“I messed things up today.”
“With Billy?”
“Yeah, with Billy.”
He put his arm around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Jace, but Billy has been…a significant part of my world for most of my life.”
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“You love him.”
“More than anything.”
“This thing with us, what do you think that’s all about?”
“I like you Jace, very much. I love Billy, but I like you, and I’m attracted to you. I’m not sure what that says about me.”
He turned her in his arms, so she was facing him.
“You can’t ignore it. At the very least, you need to figure out why.”
“Why what?”
“There must be something that’s missing with Billy that you find with me. I’m not saying this because I’m crazy about you. Even if I walk away from you right now and never look back, you’ll still need to figure out this thing with Patterson.”
“You’re being awfully nice about this.”
“Yeah, I care about you…there, I admitted it,” he teased.
“It’s that thing, you know, the nothing ever bothers you thing.”
“As I’ve told you before, this bothers me, a lot. But, there isn’t much I can do about it. If he didn’t mean something to you, you wouldn’t be out here fretting about it.”
She turned so her back was to him, but he kept his arms around her waist.
She saw a truck coming down one of the ranch roads, but didn’t pay much attention to it. The Rice family employed a lot of ranch hands. It wasn’t unusual to see a truck or two out on the back roads.
As it got closer, she realized it was on the main road, and it was heading toward Ben’s place. Something about it didn’t feel right, and she stiffened.
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know. Something about that truck…”
“Maybe you should say something to Ben.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
She turned away from Jace and dug out her cell phone.
We need to talk, she texted Billy.
I know we do, he answered.
Where are you?
Here.