Page 47 of Almost Perfect
“You like her.”
My teeth clenched and jaw flexed. “Not exactly news.”
He chuckled, and the urge to bean him with the horse brush rose all the higher.
“I knew you found her attractive. You’re a heterosexual male with a pulse, so that’s basically a given. And I’ve suspected you two got along despite your differences. But youlikingher is just…”
Irritation flared. First, because the insinuation that anyone with a heartbeat who liked women would find Calla attractive meant he did, and there was no reason that should bother me. Second, I didn’t like the way he found it so obvious that we were different. Sure, we had different backgrounds, careers, and ways of keeping house, but in the end, we’d both grown up in Silverton. That was something.
Wasn’t it?
My attempts to logic away the frustration only made me more edgy. “Me liking her is what? Doesn’t mean a thing.”
He crossed his arms and settled into that wide-legged stance that told me he wasn’t going anywhere. “Name the last woman you liked. Actively liked.”
I stared at the brush, wondering if it would do too much damage if I did actually throw it. Solid wood handle, so it could hurt.
With a sigh, I turned back to my job of brushing. “Leo, I guess.”
For some reason, admitting that made a queasy, embarrassed jolt kick at me.
“And now Calla.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. She’s leaving in a matter of—”
“She just extended by two weeks. And I told her to stay as long as she wanted.”
My traitor of a heart picked up its pace again, though it wasn’t like I’d forgotten that she’d said the same hours ago. She wouldn’t be leaving in a matter of days. She was staying.
Not for you, ya sap.
“Good for her.”
Warrick groaned, long and dramatic. “All right, I see how this is going to go, so I’m going to get to it so I can go eat and head out before the storm gets any worse.”
I shot him a look but didn’t speak.
“You can like this woman. You can date her. You can pursue her, even. Hell,courther, since I’m betting that’s the kind of language that flits through that old-timey skull of yours. It doesn’t have to be doomed to fail just because she doesn’t live here.”
When I didn’t respond, he sighed and grumbled something about me being stubborn and seeing me later. I stayed there, smoothing Sheridan’s coat, my thoughts echoing with Warrick’s words.
It doesn’t have to be doomed to fail. Did I think it was doomed? Was that the problem?
That word he used swatted at a tender part of me, something I hadn’t realized was even there until right this second.
Did I thinkeverythingwas doomed? I blinked into the chestnut section of Sheridan and let the question filter down through the layers of my skin, down past muscle and bone and into my very marrow.
God help me.I did.
I thought of my life as destined to end. And not in the way that all people know they’ll die one day, butany minute.These years since I’d started having birthdays my father never did had grated against nature, against reason. I shouldn’t be living so much life he never got to.
I’d buried it deep, but there it sat. Like the sand between my toes I could never stand when we visited the beach—once I realized it was there, it drove me nuts. Had I sabotaged everything because of some buried-deep suspicion that I didn’t deserve to have these days because my dad never did?
I set a hand on Sheridan’s back, my mind a dizzy whirling mess. On the surface, no. I didn’t believe that. And I had a lot to live for—my family, and yes, even my business. But in the recesses of my weary heart?
“Damn, Sher. There it is.” I said it aloud, and Sheridan shifted again, bobbing his head like he agreed.
I’d never expected any of it to work. Not Samantha. Not the dates with the women on the app. None of it. It was why I hadn’t put effort into finding someone when I was younger, even though I’d sworn I wanted a family—even though Ihadwanted it, and desperately.
