She was letting him down easy...sort of. Of course she wasn’t interested in sticking around—she was educated and talented. He was just the loser guy she used to have a crush on. And apparently he was a block to her personal happiness.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding and releasing her hand. “And you’ll get that guy.”
“I will.” She reached for the door handle. “Good night, Billy,” she said quietly, and she hopped down, slamming the door behind her.
Billy waited until she was safely in her car and she’d pulled out of the spot before he put his truck into reverse.
She’d always been better than him, and he knew he had no right to mess with her emotions. Heck, he was trying to focus on being a dad right now, so Grace was right to brush him off.
Later, after she’d left Eagle’s Rest, she’d be distant—married to that great guy, most likely.
And he’d have lost her completely.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BILLY DROVE HOME, his mind wrapping around the problem that was Grace Beverly. How selfish had he been over the years? He hadn’t ever considered that before. Of all of his relationships in his life, his friendship with Grace had been the one he’d been most proud of. But he was doing it again, even now. He could feel it. He was asking more of Grace than he should...wanting something between friendship and romance—some limbo where he wouldn’t have to commit to anything but didn’t have to let go of her.
“Selfish is right,” he muttered.
“Who’s selfish?” a little voice came from the back seat.
Billy startled, then suppressed a sigh. “No one, kiddo. Go back to sleep.”
“Why is Miss Beverly mad at you, Daddy?”
“She’s not mad at me,” he said. “It’s nothing.”
“I think she’s mad at you...” There was a waver in Poppy’s voice. “Did she stop being your friend?”
“She’s my friend still. Poppy, how much of that did you hear?”
Poppy didn’t answer, and he bit back any more questions. That was supposed to be a private conversation, with a child conveniently asleep in the back seat, and now his daughter had heard it all.
“Is Miss Beverly going to be mad at me, too?” Poppy whispered.
“No! No...” Billy looked into the rearview mirror again, and she could see Poppy’s wide eyes and pale cheeks. “Poppy, this has nothing to do with you at all. It’s just grown-up stuff.”
“Is it because of me?” Poppy asked.
And he remembered the times his mother had told him the same thing... Billy, sweetheart, this is grown-up stuff. Uncle Gil won’t be coming around anymore, and it’s nothing to do with you. He liked you a lot, but... And despite the fact that it had nothing to do with him, he’d had to ride out the bumps along with his mom. Billy had never been able to comfort his mother.
“No, Poppy. I promise. Me and Miss Beverly are still friends.”
This was why he was trying to avoid romantic entanglements—because it got complicated for the kids in the middle. And whatever he was doing here wasn’t much better than what his mom had done.
The drive into the foothills took thirty minutes, and by the time he got to the ranch, Poppy was asleep. Thankfully. Getting her out of her car seat and into the cabin had been the easy part. Then he had to get her out of her snowsuit, out of her school clothes and into her pajamas for bed, without waking her up too much. Teeth brushing could wait for morning.
When Poppy was finally settled, he sank into the couch with a sigh. What Grace had said changed everything. He could no longer blame her for keeping her distance. That was the worst part—he’d hoped he could talk her out of whatever had offended her and set it right. But this? There was no fixing ten years or more of oblivious selfishness on his part. Her moving on, away from him, was the right choice.
Billy rubbed his hands over his face, then pushed himself back out of his seat and headed for a closet. He pulled a milk crate out from the bottom of the closet, and he thumbed past some old yearbooks and a couple of sports trophies. He stopped when he got to the thin book he was looking for.
This was the only book his mother had ever given him. It was a picture book that she’d gotten at a garage sale one day, and she’d given it to him before she went out on a date. If he recalled properly, he’d been babysat that night by a neighbor, and he’d been angry with his mom. It was just another boyfriend with a broad smile and inappropriate groping hands toward his mother. He’d hated every single one of her beaus.
That night, before she left, his mother tried to comfort him. She took a couple of minutes on the couch with him. She’d given him the book and looked so hopeful as she passed it over.
“I’ll be back,” she’d said earnestly. “I always come back, don’t I?”
Billy had been angry, so he tossed it aside. His mother left, and before he went to bed, he grudgingly opened it.
He couldn’t read it, but he’d liked the pictures—a woman with a bright smile holding a little boy’s hand. They walked in a park, ate in a bright kitchen, tramped through a grocery store and hung upside down on a railing, side by side. The illustrations were glossy and bright, and he’d found that little book comforting in spite of himself. Whenever she left after that, he’d make up his own stories to go along with it...long conversations between mother and son when there was no boyfriend hanging around that he was supposed to call “Uncle.”
He flipped a page—the letters and words jumbling together as they always did. He put a finger underneath the first word, going over letter after letter, locking them in his mind. L. O. O. K. He froze, the letters suddenly reminding him of the card with the googly eyes on it. He knew this word!
He moved, able to decipher a few of the smaller words. “Look at the...” was as far as he got, but his heart was hammering in his chest. He’d read three words on his own, standing here beside a closet. He hadn’t been prompted. He didn’t have any cards lying on a table in front of him.
