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“Why, Bailey?”
“Everyone had friends,” she snapped, “at the school my grandfather sent me to. I didn’t, and wasn’t that good at making them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I did okay, and then I got a scholarship to Juilliard, and was with people like me.”
“Like you?”
“Focused, dedicated... maybe a bit different.”
“And you loved that?”
“Of course.” She’d liked parts of it. The music and the being away from her grandfather and mother. She’d hated that Joe wasn’t there, because even two years after she’d left him, she still pined for him. She’d been a foolish girl to do so, but when you were lonely, and your life not that happy, you clung to what had once made you that way.
“Truth?”
She smiled at his word. They’d spoken that way to each other once. Both knowing when the other lied.
“Partially.”
He snorted at that.
“And you don’t want to explain further?”
“So your family own this, and the bar?” Bailey changed the subject.
“I own the bar, but the family owns this, and the cafe, plus property in town. We started acquiring a few years after I came back.”
She wanted to know where he’d been before he’d come back, but then if she asked him questions, he had the right to do that as well, and Bailey didn’t want to talk about her life.
“You’re a woman, right?”
“I beg your pardon?” Bailey turned to face him, surprised at his words, and there he was again. Big, sexy Joe Trainer.
“You didn’t ask the question.”
“What question?” She made herself face forward and look between the horse’s ears.
“Most of the women I know would want to dissect where I’d been. And the girl you were would have asked at least five questions by now.”
“You make me sound nosy, and I object to the generalization that women are too.”
“You were always curious. You started off shy, but that didn’t last long once we got to know each other. I’d never met anyone with such an insatiable thirst for knowledge like you had.”
“It’s been years, Joe. I’ve changed, just like you. Besides, I like my privacy, which makes me respect yours.”
“I can’t imagine privacy was something you had a lot of while you were performing.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Tell me about your life, Bailey. What put those shadows in your eyes? Maybe like you once did for me, I can help you?”
“Thank you, but I don’t need help.” She turned again to look at him and found his eyes focused on her lips.
Chapter 10
“It’s a hard line to take to not let anyone in, Bailey. A hard, lonely road. I know, I’ve travelled it a time or two.”
