by Lexie Davis
“No.”
He moved to the closet and grabbed a pair of boots. She watched as he pulled them on.
“When do you get a vacation?”
He snorted. “What’s that?”
“Come on. Surely you get some time off. I know it’s a small town, but hopefully people around here can keep it under control for a couple of days or a week even.”
“You really have been away for too long.” He stood and came toward her. “If I’m not getting a phone call about something, I’d think the phone lines were down.”
“Can you schedule something? Tell people in advance that they have to take care of their own problems?”
“Why?”
“Because. I want to spend some time away from here with you. Not in Dallas and not in Prospect. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
“A vacation?”
“Yeah. Why not? Maybe a cruise. We could go somewhere warm like the Bahamas or somewhere cold like Alaska.”
“I can’t afford a cruise.”
She stared at him. “We need to have the money talk.”
“The money talk?” He moved past her. “Nope. Not right now.”
“Financial advising is my job. My clients say I’m pretty good.” She followed him to the kitchen. “Let me help you.”
He grabbed a glass from the cabinet. “You may be good, but you’re not going to find a way for me to afford a cruise. I can guarantee that.”
“I can pay for the cruise.”
He didn’t say anything and she felt like she was tiptoeing over a sensitive issue with him. When Parker didn’t respond he was either done with the conversation or pissed. Money seemed to be a hot issue with him. She watched as he grabbed the egg carton, cheese, and bacon from the fridge.
“Fine. No cruise. I’ll just go back to minding my own business.”
“But you don’t mind your own business.” He cracked an egg into the skillet. “I don’t mind. Not really. I was a little pissed when you got an entire kitchen full of appliances for me, but I didn’t mind. I don’t really care that you painted my porch. None of it, however, was you minding your own business.”
She shook her head. “You are in rare form today.”
He slung the skillet across the kitchen. It bounced against the cabinet and toppled onto the floor. Aubree watched him. He clutched the edge of the countertop, bending slightly as he forced himself to take deep breaths. She thought about all he’d told her. He’d opened up about wanting her to be proud of him. He’d admitted he felt alone. It pained her to not know what he needed. The more she tried to be with him, the more he shut her out.
She licked her lips and walked over to the skillet to pick up the food. “You need to talk to someone. If you can’t talk to me, then you need to find someone you can talk to.” She tossed the skillet into the sink. “I’m going to my parent’s house. I’ll see you when you get home from work.”
She hesitated a moment before stepping closer to him and kissing his cheek. He glanced over at her but didn’t say anything. Aubree turned and grabbed her purse from the coffee table. It was in the back of her mind that he was doing the same thing she did when they’d been young adults. She’d tried pushing him away and it worked. He’d admitted to her that he wanted her to make an effort for him. She didn’t know what that meant, but she wasn’t going to let him go so easily the second time around.
Chapter Eleven
Parker had so many phone calls that he finally unplugged the phone in his office.
Riley peeked her head inside and frowned. “Rough night?”
“Go away.”
“No.” Riley came in and sat down. “I know it wasn’t Aubree keeping you up with sex. That’s not your sex face.”
He frowned. “My sex face? How do you know what my sex face looks like?”
She arched an eyebrow. “For the past two days you’ve come in here with a goofy grin and a sweet attitude. I almost thought you’d been drugged or something. But then again, I know what me and Aubree used to talk about in high school, and I can only imagine that that was your sex face.”
He rubbed his temples. “You and Aubree used to talk about sex in high school?”
Riley laughed. “We read Cosmo together and practiced giving head to a cucumber. Well, I had a Popsicle, and she had a thick cucumber. She said it was more accurate. And I assumed she meant in comparison to yours.” Riley nodded. “Impressive.”
Parker stared at her. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I got off on a tangent. Anyway, this mood you’re in is clearly a pissed off mood. Did you stop doing the rumba in the sheets?”
He dropped his head back against the chair. “Tell me again why I hired you?”
“Because I’m the only one that you could get to work with your moody ass.”
He blew out a breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, so you’re back to that again.” Riley leaned forward.
“I don’t talk about my private life with you.”
“I’ll just make a phone call to Aubree and she’ll tell me everything. You might as well save me the time.”
“Out.”
Riley stood. “Fine. Be that way. I was going to share my lunch with you, but you’re on your own now.”
Parker watched as Riley left his office. A million thoughts rolled through his head about everything that happened between them that morning. His initial hurt was the realization that she was leaving in a few days. It only grew worse when she asked him to go on vacation with her. And then it spiked to dangerous levels when she wanted to have the money talk.
There wasn’t much to talk about. He made a measly salary working for the small town, and he could barely afford what he had. If he were to even consider marrying her, his salary wouldn’t cover both their expenses. She’d have to keep her job. It agitated him since it ripped open an old wound. He wanted her to be proud of him. He wanted her to see that he’d accomplished something great.
All his savings from the army went toward purchasing his house. He still had some money in the bank for emergencies, but it wasn’t much. He knew without any doubt that she made more than him. It shouldn’t bother him, but it did.
