replaced it with one that was twice as severe.
“Do you know what time Garth will be arriving?” The oozing excitement in Mrs. Gibson’s voice as she talked about Mason? There wasn’t a scrap of it left when she mentioned me.
“Um . . . later?”
Killer answer, Joze. Killer.
Mrs. Gibson let out a familiar sigh. I knew where Josie had learned hers. “I know you and Garth go way back, but you know how your father and I feel about that boy.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Josie said. The strength in her voice that I was used to was back in place. “And you know how I feel about you two feeling that way about him. All your opinions about him are due to rumors and hearsay.”
I was drenched in freezing cold water that was slowly numbing every square inch of my skin, but in that moment, I felt nothing but warmth. Josie standing up for me brought a strange mix of emotions. All of them good.
“They aren’t rumors when I’m friends with the mothers whose daughters have had their hearts crushed and reputations ruined by that boy. It’s not hearsay when I’ve seen him drinking straight out of the bottle at ten o’clock in the morning.” Mrs. Gibson was working herself up. I could almost imagine her meticulously styled hair standing on end. “Don’t let your friendship with him blind you to the person he is. That’s not the kind of man your father or me want you hanging around. We’re not letting him move in because he’s ever proven himself to us. We’re letting him move in because you’ve proven yourself to us. You’ve proven capable of making good choices for yourself, and as long as you keep up that pattern, Dad and me will continue to let you do your thing. Even if that includes inviting Garth Black to be a houseguest.” There was some rustling—what I imagined was Mrs. Gibson hugging Josie—before her heels clacked toward the door.
“Just give him a chance, okay? Once you get to know him, you’ll see how wrong you are. There’s more to Garth Black than everyone thinks. Way more.”
“We’ll see,” Mrs. Gibson answered before clicking the door closed.
A second hadn’t passed before Josie threw open the shower curtain and inspected me like she was worried I’d stopped breathing. She reached for the shower lever.
“No, don’t,” I whispered in case Mrs. Gibson was within earshot. “It’s finally starting to get warm.”
Josie tested the shower water with her hand. “So? How bad are you?” Her forehead lined as she kneeled beside the tub.
“On a scale of cold to hypothermic . . .” I slid off my hat and tossed it out onto the floor. It was already soaked, so I don’t know why I bothered. “I’m a popsicle.” I worked a smile into place and almost groaned as the water continued to heat. I broke out in goose bumps it felt so good.
“God, Garth. I’m so sorry.” Josie tested the water again and adjusted the dial.
“It’s just a little bit of cold water. No big deal,” I understated. If I was asked to choose between getting thrown from a bull a dozen times in one night or sitting through another five minutes of glacial shower water pelting me while I had to lay immobile and take it, I’d take the bull without a moment’s thought. I wasn’t sure if that made me a badass or a baby. Wasn’t sure if I wanted the answer to that either.
“Not that. Although I am sorry about the water, too.” The sleeves of Josie’s bathrobe were getting wet, so she slipped out of it. Leaving on nothing but the pajamas that had the man stamp of approval all over them. “I’m sorry for the things she said. Those weren’t fair things to say, and they were hurtful, too. I wish you hadn’t heard any of that.”
Josie was right. The things her mom said were hurtful, but that’s not what I’d focused on. The thing I took away from that mother-daughter conversation was the way Josie had stuck up for me. I hadn’t asked her to; I never had and never would. She’d stuck up for me simply because she chose to. Just thinking about it brought the same tsunami of emotions I’d felt minutes ago. All of those good ones that were so foreign I couldn’t name them.
“Sure, what your mom said might have hurt my feelings, Joze.” She lifted an eyebrow. “And you’d better not tell anyone that I have any. Feelings, that is . . . But what she said wasn’t anything I haven’t heard before. What she said was fair because—even though I might try to dismiss it and you might try to soften it—it’s the truth. I’m not the kind of guy parents want their daughters hanging around. I have ruined plenty of reputations. I don’t think twice about getting rip-roaring drunk on a Sunday morning. I’m that guy. You know it, and I sure as hell do, too.”
