Mine Would Be You: A Bad Boy Rancher Love Story (The Dawson Brothers Book 3)

by Ali Parker

  Swallowing hard, I ran into the house.

  “Who was it?” Jeff called from the kitchen, but I ignored him for now, on a mission. I quickly dialed Kinsey.

  “Hi,” I said breathlessly, when he finally answered. “I need Luke Dawson’s phone number. It’s an emergency.”

  Chapter 23

  Mason

  It was after dark, and I could hear the music at Kinsey’s, thumping through the walls of my room at the Dew Drop Inn. I took another drag of my beer, well on my way to getting drunk. It had been a long day. After I’d left Abi’s, I’d driven aimlessly for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t know where to go or what to do with myself. I couldn’t just leave, like David had. City life wasn’t for me. But no one around here would hire me on if Ted had fired me. They wouldn’t want to get in the middle of some family feud.

  Neither did Abi, it seemed. I knew that she didn’t want to get caught up in drama right from the start. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with me when she’d thought that Ella might be having my baby. But I’d thought we’d moved beyond that and realized just how important we were to one another, that we couldn’t ignore the connection we had.

  It seemed that wasn’t the case, though.

  I’d spent most of the day sleeping, trying to forget about the whole mess. I was tempted to call David or Luke, to see if they had any advice for me. But I was afraid they’d be on Ted’s side, and the last thing I needed was another lecture now.

  I could probably get Ted to forgive me and let me back, if I really wanted to. Abi wasn’t in the picture anymore, I supposed. But the thought of crawling back to him, begging his forgiveness, made me cringe, and I didn’t want to have to go through this whole thing again the next time I met someone I thought was perfect for me.

  Not that I ever expected to meet someone as perfect as Abi again.

  There was a knock on the door, drawing me from my moody thoughts, and I rolled over, squinting at the clock. It was just after 8pm. I hoped it was only the owner of the Dew Drop Inn. Some problem with my credit card, or just checking in.

  When I answered the door, though, it was Luke. He immediately stuck his foot in the door to keep me from slamming it shut, holding up a plate of food from home like a peace offering. I sighed and let him in, taking the plate from his hands and bringing it over to the table in the corner.

  “What do you want?” I asked, as Luke dropped into a seat across from me, watching me eat.

  Luke shook his head. “Mama is beside herself with worry. And you know that’s not good for her recovery.”

  I shrugged, avoiding his gaze. “It’s not my fault,” I told him. “And you’re not the one who needs to be here apologizing.”

  Luke scoffed. “You know Ted isn’t going to come here to apologize, but that doesn’t mean he’s not sorry for what he said.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. How’d you find me anyway?”

  “Kinsey gave up your location,” Luke said. “Not that it was too hard to find you since this is the only motel in the area.”

  “I could have gone to Abi’s,” I pointed out.

  “I had a little chat with Abi earlier and she said you had taken off from her place,” Luke said. He paused. “She’s pretty worried about you, too. She was really upset when we talked; thought for sure you were going to drive off into a ditch or something.”

  “I’m not stupid,” I muttered.

  “You can be reckless sometimes,” Luke said. “Just like Daddy. Just like Ted.”

  I scowled at the comparison but didn’t respond to it. “Anyway, it’s Abi’s own damned fault if she’s upset,” I continued heatedly.

  “What the hell did you do to her anyway?” Luke asked. “Took me ages to get her to stop crying long enough to tell me what was wrong.”

  I felt a momentary flash of guilt at that. But just remembering what she’d said made my blood boil. “She said she didn’t need me there at their farm anymore,” I told Luke. “As if the whole thing wasn’t my idea. As if I haven’t been busting my balls trying to make things work at our own ranch and help her on the side. Now I’m apparently done with both.”

  “Ouch,” Luke said. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way, did she? It’s not like she has anyone to replace you with.”

  “How should I know?” I snapped. “I hardly know her, after all. For all I know, she’s shacking up with her brother’s friend Gavin.”

