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“Spencer,” she called after him.
“Go,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s fine. Go home and pack. I’ve got the shop today.” He left the shoppe through the blue door and headed across the parking lot, the humidity today enough to drown a man who simply dared to breathe.
“What should I do?” he asked the fenceposts, the blue sky, and the Lord above.
None of them answered him.
* * *
Foolishness and SpencerRust were great friends. They spent so much time together that he knew instantly when he’d done or said something he shouldn’t.
“Shouldn’t have said anything about her leaving town,” he muttered to himself as he stared at the ceiling the following Monday morning. The sun hadn’t quite lightened the day, and his alarm hadn’t gone off. “Just like you shouldn’t have kissed her. Shouldn’t have taken her to dinner. Shouldn’t have started talking to her and flirting with her and thinking you might have a future with Clarissa Cooper.”
His alarm rang, and he reached over to silence it. With a sigh, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, wishing he had a dog to keep him company in this new, strange house. It wasn’t quite a cabin, but it wasn’t the cottage Clarissa had called it either. The truth was, Spencer didn’t know what much of anything was right now.
They’d had a few great weeks together. That didn’t mean they’d fallen in love, though Spencer tended to know early on in a relationship if it was going to work or not. He’d had a good feeling about Clarissa, and he’d spent a lot of time while she’d been in San Antonio for six days thinking about their last attempt at a relationship.
He’d been far younger and completely incapable of having a real, committed relationship with a woman. He was ready now. He thought she was too. He wanted them to at leasttry, and if he hadn’t said anything, maybe they could’ve at least had a long-distance relationship where they flirted over chats and texts and he got to see her on weekends when she came back to the farm.
Foolishness accompanied him through his shower, through getting dressed, drinking coffee, and making the ten-second walk from his back door to her front one.
Chefs worked weekends, after all. Once she left, she wasn’t coming back.
Clarissa bent over the trunk of her car, with at least half a dozen boxes on the ground next to her. “There’s no way you’re getting all of that in your car,” he said, and foolishness flooded him again.
Clarissa gasped and spun toward him, her eyes wide. “Oh. Spencer.”
“Sorry,” he said, still walking toward her. He saw the full back seat and the depth of the trunk, and he’d definitely spoken true.
“Daddy’s going to bring some stuff,” she said. “I’m just deciding what I have to have right now and what I can leave.”
Spencer looked toward the house, but he didn’t see her father or any of her brothers. His heart pounded, but he had to take the risk. He’d never gotten anywhere by sitting quietly on the sidelines.
“Some of this is going back inside,” she said, toeing the nearest box. “Maybe you could use some of those pretty muscles to haul it away?” She grinned at him in such a flirty way that fed Spencer’s bravery.
Instead of bending to pick up a box, he closed the distance between him and Clarissa, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. He poured absolutely everything into each stroke, almost desperate for her to feel what he’d felt these past few days.
“Don’t go,” he whispered, his lips catching against hers he lingered so close. He pulled away fully and met her eye. “Give us a chance. Let’s just take a chance.”
Clarissa at least had the decency to wear an apologetic look, and Spencer backed up fast. She didn’t even have to say a word for him to know what was on her mind, and he dropped his chin to his chest so he could use his cowboy hat to hide his humiliation.
Without another word, he bent, picked up one of her boxes, and went inside her house.
Thirty minutes later, she clung to her father while he watched from the corner of his cabin. He didn’t need to say good-bye—that kiss had said everything.
And it still wasn’t good enough.Hestill wasn’t good enough to get a woman to choose him over something else. He’d never lost to a job, and he’d now reached a new low in his life.
A dairy farm didn’t care about his personal life, and he still had chickens to feed and stalls to shovel out. He needed to make all the spreadable cheeses that morning too, and as he went about his tasks, he could hear Clarissa’s sweet voice accompanying him every step of the way.
Women had affected him like this at Hope Eternal Ranch too, and he really just wanted to get in his truck and drive until he crossed the Texas state line.
Instead, he finished his chores and stepped into the shoppe, which screamed Clarissa to him, right down to the hand-lettered menu board behind the ice cream counter.
“You tried,” he said to the empty shop. He was proud of himself for that, and he wasn’t going to hang his head because this second summer fling hadn’t turned out to be as much as he’d hoped it would be. He just wished his heart wouldn’t hurt quite so much and that the negative voices in his head weren’t quite so loud.