She tilted her head, studying me. “Your point being?”
I sat up to look her straight on. “I know who I am. I’m not ashamed of that person. Most days.” I gave her a twisted smile. “I don’t want you to be ashamed of the person I am either. You don’t have to try to paint me as the misunderstood good guy to everyone and their dog.”
Her face broke for a moment, but it cleared, another moment later and then Josie did something I wasn’t expecting. She crawled over the side of the tub, closed the shower curtain, and tried to squeeze next to me. When that didn’t work, she spread out over me. The shower had her clothes and hair soaked in about ten seconds, and if her expression wasn’t so serious, I probably would have laughed at the two taking a shower fully clothed. Or I would have been kissing her, sucking every last drop of water from her lips.
“I’m not ashamed of you. I never have been, and I never will be,” she said as her fingers skimmed my forehead, sliding my hair to the side. The touch was intimate without being the kind of “intimate” I was used to. I’d gotten a lot of those innocent intimate touches from Josie lately. “The only reason I paint you as the misunderstood good guy is because that’s who you are. You’re the guy who shows up on his friend’s doorstep in the middle of the night if they call. You’re the guy who is one of the first guys at work in the morning and one of the last to leave. You’re the guy who played Cupid when his best friend almost lost the woman he loved. You’re the guy who would give your kidney to a homeless three-legged dog if it needed one. You’re that guy, Garth. You know it. And I’ve known it for a hell of a lot longer.”
A woman could render a man speechless one way, a way I was exceptionally familiar with . . . And there was that way. The things Josie had just said, the conviction in the words and her eyes . . . It was all a bit overwhelming. Especially as we shared a shower with her sprawled out on top of me. I wanted to give what she’d said more thought, but that was next to impossible when our bodies were perfectly aligned. Save for a couple pieces of clothing, I was one hip rock away from . . .
Shit. All my attempts to hide that I was turned on went out the window with that vivid thought. I knew that, given Josie’s position, she knew. That she knew I was turned on and hard and still didn’t get up to leave in a fit of disgust made me wonder why she was hanging around. That question, of course, led to the next . . . Why had Josie hung around my whole life? Why hadn’t she left me in the rearview like so many people before her? Why was she staring at me with that look in her eyes, almost like she wanted me to . . . kiss her?
I knew that look—that expectant, lidded-eye, flushed-cheek look. I was a pro at creating it and identifying it because that was my so-called gateway. If I could get a woman to look at me that way—to want me to kiss her—I could get her to go along for the rest of the ride, too. It had worked without exception, and I knew that if I kissed Josie, the same would probably happen. Especially when both of our bodies were responding to each other.
I couldn’t do that to Josie. Not again. She might have forgiven me for the first time I let my body take the steering wheel with her, but she wouldn’t
if I gave in a second time. I sure as hell hadn’t forgiven myself for the first time, so if I did what I wanted to then, I would probably wake up tomorrow crushed by guilt.
So instead of coaxing her mouth to mine and sliding my hands down her body like they were twitching to do, I exhaled and forced that twisted smile of mine into position. That smile, with that gleam in my eyes, gave off the cool and removed vibe. The one I was notorious for. The one I knew Josie could see through, but the only one I could rely on to keep me from giving into what my body wanted. One part of me hoped she’d slap me for using a façade and march out of there, and the other part of me hoped she’d call bullshit and drop her mouth to mine and leave it there. Again, the two consciousnesses were at war with one another. “Did you just say all of that because you feel bad for the ice shower you gave me?”
“No, Garth. You and I both know you haven’t taken enough cold showers in your life when you should have.” She smiled at me, combing my hair with her fingers. “I said those things because they’re true. As much as I know you’d rather me accept the lie most of the time. But I don’t want to. Not anymore. I’m done lying to myself.”