And the fact that three little words could make him so stupidly happy brought a lump to his throat.
His mom had tried... She’d loved him, despite her mistakes. And she’d given him this picture book to show him she cared. He couldn’t read it. Yet. That was the part that filled him with hope.
Yet.
He still had a few more days with Grace, and he couldn’t lose them. He couldn’t let these confusing, muddled, unreturned feelings get in the way of him learning to read at long last.
He wouldn’t ask more of her. She could leave Eagle’s Rest and go build that life she wanted, free and clear of the likes of him. She wasn’t offering a continuation of the boundary-challenged friendship that meant so much to him. And he couldn’t blame her. But before she went, he’d make the most of the one thing she was offering—her teaching skills.
He desperately wanted to read.
* * *
GRACE WOUND A towel around her hair and regarded her foggy reflection.
“You and your big mouth, Grace,” she muttered. She’d said too much. She’d told herself that she didn’t owe Billy any explanations—and she’d been right.
Her feelings for him had been embarrassing back then, and they were embarrassing now. The least she could do was cling to the fact that she was no longer so pathetically deluded. Billy owed her nothing. He’d find another woman to love, and he’d forget all about this fiasco.
The truth was, Billy had occupied a place in her heart that no man had touched since. She’d dated a couple of guys in Denver—nice men, solid, relationship-worthy—but no matter how hard she tried to put Billy into the past, she couldn’t turn off those feelings. Not completely.
Maybe this time with Billy would help her to do that—file him away into Lesson from the Past and move on in her own life. Maybe to a boyfriend, a future husband, a family of her own.
Grace ambled out of the bathroo
m and toward her old bedroom. Her parents were still out at the fund-raiser, and the house was quiet. She picked up a jar of face cream from the top of her dresser and dotted some around her face. She smoothed it over her skin slowly. It was time for some of her dreams to get more realistic, and it would help a whole lot if Billy lost his ability to melt her heart with one of his boyish grins.
She smoothed the last of the cream into her face just as her cell phone rang, and she wiped her hands down her bathrobe before picking it up. She glanced at the number first and sighed.
“Billy?” she said, picking up.
“Hey.” His voice was low and warm. “Bad time?”
It was good to hear his voice again, even after only a couple of hours. She was back into the mire of their complicated relationship. Where she knew what was good for her and still couldn’t seem to cut herself free of the man.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I have the house to myself still.”
“So... Poppy wasn’t as asleep as we thought,” he said.
“What?” Grace winced, her mind flying back over the conversation in the truck. “How much did she hear?”
“Not sure. Enough.” He sighed. “She was pretty upset. I’ll have to talk to her about it in the morning.”
“Upset, why?” Grace asked.
“She thinks you aren’t my friend anymore, and that if you and I have a falling out, you won’t like her anymore, either.”
“Shoot...” Grace shut her eyes, filled with regret. “I’m her teacher. This is probably really confusing for her.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you tell her?” Grace asked.
“That we are friends, and that we’re fine,” he said. “Aren’t we?”
“Yeah...of course.”
“Thing is, Grace. I know I’ve wanted to keep our friendship...complicated, for lack of a better word. But tonight I saw why we can’t. We need those reasonable boundaries, or it complicates things for Poppy, too.”
Grace sank onto the side of her bed. “True.”
This close friendship wasn’t going to be healthy for Poppy, either. This wasn’t about just the two of them anymore, and Grace should have appreciated that fact a whole lot sooner than now.
“So... I’ll cut it out,” he said quietly. “I won’t ask more of you.”
“Thank you...”
“So, how are you going to end your birthday?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I don’t know...” She glanced back at the paperback she’d been planning on reading before bed. “With a wild party. You know me.”
“Ha. I’ll bet.”
Grace smiled at his dry response. “What’s it to you?”
“I don’t know. A nice round number like thirty deserves a little more fanfare, don’t you think?”
“I had fanfare. We went sledding...and traumatized your daughter with our mutual dysfunction.”
“We did,” he said with a low laugh. “But we didn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday.’”
Grace chuckled. “And yet I survived.”
“You want me to sing it now?” he asked, a note of teasing entering his voice.
“Not particularly.” She chuckled. “So, you called to harass me during my last few birthday hours?”
“Harass? Is that what you call my singing voice?” he laughed. “Fine... I’ll be reasonable and leave you to your own plans.”
“Thank you.”
“Look, I don’t want to be the selfish guy who holds you back. You make my life so much better. Beyond your birthday, I mean. You have your own plans, and I won’t make that hard on you.”
“I appreciate that,” she said. “And what I said before—” Her breath caught. “It was a long time ago, Billy, so things don’t have to be weird between us.”
“I know,” he replied. “That’s probably for the best, because while I was pretty much blind to your feminine wiles back in the day, I have to say, I see them now.”
