by Maisey Yates
His dogs, shaggy little traitors, didn’t follow him out. They stayed rooted to Dallas, who they seemed to love already.
That made him smile.
Bennett walked out to the front porch and looked down at the phone in his hand. He wanted to text Kaylee. Hell, he just wanted to see her. Go out with her like they always did. He wanted to talk to her about the paternity test. He wanted to...hug her.
He grabbed his phone and held it in his hand. Busy?
She didn’t respond.
He stood on the front porch and waited a while. Then he decided there wasn’t any harm in swinging by her place before he went to the Saloon. If she wasn’t around, or she had a tie on the door or something, he’d leave.
He had never found out how her date went. So maybe she’d be busy. Busy, busy.
And for some reason that made his stomach tighten.
He ignored it, and got into his truck, pulling out of the driveway and taking the short trip over to Kaylee’s place.
She lived in a nice, manicured little house on one acre, with a small paddock for her horse, Flicka, and her fat cat, Albus, who spent his days either on a cat tree in her place, or on a cat tree in the clinic.
She had geraniums in pots on her porch, which he always thought was funny. It surprised him when Kaylee added soft little touches to her home. There seemed to be more and more every time he came over.
He paused and knocked.
The door opened, and he looked up, his heart speeding up for a moment when Kaylee came into view wearing something that was very, very not Kaylee. Well, it was close to her normal clothes in theme, but it showed a hell of a lot more skin.
She was wearing a short denim skirt and a plaid button-up top with a couple of the top buttons undone. Her long red hair was curled slightly at the ends, and she was wearing a little bit of makeup.
“Did I interrupt something?” he asked in a very unsubtle way of trying to get information on how that date had gone.
“No,” she said. No other information was forthcoming. “What are you doing here?”
She sounded slightly breathless, and looked a little bit sweaty.
“I texted you. I was headed out to the Saloon and wanted to...see...”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. My phone is across the house and I’m trying to move a hutch.”
“A hutch?”
“I went downtown today. I saw a hutch. I bought it. And it’s here. And I finally got the damn doors on it but now I can’t move it where I want it.” She stepped to the side and waved a hand at the massive piece of red furniture standing in the middle of her living room.
“You should have called me,” he said.
“I can handle it.”
“You’re going to throw your back out, Kay,” he said, making his way over to the hutch. “Where do you want it?”
“Just right...” She waved her hand toward the back wall. “There in the empty space.”
Bennett wrapped his arms around the hutch and started to walk it back toward the wall.
Kaylee let out a frustrated growl. “You make it look so easy!”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked, getting it backed up against the wall and taking a step back.
“Yes. I don’t like asking for help when I can struggle through it. But having struggled for more than an hour, you moving it just like that is obnoxious.”
“You help me out all the time,” he said, turning to face her, crossing his arms. “Why is it such a bad thing that I came to help you?”
“I just...don’t want to be a burden.”
“Kaylee,” he said, his tone stern. “You’re my best friend in the world. You’re not a burden to me.”
“Well. Whatever.”
“Let me take care of you sometimes, Kay. Let me be there for you.” That feeling he’d had the other day was back. That urge to comfort her. Touch her.
He would have always been hurt to hear her talk like this, even before he’d known about her parents. But now that he knew that she’d been neglected...
His chest burned looking at her. At that vulnerable expression on her face.
That she felt like a burden because he’d moved some furniture for her.
“Did you get the test results?” she asked suddenly.
“What? How did you...”
“You said you would get them in the next few days. I wondered if you did.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“And?”
“I’m his dad. But I knew I was.”
“But that’s a big deal. How do you feel?”
He saw how she was turning the conversation back to him. And well, he knew that part of that was on him. She was his support, and he appreciated that. She also seemed a lot more comfortable with that role than she did with taking anything from him.
“I’m...happy.” He was. Strange as that might be. “But I feel like you’re changing the subject.”
She crossed her arms and looked at him. Defiant. “Of?”
“Of why you didn’t call me to help you. Why you’re acting weird that I did.”
“I just... I told you. My parents didn’t pay attention to me. I had to do stuff for myself. Blah blah boring baggage. Who cares? I’m a successful veterinarian and they suck and I’ve transcended. Why go over it?”
“Because it hurts you.”
“So what?”
He reached out and grabbed hold of her arm before he realized what he was doing. And the touch went through him like a shot of bourbon. He let go of her. “You’re important to me,” he said, his voice rough. “Do you know that?”
“Sure,” she said, blinking, moving away from him, looking down at her carpet, at the dents left behind where the hutch had been before he’d moved it.
“Kay...”
“We don’t need to do this, Bennett. I’m fine. Thank you for moving the hutch.”
“I’m sorry about how weird things have been,” he said, his voice rough. “Do you want to go get a drink?”
