Page 5 of The Cowboy Contract
Well… That wasn’t entirely true.
There was one other person he’d never deny. She could have all his time. All his money. He’d give her anything.
Everything.
Too bad it didn’t seem like she wanted any of it.
“Could you be there at five?” Bev shifted Will in her arms, moving the chunky baby from one hip to the other. “That will give us plenty of time to check into our room.”
“Your room?” He lifted his brows. “You didn’t say anything about spending the night with these mongrels.”
“I’m not a mongrel.” Rosemary shoved the whole cheese stick into her mouth, each end stretching her cheeks as she continued talking around it. “Just Will.”
“You are definitely a mongrel.” He turned from his niece to his sister, who was still clearly just as sneaky as she’d ever been. The woman knew full-well he would have balked at an overnight, so she omitted that information until he’d already agreed. “You get it from your mother.”
“Did you think we were going to drive home from Billings in the middle of the freaking night?” Beverly lifted her chin, the look in her eyes warning him that he was about to hate whatever was coming out of her mouth next. “Did you have other plans?”
She knew damn well he didn’t have other plans. He never had plans.
But this time it wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d spent nearly his whole shift Friday at The Creekery, thinking Paige would finally bring up that agreement they made all those years ago. He’d helped out around the bar since she’d seemed overwhelmed. Cleaned up spilled drinks and broken glass. Hell, he’d even ordered a special cupcake from Dianna at The Baking Rack and waited outside thinking that would be the moment.
Theirfucking moment.
But it didn’t happen. And he was starting to think maybe it never would.
“Fine.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. “But you owe me.”
“It doesn’t count as owing if you never freaking cash anything in.” Bev’s gaze softened. “You can’t wait for her forever, Lee.”
He hadn’t planned to wait for Paige forever. Just until three days ago.
Her thirty-fifth birthday. The day they’d picked as two dumb kids who didn’t know shit about love or life.
Even back then he’d have given her anything, so when she proclaimed that they should marry each other if they were both still single on her thirty-fifth birthday, he’d agreed immediately. Never once thinking they’d both be single then.
He thought she’d be his way before that.
But then her dad got sick and life got complicated and one year bled into the next. But there had always been an end in sight.
Or so he thought.
“I’ll be at your place at five.” He pointed to Will. “But that thing better not be loaded.”
3
Paige
BLOWING THE HAIR out of her face, Paige crouched down to pull the last load of laundry from the dryer, dumping the socks and T-shirts out into a waiting basket. One day off a week, and it was always spent doing fucking laundry.
Adulthood was so overrated.
Once the dryer was empty, she pulled out the lint screen, scraping the collected fuzz into the trash before sliding the filter back into place and closing the door. Hauling the most dreaded load into the living room of the home she built five years ago, Paige dropped to the sofa and went to work folding a million socks.
This was not where she expected her life to be ten years ago. This wasn’t where she expected her life to be five years ago. This wasn’t even where she expected her life to be last week.
She was supposed to be making plans and finally looking forward to the future.
Instead, she was sitting in her beautiful house, wearing sweats, a ratty T-shirt, and mismatched socks, watching the Dakota Johnson version ofPersuasionfor the millionth time. Alone.