One problem after another came at him. He’d admitted he felt alone, which was a stupid thing to tell her. She didn’t need to know that about him. He struggled with opening up. Some things felt so easy talking about with her and some things he felt embarrassed by.
“I see you’ve turned your phone off.” Tom came in and sat down in front of him. “What is going on between you and Aubree?”
“Why? What did she say?”
“I don’t know what she said. Jim called me and told me that you two had a fight or something. She was crying.”
Parker dropped his face into his palms and groaned. He reached for his phone and plugged it back in the wall. It rang almost immediately, and he told the caller to call back later. He picked up the phone and dialed Jim’s home number. They’d kept the same digits since Aubree was a kid.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Annette.” Parker licked his lips. “It’s Parker. Is Aubree there?”
“Sure. Just a sec.”
After a few seconds, Aubree answered. “Hello?”
“Hey. Are you okay? Have you been crying about what happened this morning?”
She didn’t say anything immediately. “I’m worried about you. I asked my dad how to help you and I may have shed a tear or two. How did you know about that? Did he call you?”
“No. He sent his foot soldier.” Parker stared at his dad. “Look, I don’t need you to help me. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a big boy and I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing so for the past ten years just fine without your help. Stop trying to fix me.”
“Hey,” Tom spoke up.
“Fix you? You’re pushing me away, Parker. I’m not trying to fix you. I want you to be okay. I want to see you happy and enjoying life.”
“Why? You’
re going to be gone in a few days. How am I supposed to be fucking happy about that?”
His father sat back observing the phone call. Parker wanted to hang up, but he knew the moment he did, he’d have to have a conversation with his father. Tom Montgomery wasn’t going to let anything he said slide.
“Look, I need to go. Just don’t cry over this mess. It is what it is and there is nothing we can do about it.” He hung up and pointed to his father. “Don’t start. I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m your father,” Tom stated plainly. “You will sit there and listen to what I have to say whether you like it or not.”
Parker pushed his chair back. “Then make it quick.”
“Pushing that girl away is a dumb mistake. I know what I saw with you yesterday at the cookout. You were happy. You looked at her, and for the first time in a long time, I saw you climbing out of those dark pits and enjoying life. I’m sorry that what happened to you scared you to the point you can’t have a conversation with anyone, especially Aubree, but, Son, you talk to that woman like that again and you and me are going to have more than words.” Tom stood and stared at him. “You can be angry. You can feel hurt. You can even be sad about her going back to Dallas. Don’t you dare take any of it out on her. Be a man and face your problems instead of hiding from them. Only a coward pushes a woman that loves him away. I know you’ve told her things about yourself that nobody else knows. I saw that intimacy between you two. It takes a man a long time to find a woman like her. Someone that is the right fit for him. Don’t fuck it up.”
Parker watched as his father left the room. He waited until his father had enough time to get in his truck and leave before he grabbed his cell phone from the desk and headed out the room.
“Riley, I’m not feeling all that great. I’m taking a sick day, so unless someone is dying or there is a riot, it can wait until morning.”
Riley nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He drove to Aubree’s parents’ house and saw her struggling with a bag of feed. He went to her and she glanced over at him.
“If you’re here to arrest me, it’s going to have to wait until I’ve fed all the animals.”
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t say anything as she dumped the bag in a large black trashcan. She tossed the empty bag aside and grabbed another full bag of feed.
“Can I be real with you?” Parker asked. “I’m scared of messing up, Aubree. I told you I don’t have anything to offer you. It pisses me off because I promised myself a long time ago that I would. I would work hard until I did.”
She cut the top of the bag and stuffed the scissors in her back pocket. “What do you want to offer me, Parker? I have just about everything I want. What I don’t have is you.”
“Why do you want me?” He scoffed. “I’m nothing great.”
She dumped the bag and tossed it. “No, you’re nothing great. You’re a pain in the ass most days. Especially today.”
“And you still want me.”
“I still want you.” She wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. “I want you to talk to someone, get help for the issues that are eating you up inside. I’m not trying to fix you, but I want you to trust me enough to let me in on the flaws. I know you’re not perfect. I don’t want you to be.”
He glanced around. “Can we talk?”
“We are talking.”
“No. I mean really talk.”
She nodded. “Let me get this done and I’m all yours.”
He watched as she dragged the trashcans into the barn. He waited while she fed the animals. Afterward, she came outside the gate and dusted her hands off on her pants.
“Momma and Daddy are gone. We can sit on the front porch.”
He followed her to the swing. Once he sat down, he contemplated what to say. “The root of the nightmares is from my last tour in the army. We’d gone to a really bad place, one that was filled with constant fighting and explosions. I saw a lot there I wished I hadn’t seen.” He rubbed his eyes. “Anyway, there are some pretty gruesome images that stick in my mind. I don’t really want to go into detail, but they’re pretty hard to live with. I couldn’t do anything about the situations that happened too, and that’s the part that sucked.”
