by Kim Law
He retook her hands, and he leaned toward her until she could make out the specks of gold mixed in with the brown of his eyes. “The real question”—his lowered voice created havoc on the surface of her skin—“is do you like me?”
“It isn’t your turn for a question.”
“Because I like you.”
“Stop it.”
He grinned. “Will you go out with me?”
She pulled back at that. He didn’t release her, but she sat with her back rod-straight. “It’s not your turn to ask the next question,” she repeated. Her panic level rose. She should not be playing this game.
“When it is my turn, I’ll still ask the same question.”
She looked at Ollie as if he could save her, but Ollie had decided the two of them held no appeal and was munching on a mouthful of hay. Next, she considered ending things. That would be the smart move. Just get up and walk out. Because she didn’t want Waylon to ask her out. She’d have to say no.
Say no to Waylon.
Her eyes snapped back to his. She’d forgotten she was supposed to be repeating that!
“We’re just playing a game of questions,” she reminded him. “This isn’t anything more.”
It couldn’t be anything more, because if it were . . . if he truly did want to date her . . . then she’d want it, too. And then she’d do everything wrong. And she’d find herself in love without it being returned yet again.
Because this was Waylon. How was she supposed to not fall for him if she started dating him?
So she took the game along a route that would keep his faults foremost in her mind. “How long have you played poker?”
Waylon studied her as if guessing her intent, but she stared blankly back at him. She didn’t go out with men who could hurt her, and a man with potential gambling issues—and a kid she would no doubt fall for as quickly as she would him—was a man too risky for her.
When he finally answered her question, his tone shifted, same as her intent. “I’ve been playing since my teens.” The smile had disappeared from his face.
“And is that when you learned to cheat?” She swallowed. It wasn’t her turn, but she didn’t back down.
Nor did Waylon. “Will you go out with me?”
She shook her head before she could change her mind. Her throat had clogged, and words couldn’t have made their way out if she’d wanted them to.
“Why can’t this be more?” He had his thoughts on lockdown, but his gaze remained glued to hers, and it felt as if they were playing a game of chicken. Seeing who would look away first.
Neither of them caved.
“Because like I’ve already told you,” she eked out, “I don’t do—”
“Casual,” Waylon finished for her. “Right. I’m aware of that.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “But what if—”
“Do you still cheat at poker?” Heather’s words butted into his. Her heart was racing, and her natural sense of preservation was telling her to make him stop talking. Now. Same as it had been screaming for the past several minutes for her to get out of there.
That muscle in his jaw jerked once again. “I do not.”
“Or do you just not get caught at it these days?”
She stared hard at him as she voiced the question. She needed to understand this one thing. If he would take other people’s money . . . if he had no qualms about who his actions hurt, who was left behind with a broken heart . . .
“I’ve already answered the question once.” Waylon’s voice went flat. “Do you really want to waste your second one asking the same thing?”
“Fine.” Her voice shook. “Then what did you do when you lived in Vegas?”
“I was a poker dealer.”
A very real fear settled inside her. So much that it almost suffocated her. And then she wondered if he’d ever dealt cards for her father.
She shook the question from her mind. Of course he hadn’t. Her father had been gone for sixteen years. Waylon wouldn’t have been old enough to step foot on a casino floor sixteen years ago.
“Heather,” Waylon said her name gently, and she realized she’d looked down at her lap.
She dragged her gaze back to his. “What?”
“I was a kid when that all went down, okay? A senior in high school.” He spoke as if trying to calm her, when just a minute before he’d seemed upset as well. “And, yes. Those rumors are true. I’ll admit that. I totally ripped some people off in the past, and some of them were from right here in Red Oak Falls. There’s a reason those particular rumors have been swirling for weeks. Because I was good at what I did.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off hers. “Counting cards, holding back cards, marking cards. You name the trick—I challenged myself to master it. I even brought Nikki in on my cons on occasion. We worked great as a team. But all of that is my past, Heather.” He squeezed her hands, and it occurred to her that he still held them in his. “You need to understand that. It isn’t something I’m proud of, but it was seven years ago. A lot has changed since I was that person.”
She digested his words, wondering if she could believe them. Wondering if she would be stupid to even consider it.
“And in case you missed it,” Waylon continued, his head dipping when she tried to look down once again, and a slight smile now touching his mouth. “I just told you how old I am.” He added a wink. “Not that I really think it ever mattered.”
He was right, it never really mattered. It had just been her attempt at an excuse.
A failed attempt.
“My turn,” he announced, and the way his voice dipped suddenly made the air in the stall feel too thick. “What if I’m not asking for casual?”
She’d been struggling to breathe for a while now, and his question didn’t help.
Was he really asking for more than that? And if so, would that change anything?
She pulled her hands free. “Can I answer a question with a question?”
“I suppose.”
She nodded, the movement her attempt to encourage herself. She had to keep it real. “If not casual, then what exactly are you asking for?”