  I didn’t really believe that, and especially not after last night. But I was still hurt and confused. I had gone to her in my time of need, and she’d sent me away. After everything I’d done for her.

  “I’m sure the two of you will work it out,” Luke said. “Just like you and Ted will.” He paused. “We all saw you, at lunch the other day. I know things didn’t turn out so well in the end, but we could all tell how much you liked her. I think that’s part of what has Ted so scared; he thinks you’re going to leave, just like David did.”

  “Yeah, he told me as much,” I muttered. “But he has a funny way of showing how much he needs me around the ranch, if this is his solution.”

  “You know he wasn’t thinking straight when he fired you,” Luke said, shaking his head.

  I took a last bite of mashed potatoes and put the fork down, staring evenly at Luke. “You’re not going to convince me to come back home,” I told him flatly.

  “All right,” Luke said, shrugging his shoulders. He paused. “To be honest, I’m more here on my own mission, rather than Ted’s.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I don’t want you to think that just because you and Ted are at odds, we can’t still be friends,” Luke said, and for a moment, there was a young vulnerability in his eyes.

  I sighed, trying to think about this all from Luke’s point of view. He was the baby of the family. It had to be hard, being him, watching his oldest brother, his idol, walk out on the family business to start a career of his own, and then seeing all this bickering between his two remaining brothers. Luke was grown up, but he was still young.

  I leaned forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re still brothers,” I told him. “And yeah, we can still be friends.”

  “Come on, then, let’s go get a beer,” Luke said.

  “I’ve got beer here,” I protested, even though that had nothing to do with the real reason I didn’t want to go get a beer with him.

  Luke rolled his eyes. “You can’t stay up here, hermitting away, forever,” he said exasperatedly.

  “I’m not going to,” I said, folding my arms over my chest.

  “So what, you’re going to stay up here until all the rumors die down? Until the town stops talking about you? You know as well as I do that the longer you stay up here, the more they’re going to have to say about you.”

  “It’s not that,” I sighed. “But where else are we going to go to get a beer?” I gave him a pointed look.

  “Oh,” Luke said. He rolled his eyes again. “You’re afraid that if we go down to Kinsey’s, you’re going to have to interact with Abi.”

  “Obviously I’m going to have to, since she’s working tonight,” I said.

  “Kinsey’s is the only bar in town,” Luke reminded me. “Are you planning on avoiding the place until she leaves? Because that could still be months, and I don’t see you going that long without a drinking hole.”

  I snorted. “Maybe I won’t avoid it until she leaves,” I said. “But I don’t need to go down there tonight.”

  “I think tonight is the best time for you to go down there,” Luke said. “At least let Abi see that you’re okay. She was such a mess earlier. Like I said, she’s really worried about you. The least you could do is show her that you’re not so upset anymore.”

  Staring at him for a long moment, I sighed. There wasn’t really any way I could argue with that. I did feel guilty for upsetting Abi, in spite of everything she’d said. She had so much else on her plate right now, she didn’t deserve to have to worry ab
out me on top of all of that.

  “All right, all right,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “We’ll grab one beer. Then I’m coming straight back up here and drinking myself into oblivion.”

  “Fair enough,” Luke said. He grinned mischievously. “Although you know, now that you don’t work for the ranch, you could stay out as late as you want. We could make a real night of it, the two of us.”

  I snorted. “If I don’t send you back to Ted nice and early and in time for your curfew, he’ll come back for my head,” I said, seriously.

  Luke laughed. “You’re probably right,” he said. “All right, one beer. Let’s go.”

  Luke slung his arm around my shoulders as we walked down the hall. “You know,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “the other selfish reason that I came to see you and beg you to come back is that I don’t want to get stuck with all your chores. If anyone’s going to be mucking out stalls all day every day, I’d prefer that it be you.”

  I had to laugh at that. “Thanks,” I said seriously. “Really. For bringing me food, and for cheering me up.”