She reached for his hand. “You can’t save the world, Parker. You did what you were there to do and you came back home alive.”
“A lot of my friends didn’t though.”
She turned toward him, giving him her full attention. Her fingers linked with his and he liked the closeness between them. He liked that he could sit next to her and she didn’t try to explain it all away. She didn’t try to tell him how to feel. She simply listened to him to understand and not necessarily to respond.
“For a long time, I thought about what it would have been like if I had been one of those guys.” He propped his arm up on the back of the swing. “I thought about you all the time. Most days, I credit you to saving my life. You were what I lived for. You were what made it all worth it.”
He blew out a breath. “And then you didn’t come to see me.” He gave a shallow laugh. “I don’t know what I thought, but I wanted you there. That’s when I started to feel alone. I’d go overseas and come back. My dad always greeted me. He’d fly in no matter where I went or how much money it cost. Your parents came too when I got closer to Texas.”
Parker remembered the welcome home party they threw him at the ranch. He kept looking for Aubree, but she never showed. “I just really wanted you to be there.” Parker glanced away. “Anyway, when I came home for good, I got into some financial trouble. My insurance was for shit and the psych they gave me wasn’t doing a damn thing but taking my money. They thought medicine would make my problems go away, but it only made my issues worse. He gave me sleeping pills, and I woke up during the night not knowing who I was or where I was. That’s how I pulled a gun on Colton. I think everyone felt sorry for me during that time. It was hard for me to get back in the swing of things. I slept with a gun under my pillow and jumped at every little noise I heard. I finally bought my house and tried to show people I was capable of living on my own. I got the job as Sheriff out of pity and lack of other willing candidates. That little bit definitely makes me a real winner.”
He shook his head. “And my relationship with Sophie was just something to pass the time. I didn’t intend on it getting serious, but she clearly had other ideas. That embarrassment on the front lawn was another strike to the winning category.” He finally looked over at her. “I think that’s it. My fucked up life wrapped in a pretty little bow.”
She rubbed his shoulder. “Why do you feel the need to impress me?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Aubree. Nothing ever seemed good enough for you. I don’t feel good enough for you.”
“Well, let me tell you my story.” Aubree took a deep breath. “I knew you hated living in the city. I knew you were so damn close to asking me to marry you, and I knew I would have said yes. So instead of being an adult about my problems and talking it out, I wanted you to hate me. I wanted to you despise me so you didn’t want to be with me anymore. I knew you loved that damn car, so I rolled it in to the lake. I got my wish too. You were mad.”
Parker smiled at the memory.
“Anyway, I moved to Dallas. Cried myself to sleep every night feeling like I’d made a horrible mistake. I begged my Daddy to come get me a few times.” She blinked at the memory. “I tried to get my mind off you. I tried dating other men, and it really did not work out well. So I focused on work. I worked my ass off even though I didn’t receive credit. I worked my ass off even though I was seen as inferior. There was so much sexual harassment going on at the place I did my internship, but I knew if I didn’t finish it, I’d never land a job. Experience and networking are what makes you visible in my field. I cried so many times wanting to give up. My dad told me that he and Tom would shoot the men giving me trouble. I really thought they were serious too.”
She stared at their linked fi
ngers. “But I finally interviewed for a position where my boss considered my abilities. My boss actually mentored me on how to make it in the corporate world. Nothing was easy, but I started to finally feel like I’d accomplished something.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what you think about me, but I’m the one that struggles with insecurities. The first night I spent with you, I hated the idea that I didn’t bring makeup or even a toothbrush with me to your house. I mean, you’ve seen me at my worst more than once, but I wanted to impress you. I wanted you to think I was worthy of your time.”
He cupped the back of her head and kissed her hard. His lips smashed against hers as he pulled her to him. She was everything he ever wanted. How could she not know that? “I took today off.” He pulled back and stared into her eyes. “Come home with me.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “On one condition: no fighting. Make love not war.”
“No fighting.” He brushed her hair from her cheek. “I’m not going to lie. It scares the shit out of me that you’re leaving in a few days.”
“You’re not going to lose me.” She squeezed his fingers. “I promise.”
“It bugs me that you earn more money than me.”
“You’re not a failure, Parker. Quit cutting yourself down. You helped people in the army. You help people every day. People didn’t run against you because they like the job you’re doing. They trust you and they depend on you. They know you’re a good man. It’s never been a question.”
He nodded. “Can we go home?”
She smiled. “Yes. You go ahead. I need to lock this place up and I’ll follow you.”
Parker leaned over to kiss her before he stood. He didn’t feel the greatest. The effects of little sleep had hit him hard, and he actually wanted to crawl in bed to catch some Z’s. He went home and parked in the drive. His house was nothing special, but it was his. He had to take pride in that. He unlocked the door and went inside.
Halfway to the bedroom, he took his clothes off. Once he finally reached his bed, he fell face first, naked. He vaguely heard Aubree open the front door, but by the time she came to the bedroom he was out.
