Page 10 of Catch Me, Cowboy
His mouth tightened, but he stayed where he was as the bartender approached. “Hey, Wade,” he said. “Give the lady some room.”
Wade let out a loud sigh and grudgingly stepped back so the Shelby no longer had to lean to the side. Moments later he had his beer and lumbered off without another word.
“See,” Ty said. “Changed man. I didn’t do one thing to adjust his attitude.”
Shelby frowned at him. “Somehow I don’t think so. I think you just pick your fights better.” She looked across the room at the table where she’d been sitting when he came into the bar. Cassie Johnson sat there and she raised her chin in a little gesture of support. He was the enemy.
“You don’t need back up,” he said when Shelby turned her attention back to him.
Color crept into her smooth cheeks, but she didn’t deny that she’d been seeking moral support from her friend. He shifted his weight, turning his profile to her before looking at her again. “I understand that I hurt you, but things couldn’t have played out any other way back then.”
“Bull.”
“Okay. Maybe I could have stayed here… but maybe you could have come with me.” Shelby started slowly shaking her head and he allowed himself a faint smile, because the point was irrefutable. “You did what you had to do and I did what I had to do. It didn’t mean we didn’t care for one another.”
“Just not enough, right?”
He moved a half step closer as a group of people squeezed into the area behind him and a guy accidentally elbowed him. “Maybe I cared too much to screw up your life while I dealt with the issues in mine.” Shelby’s chin rose, but he continued before she could speak. “Maybe I did what was best for both of us.”
“Or maybe what was best for you.”
“And maybe that was fourfuckingyears ago and we’ve both changed.” He leaned even closer then, so that the guy jostling him from behind wouldn’t get every word. He would have asked her to leave the bar to talk in the parking lot, but had a very strong feeling that she wouldn’t go. She wanted the crowd. “I was too young to settle down. I had things to do. Stuff to prove. Yes, I could have stayed, but we wouldn’t have made it.” And it was so damned hard to get those words out. Ty did not, as a rule, talk about the things that ate at him.
“So the end result is the same, Ty. We’re not together.”
She spoke coolly, but Ty read the tension in her expression. She was pissed as hell at him, but she was not indifferent. And that was a good thing, because indifference would have killed him. Anger he could deal with.
“So you’re telling me that all hope is dead.”
“You killed it when you left.”
The guy behind Ty bumped into him yet again, this time almost pushing him into Shelby’s lap. She jerked her upper body back, her breath catching as Ty regained his balance and took his hand off her thigh.
“Are you sure it’s dead?” Because she was most definitely reacting to him.
She gave him a delicate sneer. “You have an ego, Ty. I’ll give you that. I wanted to talk with you tonight to set things straight, and I wanted people to see me do it, so they will stop telling me you’re back in town.” She slid off the barstool and raised her chin so that she could hold his gaze. “For the record, we arenotgetting back together, and if thathadn’tbeen your intentions, then I misread the situation and I apologize.”
“You didn’t misread.” Not one bit. “And you’ve made your feelings on the matter damned clear.”
“I’m glad we understand each other.”
“We don’t.” He stated the simple truth.
Jostling guy hit him again and Ty gave him a quick elbow without breaking his gaze with Shelby and the man gave a low grunt. A guy could only take so much.
“Ty… I don’t want to feel uncomfortable in my own town. If we see each other, we’ll be civil. Right?”
“Pretend friends.”
Her jaw muscles tightened. “If that’s what you want. Eventually it’ll feel more… normal… when we run into one another.”
Dream on.
Ty didn’t dare say the words out loud. “Then I guess I’ll see you around.”
She gave him a tight smile before edging her way by him. “Yes. I guess you will.”
*