Waylon didn’t answer at first, and the longer she waited, the more she wanted to withdraw the question. She tucked her hands under her thighs, her eyes remaining glued to his, and finally, he let out a ragged sigh.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. And he sounded completely lost. “I just”—he held both hands out, palms up—“don’t know. But does that have to be answered right now? I want to go out with you. I do know that. I want to get to know you better. I want to spend more time with you.”
He gripped the backs of her knees and tugged her closer, and she sucked in a quick breath.
“And I know that I wasn’t joking before.” His feet locked behind hers. “I like you, Heather. Possibly a lot. But I also understand your concerns. I get that. I haven’t always been the most upstanding citizen, and that’s hard for some people to take.” He studied Ollie before returning his gaze to hers. “But the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you.”
His words seemed so sincere, but she remained afraid. Because she’d heard those words before—or ones very similar. And she’d made the mistake of believing them.
“I’m not a bad person,” Waylon told her.
“But are you a good one?”
“What does your heart say?”
Her heart hurt. That was the problem. She gave him a regret-filled smile. “That’s the thing. I’ve been burned too many times in the past. The men I’ve known hurt me, Waylon. They broke my heart. And I let them do it because I can’t see past my own desire for a relationship.” It was humbling to admit that out loud. “I date a man, and then I fall. My blinders are thick. And to make matters worse, I have the world’s worst judgment in men.” Why stop with the humiliation, she thought? “So, no. I wouldn’t trust my heart, even if I wanted to listen to it.”
Waylon opened his mouth to say something else, but she stood and began gathering her things.
She had to put a stop to this before she caved. Because she wanted to say yes.
She wanted to believe in him.
And she wanted to fall in love.
“I’ve got to get back to work,” she told him. Then she implored him with her eyes. “Can’t we just leave this what it is? Us hanging out. Us becoming friends?”
When he didn’t immediately reply, she added, “Please.”
He nodded without hesitation, and rose to stand with her. “Friends,” he told her. Then he nodded again. “I like friends.”
And though the words coming out of his mouth might not completely match the look in his eyes, Heather chose to believe them. They’d be friends. And that was all.
Chapter Ten
“Don’t count on love from others.”
—Waylon Peterson, seven years old
As was typical of Rose, she hadn’t stopped moving since she’d climbed from her bed that morning. Waylon followed along behind her every few minutes, cleaning up whatever mess she’d left in her wake, while at the same time asking himself why he was letting it bother him so much. And it wasn’t Rose’s scattered toys that were the issue. It was the reason he was working so hard to pick up the toys.
“Is it time yet?” Rose asked while bouncing onto the scuffed toes of her pink cowboy boots.
Waylon checked the clock hanging over the recliner. “It’s almost time.”
“And then we’re going to go meet all the new people, right?”
Pleasure expanded inside Waylon. His daughter was a lot like him. She loved meeting new people, and she loved feeling like she belonged in the middle of them. “And then we’re going to go meet all the new people,” he reaffirmed.
He picked up a doll that hadn’t been on the living room floor only two minutes earlier, but before he could get it tucked away in Rose’s bedroom, the doorbell rang.
“It’s Grampa!” Rose shouted at the top of her lungs, and as had happened the previous weekend when Heather showed up, Rose was at the door, pulling it open before Waylon could remind her that he needed to be with her.
“Rosie,” Waylon’s dad said as soon as he laid eyes on his granddaughter.
Rose giggled with uninhibited glee. “It’s not Rosie, Grampa. It’s Rose!” She threw herself against his legs. “And I’ve missed you so, so much.”
Charlie Peterson scooped up his only grandchild. “I’ve missed you, too, sweet thing.”
Waylon watched with only a hint of bitterness as his dad hugged his daughter tight. His father loved Rose. That could never be disputed. Just as Rose was mad about her grandfather. The two of them hadn’t seen each other since before Waylon had been put in the hospital, and along with his guilt at losing temporary custody of his daughter, Waylon hated the span of time she’d had to go without seeing his dad.
They’d actually only seen each other in person a handful of times in Rose’s four years. A few instances when his dad had traveled either to Vegas or Texas to visit, and several others when Waylon and Rose had gone to him. But the two had talked via video phone since before Rose could speak. And in fact, his dad had been at the hospital the day Rose had come into the world.
Waylon knew that fact should matter even more than it did. His mother hadn’t been there, and Rose had been almost three months old before she’d made it out from Tennessee.
But childhood hurts were hard things to overcome.
“We’re going to meet all the new people today, Grampa. We’ll have lunch in town, and then dessert, then we get to walk around the whole town and make new friends.” Rose scurried out of her grandfather’s arms. “I’m going to make ten new friends. Are you ready to go? Daddy said we could go just as soon as you got here.”
Waylon reached for his daughter’s hand. “How about we show Grampa the new house first?”
Rose’s eyes lit up as she first looked up at Waylon and then to her grandfather. “Oh, yes,” she said, her tone indicative of royalty having entered the building. “I must show you my room. I helped paint it and set up my new bed and toys, and it’s”—she pressed both hands to her cheeks and sighed as if having never been happier—“the most gorgeous bedroom ever.”