  Luke jostled my shoulder. “What else are little brothers for, if you can’t laugh at them?” he joked.

  When we walked into Kinsey’s, I immediately scanned the bar for Abi. But I didn’t see her back there, surprisingly. I looked worriedly over at Luke. “You don’t think she called in sick, do you?” I knew how much she needed the money, knew that every dime she made there she put straight into her family’s farm. I could hardly believe she would be so upset over things with me that she would take the night off. Especially since she was the one who said she didn’t need me.

  But after a moment, I saw her, off at one of the corner tables. She was leaning against the edge of the booth, laughing at something someone had said. I realized that it was Jeff and Gavin in the booth, and that the tray in Abi’s hands no doubt meant that she had just finished serving them drinks.

  I couldn’t help feeling a stab of jealousy, though. She was standing close to Gavin, leaning towards him, her whole body animated in a way that I wanted to have directed at me.

  I turned to Luke. “She definitely doesn’t look very broken up,” I said dryly.

  Luke looked surprised when he spotted Abi as well. “Oh,” he said lamely. “It must just be a front. She’s at work, remember. This job seems important to her. She’s probably just trying to put on a good face.”

  I gave him a look. “Because Kinsey’s such an ass that he would fire her if he found out that she was upset,” I said sarcastically.

  Luke had nothing to say in response to that.

  I wanted to march straight up to Abi and call her out on all of it. But I didn’t even really know what to say, and part of me was starting to wonder if she was really worth it. She hadn’t wanted to get involved when Ella had still been in the picture because of all the drama, but now it seemed like she wasn’t without drama of her own. Every time we took a step forwards, we seemed to take three steps back.

  Was she just playing with me? I knew that I was attracted to her, but I barely even knew her. I didn’t know what kind of person she really was. Maybe Ella had been right, maybe Abi was just running away from something back home. Maybe she was the kind of woman who just loved to stir up trouble and make her own drama. And that as soon as she had me wrapped around her finger, she would leave.

  It certainly seemed like she was playing me, now. And I didn’t particularly like the feeling of it.

  I considered going back to the Dew Drop Inn, but like Luke had said, I couldn’t exactly stay there forever. If Abi was fine, I had to pretend like I was fine as well. Especially since now, to be honest, I didn’t feel quite as upset. If anything, I was pissed at her for leading me on.

  Even though part of me knew that wasn’t what was happening at all.

  I frowned, wishing she would just talk to me. If I had done something wrong, something that had made her want to send me away, I wished she would just tell me what it was. Rather than just pushing me out. She wasn’t the kind of girl to play games, not like Ella was. But the fact remained that I didn’t understand what really made her tick, either. As much as I liked her, we were still strangers in many ways.

  Finally, Luke shrugged. “Pool?” he asked.

  I gave one last look towards Abi. She was still chatting with Gavin and her brother. She definitely didn’t look upset, not at all. She didn’t even look over, in fact. There was no reason for me to be there, she didn’t need to see that I was okay.

  In fact, the more I thought about it, the more idiotic it all seemed. Luke had told me that he got my location from Kinsey. If Abi had really been worried about me, she could have done the same. She could have knocked on my door hours ago. I didn’t know what I would have said to her if she did. But it was clear that she wasn’t as upset as Luke had let on.

  All the same, I wasn’t about to turn and walk out. I didn’t want her to think that she had won or that I was in my room hiding from her. If she wasn’t upset, then hell if I was showing how upset I was. I nodded at Luke. “Sure, pool,” I said, leading the way into the back corner.

  I made sure to walk near Abi on the way, just wondering if she would look up. She didn’t.

  Chapter 24

  Abi

  I leaned against the bar, glad to have a bit of a breather. I had forgotten how exhausting it was to wait tables all evening. There was a lot more movement involved, and there weren’t the same lulls as there was behind the bar. Any time there was a lull while I was waiting tables, there were things to clean, menus to deliver, drinks to refill.