Her face inched closer to mine, and the water dripping from her lips fell right onto mine. My heart couldn’t take much more. The rest of my body couldn’t either. Josie’s other hand ran up my side, stopping on my chest. It was like a rare form of torture. The woman of my dreams was able to touch me, but I couldn’t touch her back because once I did, both of our lives would be ruined. One touch, and we were as good as dead. I closed my eyes and tried to compose my thoughts. When Josie’s body slid down a bit, then back up, applying pressure in all the right places, composing anything was history.
My god, that woman would be the death of me.
A LOT CAN change in twenty-four hours. A whole life can change.
While mine hadn’t changed totally and completely, it had changed significantly from the night before. I had a warm bed and house to sleep in for starters, but that wasn’t all. The rest of me felt like it was also changing . . . shifting. Ideas were forming, beliefs being questioned, convictions being challenged. I was in a state of flux, and the catalyst for it all was Josie. She’d been the catalyst for a lot of things.
After slipping out of the Gibsons’ undetected, Josie drove me back to my truck so I could head over to Willow Springs. She was silent the whole ride there. Not like she was fuming in an enraged silence, or festering in a shamed one, but peaceful in a contemplative one. She’d only broken her silence to say good-bye, and that was the one word I didn’t want to hear from Josie Gibson, despite knowing it was the healthiest word she could say to me.
I put in a half day at Willow Springs helping Neil and the guys get the herd watered and fed. That was about all we could get done because the temperatures weren’t lifting. He and Rose both caught me before I left for the day to let me know I was always welcome—more than welcome—to stay in the bunkhouse. That’s why it was there. I respectfully declined, and they didn’t push the matter. I liked the Walkers a lot. They’d always been generous in a way that didn’t feel like they were shoving their generosity down my throat. It was a quality I could appreciate.
When it was time to head over to the Gibsons’ for dinner and my “official” move in, I couldn’t seem to get there fast enough. I was eager to get to a place where two people were the opposite of eager to see me, and another person was basically my sworn enemy. I must have been really excited to see the one other person left. After that morning in the shower, I realized Josie harbored some kind of feelings for me. Whether it was strictly animal desire or something else, I wasn’t picky. Josie could have whatever kind of connection she felt for me. That made me even more conflicted. I’d turned into a giant ball of questions and conflicts and desires. I’d pretty much become my biggest nightmare. I was a rougher version of Jesse Walker. But a better looking one. A far better looking one.
As I pulled up to the Gibsons’ place, I decided to give all of those questions a rest. Hopefully after a couple days of ignoring them, some answers would magically appear. Yes, I knew that was a whole lot of wishful, naive thinking, but any options were better than no options. Obviously nothing I’d done to try to work them out had succeeded, so ignoring them was as good a solution as any.
Colt’s truck was already there, gleaming without a spot on it. People bought trucks for their function. Or at least most people did. Colt didn’t group into that “most people” category. He was one of the jackasses who bought a truck because he wanted the truck to label him, not the other way around. It didn’t have a scratch on it, and I’d be willing to bet my left ball that he’d never even hauled anything in the bed. I loved my truck and all, but the thing was beat to shit. It was a truck. Beat to shit came with the territory.
As I passed Colt’s truck, I resisted the urge to kick the tires. The damn thing wasn’t even made in the U.S. Either because of the cold or who was waiting inside for me, I kept my kicks to myself and hurried up to the front door. I was just raising my hand to knock when the door opened.
“You came.” There was a faint smile on Josie’s lips.
“I said I would, didn’t I?” I stepped inside and shut the door. For the moment, Josie and I were alone, but I heard three other voices coming from the dining room.
“Yeah, but there have been plenty of times when you’ve said one thing and done the other. Especially when you start getting . . . close to someone. Or they start getting close to you.” Josie’s eyes flicked toward the kitchen when a round of laughter came from it, and I was able to notice other things. Like what she was wearing.