“I... Sure.” She looked around. “I guess I’m dressed for it.”
“Yeah...why are you dressed up?”
“I bought a new skirt. I was trying it on.” She looked flustered.
“To assemble a hutch?”
“I mean, that wasn’t the plan,” she said. “I was going to...and then...whatever. Let’s go out.”
“Do you want to meet me there in case we leave at separate times?” This was where the whole wanting to meet a woman thing interfered with his desire to hang out with Kaylee.
“Um. Sure,” she said, giving him a strange look. “Let me get my stuff and leave some food for Albus.”
“I’ll meet you over there,” he said.
“Okay.”
He got in his truck and drove to the Gold Valley Saloon, having an easy time finding parking right in front of the bar. Not typical of a Sunday night, the last gasp of fun before the weekend faded into Monday, but he would take it.
Kaylee wasn’t there yet, so he took a seat at a table and surveyed the room. He wasn’t worried about anybody thinking Kaylee’s presence meant that he was off-limits. Everybody knew that him and Kaylee were only friends.
Kaylee appeared a few minutes later, not looking much less flustered than she had at her place. She sat across from him, and put her purse on the table.
“You do look nice,” he said. “It’s a nice skirt.”
She squinted at him. “Thank you.”
“Is it...for another date with Michael?” She’d dodged his first attempt at figuring out where she was at with Michael.
“Oh. Right,” she said, her tone overly casual. “No. I’m not seeing him again.”
Well. That was interesting. She’d bought a new skirt. And a new hutch. And her date hadn’t gone well.
He could also
tell she was irritated by having to make the admission.
“What was wrong with him?” he pressed.
She laughed and shook her head. “What makes you think there was something wrong with him? Maybe it’s me.”
Without thinking, he reached out and pressed his hand over the top of hers. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
She jerked her hand back, her expression unreadable. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
“Is that why you got a new skirt?” he asked. “To get another date.”
She blew out a hard breath. “Bennett. I’m a woman. I don’t need an excuse to buy a cute clearance skirt. And yes, I will wear it. I’m wearing it now. So.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She was clearly not fine. She stood up, grabbing hold of her purse. “What do you want to drink?”
“I’m going to go easy, just get me a beer.”
If he was going to find a woman for a potential hookup, he wanted to be sober. Plus, he didn’t want to have to strand his truck in town. He was going to have to get back home. So whoever he found, he wasn’t going to be able to spend the night with.
Hell, one-night stands weren’t really his thing. So, maybe he would find somebody that he could go out with, and have a good time with for a while. That was more his speed. But seeing as it had been so damned long since he’d been with anyone, he was open to just about anything. Kaylee went over to the bar, and he couldn’t help but watch her walk all the way over. Watch the way the skirt rode up her legs as she went up on her toes and leaned over while she talked to Laz the bartender for a few moments, before acquiring two bottles of beer and returning to the table.
“So,” she said, obviously deciding to let go of the discomfort she had felt with the previous topic. “Did you want to see me about anything in particular? Or talk more about the paternity test?”
“I just wanted to go out,” he said.
“Oh.”
“I figured we could go out together.”
She looked at him sideways and lifted the bottle of beer to her lips. “Okay.”
“You know how I told you a little bit about my relationship with Olivia,” he said. “That I didn’t sleep with her.”
Kaylee brought the beer bottle down on the table, her hands rested flat, bracketing it on either side. “Yes.”
“It’s been over a year. Almost two. And I’m stressed the hell out. I need to get laid.”
Kaylee frowned, and then blinked rapidly. “O...kaay.”
“I figured you could be my wingman.”
All the color drained from her face. “You thought that I could be your...wingman. Your wingman. Because...I’m basically a dude?”
“No,” he said. “I just thought that we could go out and...”
“I thought you wanted to see me, Bennett.”
He had. He had wanted to see her. Texting her had been the most natural, easy thing. And actually, seeing her in that moment had felt more important than all the sex stuff he’d been thinking about. He missed her. He missed feeling like they were close, and this certainly wasn’t helping.
“Of course I want to see you,” he said.
“No. You wanted me to hang around and watch you pick up another woman. Because you want to talk to me and bang someone else. I...don’t even know what to do with that.”
“That wasn’t how I was thinking of it.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” she said. “Of course it wasn’t how you were thinking of it. But it’s how it is.”
“What the hell am I supposed to want? You’re my best friend. Of course I want to see you. And if you were a man, then I would have called you in this exact circumstance.”
“But I’m not a man,” she said, the words frayed. “I’m not. And you know I’m not. You had to move my hutch for me because I have tiny lady arms!”
“You didn’t want me to—”
She interrupted him, stamping her foot. “I am wearing a damned denim miniskirt!”
She stared at him hard, her blue eyes glittering. Hell, of course he knew she wasn’t a man. Touching her had been screwing with his brain for weeks. The kiss the other day had made it even worse. Yeah, he knew that she wasn’t a man.