  “You okay?” Lucy asked from behind the bar as she cleaned a few glasses.

  I pasted on a smile that I didn’t feel. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m doing fine.” Lucy wanted to say something, I could tell, but I interrupted her. “So come on, all you’ve told me so far was that your honeymoon was great. I want details, though. You’re not going to let everyone else in town hear the gossip first, are you?”

  Lucy laughed delightedly. “It was perfect,” she said. “We actually didn’t go very far, just to this cozy cabin up in the Appalachians. It was so beautiful, you should have seen it. The most perfect sunsets, too.” Her face took on a dreamy quality. “Anyway, there wasn’t much to do up there other than hike and, you know, celebrate our marriage.” She winked at me.

  I giggled, hoping she didn’t see my blush. I wasn’t even a virgin anymore, but I wasn’t sure I needed to hear those details about Lucy’s honeymoon. I glanced around the bar, trying to distract myself so that my face would cool off some.

  My eyes found Mason, standing beside one of the pool tables.

  My heart wrenched as I watched him. Was this what it felt like to be heartbroken? This tugging at my chest, the stinging in my eyes? He was there with his brother, I saw. Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe he and Luke would be able to sort things out so that Mason could go home again. I hoped the best for him, but I was still aching inside.

  He hadn’t even bothered to come say hi.

  It was my own fault, I knew. I still couldn’t even believe the words that had come out of my mouth. I had screwed up. It was never a question of needing him or not. I was just so scared to get into this too deeply. I wasn’t ready to hear that he was no longer working at his family’s farm because of me. I wasn’t ready to hear that I was the only thing he needed. It wasn’t that I didn’t have feelings for him. I just didn’t know what to do with those feelings.

  “Uh oh, what did you do?” Lucy asked, leaning towards me across the bar.

  I gave her a guilty look, but there was no denying that my eyes had lingered on Mason for a minute too long. I shook my head, though. “You don’t want to hear about it,” I told her. “You just came back from your honeymoon. I’m sure you have other things on your mind.”

  Lucy raised an eyebrow at me, a small smile crossed her face. “I don’t want to have to hear about it from everyone else in town first. You’re going to let them have the
gossip before me?” It was reminiscent of the question I’d asked her earlier, about her honeymoon, and I had to grin.

  Glancing over at Mason again, my brow furrowed. “I slept with Mason,” I finally said.

  Lucy grimaced. “You and half the town, I’m sorry to say,” she said.

  I scowled at her. “Including you?” I asked.

  “Oh no, not me,” Lucy said. She blinked at my defensive tone. “Oh my gosh, you have feelings for him, don’t you?”

  “I might have screwed everything up,” I told her.

  Lucy glanced contemplatively over towards Mason. Then, she grabbed two beers from behind the bar, popping the caps off and holding them out to me. “He’s here, isn’t he?” she pointed out. “You can’t have screwed things up too badly if he’s come here, to where you work. In fact, I’d say that he probably came here specifically to see you.”

  I shook my head. “He’s here with his brother,” I pointed out.

  Lucy laughed. “Luke’s the younger brother,” she reminded me. “If Mason didn’t want to be here, he wouldn’t. He came here to see you.”

  I stared at the two Dawson boys for one more minute. They were in the middle of a game of pool by now, but maybe Lucy was right. I certainly wanted to think that Mason was there for me.

  I grabbed the two beers and headed over to their pool table. If I could fix this now, maybe I wouldn’t lose Mason forever.

  I held out a beer to each of the boys. “Mason, can I talk to you?” I asked quietly.

  He scoffed. “Like you need to talk to me,” he said. “You made your feelings very clear.”

  I glanced over at Luke. I’d called him as soon as I’d talked to Kinsey, hoping that the younger Dawson could help make things right with his brother. But Luke gave me an unreadable look. Then, he stepped away to let Mason and I have some space.

  “Mason, I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” I said in a rush.