Rose shot off toward her room before either Waylon or his father could reply, and Waylon looked over at his dad and held out his hand. “Good to see you again.”
“Good to be here.” He gripped Waylon’s hand, and as if they were suddenly back in the middle of his four-month stint of physical therapy, Waylon could think of little more than the fact that his father had been there when he’d first awoken at the hospital. And he’d stayed until he’d once again been able to live on his own.
He reached out and pulled the man in for a hug before talking himself out of it. And he ignored the heavy pounding of his heart. Without his dad, Waylon didn’t know how he would have made it through that period of his life, and he certainly didn’t think he’d be anywhere close to getting his daughter back.
“It really is good to see you,” Waylon repeated. He drew back and took in his father. The man was weathered from so many years of working outdoors, but at only fifty-one, he remained a good-looking man. “And I’ll go ahead and apologize now,” Waylon added. “Because the bedroom I have for you here is little more than a cracker box.”
“Any place with a pillow will do.”
Charlie Peterson was a lifelong cowboy who’d grown up on ranches himself. And granted, he’d probably slept in places far worse than the pint-sized third bedroom in the small cottage house. But that didn’t stop Waylon from once again wishing he had more to offer.
He took his dad through the single-story home, pointing out the upgrades and renovations planned for down the road, as well as what he’d already managed to accomplish in the last week and a half. Then the two of them spent several minutes in the “Palace of Miss Rose.” Finally, they made it to door number three.
His dad’s bedroom had a fresh coat of paint, this one more neutral—a pale brown rather than Rose’s pink—but even with the new twin bed and mattress set, the freshly painted four-drawer chest, and the antique lamp and side table Waylon had picked up at a yard sale the day before, it remained a poor excuse for a room.
“It looks terrific,” his dad announced, and remorse for last week’s pettiness punched Waylon in the gut. The man was trying. They both were.
And really, the remaining hard feelings were mostly a long-held grudge, anyway. Waylon had been seven when his dad walked away. Seven when he’d learned it was possible for a parent not to love you as much as you loved them.
He should have gotten over that by now.
An hour later, as Waylon and his dad followed up their meal with coffee at an outdoor table in the middle of town, Rose was already up to seven new friends. Most were adult women who’d fallen for his daughter the second she’d flashed them her dimples, but there were a couple of kids in the mix as well. Rose had never been what anyone would call a wallflower, and her gregariousness was shining now more than ever. She currently rattled nonstop to a dark-haired girl who was not much older than Rose herself, while the girl’s mother stood at the girl’s side, smiling politely.
Waylon had never met either mother or daughter, and had been grateful to see the wedding ring circling the woman’s finger. Several females who’d stopped by earlier, some of whom he’d had dinner with at The Buffalo in prior weeks, had seemed more interested in the fact that he had a child than in the child herself.
“I have a new room,” Rose informed the little girl. “And it has bunked beds, so Daddy says I get to have sleepovers.” Rose grinned at the other girl, who’d shared that her name was Izzy. “Do you want to come for a sleepover tonight?”
“I . . .” Izzy’s mother jerked her gaze from child to child at the out-of-the-blue request from a virtual stranger, and Waylon immediately reached out a hand to slow his daughter’s enthusiasm.
“Not this weekend,” he told Rose gently. “Grampa just got into town. We’re spending time with him this weekend.”
The space between Rose’s eyebrows puckered. “But I thought he was going to live with us.”
“That’s correct. He is going to live with us.” Waylon looked over the girls’ heads to Izzy’s mother, offering an apologetic smile at the awkward moment. “But you haven’t seen him in a long time.”
And I have to take you back to the Jameses’ tomorrow night.
Waylon didn’t voice his last thought, not anxious to share that Rose’s grandparents had custody instead of him, but he could see his daughter’s remaining uncertainty about why her new friend couldn’t come over.
Before he could form a new argument, Izzy’s mother squatted beside the girls. “Your dad is right. You entertain your grandfather this weekend”—the woman pointed across the road to a small park—“but if your dad doesn’t mind, I’d be glad to take you and Izzy to play on the swing sets for a while.” She looked at Waylon. “You’d be able to see her from here, and I promise to keep an eye on her.”
Waylon glanced in the direction the woman pointed. Rose had seen the park when they’d first arrived, and he’d already promised to take her over.
“Can I, Daddy? Please. I promise to listen to Ms. . . .” She paused and looked up at the other woman. “What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Davies,” the woman said. She reached across the table and shook Waylon’s hand before doing the same with his dad. “My first name is Maggie. I’m one of the first-grade teachers here in the county, and my husband is head of the city council.”
“Nice to meet you, Maggie. And yes”—he turned to Rose—“you can go play with Izzy. Grampa and I will be over after we finish our coffee.”
“Yippee!” Rose and Izzy both shouted, and they headed off with Izzy’s mother, but instead of resuming the conversation with his dad, Waylon watched as the older version of himself sat up a little straighter.
Waylon turned, hoping to see what had caught his dad’s attention, and found himself eye to eye with Heather. His first thought was that he’d asked her out the day before. And she’d said no.