“I’m trying to get this friendship back on track,” he said, the words grinding out of his throat.
This was too much. And it was going too far.
He knew Kaylee wasn’t a man. He was so damned aware of it right now it was driving him insane. Or maybe his life was making him insane, and she was a side effect.
She deserved better than that. Better than him losing his grip on reality and morality and doing something that would destroy this relationship they had. The one his life and livelihood was wrapped in so tight.
But Kaylee didn’t seem to be interested in backing down. In preserving anything. If it weren’t for the overt challenge in her eyes, he would have thought she had no idea what she was tempting. No idea what his body felt like she was suggesting.
“What’s on track?” she asked. “The two of us looking at each other until it feels so weird one of us has to look away? Me...kissing you because you look sad and I want to fix it?”
“No. None of that is on track and you know it.”
Kaylee leaned back in her chair and tossed her hair back, the level of faux bravado she was trying to project evidenced in the pronounced set of her jaw, at odds with the vulnerable glitter in her eyes.
“I don’t want you to leave with another woman,” she said, her words coming out far too raw for his liking. “I want you to leave with me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHAT HAD SHE DONE? She was screwing this up. She had agreed to come out tonight with the full intention of repairing the crack in their relationship. And instead, she had decided to bust it wide-open.
Or she was a lying liar who was lying to herself.
She’d had kind of a mini-breakdown starting with that disastrous Michael date and continuing into today. She could admit that.
She’d gotten up early and taken Flicka up into the hills and ridden until she’d been ready to collapse from hunger, and hadn’t had a single revelation. But at least she’d gone out. Carved out the time to be in nature and to do something she loved.
She’d been starving and restless and had decided to go out to get food.
She’d seen the red hutch at a furniture place in town and had decided she needed it, because her house felt wrong. Or really, her life felt wrong. But she’d made herself believe a red hutch could fix it.
Then she’d bought the miniskirt. Which looked borderline obscene on her, because her legs were endless—her one overtly sexy feature—and it had made her feel good about herself. So she’d gotten it.
Then she’d gotten home and put it on, and had started doing herself up a little. She had put on damned lipgloss. She was wearing a push-up bra, for all the good it did with her teacup boobs.
Then the hutch had arrived and they’d put it in her living room without doors and she’d just gone straight into trying to fix it, only she hadn’t been able to.
Then Bennett had shown up. A white knight without his steed.
It had all become shockingly clear in the moment. She was avoiding the fact that things with him were at critical mass. That it wasn’t her house that was wrong, it was her heart. And the missing space wasn’t red hutch-shaped.
It was Bennett-shaped.
And the miniskirt was not so another random man would notice her.
She’d wanted to see if she could look sexy enough for him.
What Michael had said to her kept resonating inside of her. That comment about her getting Bennett out of her system.
It had sparked the desire to get serious about a change that had to start with her—not another man. And she’d been feeling...good. Spontane
ous and different and good. But Bennett had shown up. He always would. He would always be there and this feeling wasn’t something she could displace anymore.
Everything in her brain was currently scrambled. But she knew two things. That she could not watch Bennett walk out the door with another woman. That she couldn’t go on the way things had been. And that those two things scared her far more than whatever other consequences awaited her.
Because she had done this for years. She had watched him find someone else. She had tried to find somebody herself so that she wouldn’t be alone.
She had followed him around when he had gone to pick Olivia up from work. Had been the third wheel when they’d gone out to bars. Had watched the two of them play darts. She had even been there when they had broken up. The emotional support in every way for this man all while wanting him with everything inside of her.
She had been convinced, all that time that Olivia had been getting the one thing that Kaylee wanted most. But she hadn’t.
And now, Bennett felt like that dry spell was catching up with him. Well, she felt far too invested in that dry spell. Because when she had assumed he’d been sleeping with Olivia, she had been tortured. And her own bed had been very, very empty.
She’d decided years ago that burying her feelings would be best. But if the past few months had taught her anything it was that her life wasn’t best right now. It wasn’t going to correct itself, and it wasn’t going to be fixed with dates, avoidance or red hutches.
“I’m in about the same dry spell,” she said. “It’s been more than a couple of years for me.”
She tried to brazen it out. Tried not to betray the fact that this was something she had thought about for years. Something she had wanted for years.
It was easier if he just thought this was some kind of matter-of-fact offer to help a friend out with something.
Like, she was asking him to loan her a cup of flour. Except she wanted him to lend her his penis.
That was how she wanted to present it. Anything else was...
You’re in love with him, aren’t you?
She gritted her teeth and blotted out the echo of Michael’s words.
She didn’t want to be in love with Bennett. Because he wasn’t in love with her. But on the other side of this would be something new she could work with. And that was the best hope she’d had for a while.