“Damn, Josie. Are you trying to kill me?”
She glanced back my way. “Not particularly right now. Why?”
I didn’t even try to stop staring. It would have been a wasted effort. “Because that dress is enough to give a man a heart attack if you come any closer, or break a man’s heart if you walk away.”
“Now lines like that help me understand why you’ve got a reputation for being such a ladies man.”
“That wasn’t even my best one.” I slid out of my coat and hung it up on the coatrack while staring at her. I wasn’t a dress expert, other than taking them off, so I wasn’t sure how to classify hers. It was the prettiest shade of blue I’d ever seen, and it hugged every line and curve I’d had pressed against me that morning. That kind of dress could bring a man to his knee to propose, even if that had been the furthest thing from his mind when he woke up that morning. Hell, it was bringing me close to a proposal, and I was dead set against anything marriage related.
“No? What is your best one then?” She leaned into the wall, obviously not in a hurry to get back to the others. If she wasn’t in a hurry, I wasn’t either.
“My best line?”
“Your best, best line. I want to hear it. Give me the one line that would blow me away and make me a slave to your every want and whim.”
Talking about slaves and wants and whims with Josie that close to me made me feel like my heart was about to burst through my ribcage. It also made me feel like something was going to burst out of my zipper. “Sorry, no can do. It’s way too early in the night to start talking about my wants and whims. Plus, your innocent ears would never be the same.”
“I’ve known you since we were five. I think my ears stopped being innocent by the time I was five and a half.” She gave me a wry smile and crossed her arms.
“Oh, well in that case . . .” I waited until I was sure I’d created enough dramatic pause that Josie was close to snapping in anticipation. “Sorry, Joze. No best line ever tonight. You couldn’t handle it.”
“I think I can handle one little line from you. I’ve handled a lot more from you.”
“Fine. I couldn’t handle it. Now, can we change the subject?”
“What would you like to change the subject to?” She stepped toward me. I would have stepped back if I wasn’t already backed into a corner. Literally and figuratively.
&nb
sp; “How about me admitting I was an ass this morning and apologizing? I’m sorry for how far things went.” For me, making apologies ranked up there with having a bull come down on my foot. But with Josie, it was ten times easier. Possibly a hundred times. It wasn’t even painful.
“Are you really? Sorry for how far things went? Because I recall things going way farther between us before and never receiving an apology for that.”
Ouch. Josie was bringing it. I’d come in prepared to trade spars with Colt Mason—I was ready for his brand of shit. I had not come prepared to talk about that with Josie. “You’re right. I never apologized to you for that, but it was for a good reason.”
“And what would that good reason be?”
She was waiting for an answer, but all I could think about that night and the dress she had on right then and how I couldn’t apologize because . . . “Because I wasn’t sorry it happened.”
Yeah, I hadn’t exactly planned on that coming out. After it did, I saw exactly why I’d wanted to keep it to myself. Josie sucked in a tiny breath of surprise before her whole face smoothed out. Those eyes wouldn’t stop staring into mine like she could see everything I wanted and needed to keep to myself. Then she grabbed my hand and lifted it to her cheek. I was a man who, right then, was a slave to her every whim and wish.
“I’m not sorry it happened either.”
I wasn’t sure what was more confusing—that Josie was touching me when the boy she’d been dating for months was a few rooms away or that she’d just said that. She wasn’t sorry for what had happened between us? That was hard to believe. Impossible to believe. But she’d said it. At least a dozen questions were on the tip of my tongue. One was just about to come out when a pair of familiar-sounding heels clacked our way.
“Josie? Was that Garth who pulled up in the driveway?”
I pulled my hand away from Josie’s cheek, and she took a few steps backward, smoothing her dress and expression. “Yeah, he’s here.”
“Then what in the world is taking you so long? You have company waiting for you.”