Grace felt heat rise in her cheeks. “Billy—”
“I’m not saying that to flirt,” he countered. “I’m saying... Look, we’re both healthy adults, and there was a time when you were attracted to me. You’ve since come to your senses. Well, now I’m the one who’s realizing what I can’t have...”
“And it’s precisely because you can’t have it,” she chided. “If I were available, you wouldn’t be.”
“You think so?” He chuckled. “I don’t. You’re different, Gracie.”
“You keep saying that.” She caught her reflection in the mirror over her old dresser. Her towel was piled on top of her head, her cheeks pink and her eyes glistening. What was it about Billy that always did this to her?
“It’s true. You’re all grown-up.”
“I was all grown-up before,” she pointed out. “I’m the same woman, with a little more makeup and a bigger clothing budget.”
“I know I’ve been overstepping,” he said. “So I’ll try and stop that.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “It’ll make saying goodbye easier anyway, right?”
“Yeah...” He was silent for a beat.
“I need to get some rest before school tomorrow,” Grace said. “I have twenty-three four-year-olds to keep up with.”
“Yeah, of course,” he said quickly.
“Do I need to talk to Poppy about what happened tonight?” she asked.
“No, I’ll do it in the morning,” he replied. “I’m her dad—it should be me.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, after school, then,” she said.
“Tomorrow. Good night, Gracie.” His voice was deep and warm, and she leaned her ear against the phone, wishing with all her heart she could ignore logic just this once. Then he hung up, and she was left staring at herself in that mirror.
She was thirty now. And no matter how much she wished it could be otherwise, she needed to leave this man in the past. There was a little girl who needed her father to herself for a while.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NEXT MORNING, Grace watched for signs that Poppy was upset, but all seemed fine. The little girl came over to say hi, and Grace gave her a hug.
“Good morning, sweetie,” Grace said quietly. “How are you?”
“Good,” Poppy whispered.
“I’m glad. We’re going to have a good day!”
It was the teacher thing to say—but that was who she was to Poppy, her teacher. She couldn’t get herself mixed up in Poppy’s life on a personal level. This was why professional boundaries existed, wasn’t it? To protect the kids.
The day wore on, and soon it was almost time for music class, when Mr. Shaw would lead the class in a line to the music room and Grace would have forty-five minutes to herself before that line of preschoolers came trailing back into the classroom again.
She would use the time to think, get herself re-centered.
“All right, friends,” she said, raising her voice over the noise of chatter. “It’s time to clean up so that we’re ready for music class. Let’s put everything away. Puppets in the box. Crayons in the buckets. Paper in the recycling bin.”
The kids already knew the routine, but transition times took some prompting from her, so she went around the room, redirecting children back to the task at hand. Poppy stood at a window, staring outside. She had a forlorn expression, and Grace watched her for a moment. Poppy wasn’t okay...and Grace might need to talk about last night with her after all.
But would that be wrong? Billy had said he’d take care of it, and if she went against a parent’s wishes... She watched Poppy for a moment longer before turning back to a little boy who was methodically breaking crayons in half.
“Nigel, we don’t break crayons,” Grace said. “Do we?”
Nigel stopped, looking down at the crayon pieces on the table. “I do.”
&nbs
p; Grace fixed him with a no-nonsense stare, and he put the crayon in his hand back into the bucket.
A child’s shriek sliced through the air, and Grace looked up to see Poppy flying across the room. She shoved a chair out of her way, and as Grace jumped up, Poppy disappeared out the classroom door. Grace dashed after her, but when she got to the door, the hallway was empty, the outside door swinging shut.
Grace’s heart pounded. She didn’t have time to call the office—she needed to get Poppy back into the school. So she jogged to the next classroom door, and poked her head inside.
“Trinity, could you watch my class? I’ve got a runner.”
And without waiting for a reply, she ran to the outside door and pushed out into the biting winter wind.
Poppy was running across the playground, her indoor shoes slipping and sliding as she sank ankle-deep into the dry snow.
“Poppy!” Grace shouted.
There was a woman walking along the sidewalk that passed by the playground, and Poppy was struggling toward her. Snow clung to her pink pants, and the biting wind ruffled through her hair and her thin shirt.
“Mommy!” Poppy screamed.
Grace started out after her, rushing through the snow. The leather of her shoes would be ruined—there was no way around that—and the wind was searing cold, whipping through her sweater. Grace could see her own breath billowing out in front of her as she ran after Poppy, closing the distance between them.
“Mommy!” Poppy wailed once more, and she stumbled, then sank to her knees in the snow.
The woman on the sidewalk looked toward them, surprise on her face, just as Grace caught up with Poppy, and Grace bent down next to her, sliding an arm around her thin, trembling shoulders.
“Poppy?” Grace said softly.
The woman stared at them and Grace gave her an apologetic smile before she moved on again.
“That’s not her...” Poppy whispered.
“I know, sweetie,” Grace said, scooping Poppy up and rising back to her feet.
Falling for the Cowboy Dad Page 14
