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And from the way they were both looking at me?
I was starting to wonder if they might just let me.
Chapter 3
Boone
“I know what you’re thinking,” Cade said, looking over at me from the corner of his eye as he turned onto the dirt road that led to the Triple J Ranch. “And you’re wrong, just for the record.”
I laughed. “Am I?” He was keeping his eyes on the road, but I still hoped he could tell from the tone of my voice that I knew exactly what he was up to. “So we’re not driving a hundred miles out of the way just so you can have an excuse to spend a little time with Janessa Thoreson? Because I know you’re not going to try and tell me it’s because you’re craving some fried chicken.”
The corner of his mouth twitched and I knew I was right. Not that there had been any doubt at all in my mind.
“You’ve gotta admit,” he said, half-shrugging, still clearly trying to hold back a grin, “fried chicken sounds pretty damn good right now. I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving,” I shot back. Again, nothing but the truth. “Seriously, though, Cade. She’s too young. We both know it. So I don’t know how anything good is going to come from us following her home like a couple of lost puppy dogs.”
His smile finally broke free. “Do you always have to be the rational one? Can’t you just stop worrying and have a little fun every once in a while?”
I didn’t bother responding to the little dig at my personality. One of us had to be responsible, right? And I knew from a lifetime of experience that it sure as hell wasn’t going to be my buddy Cade. He just wasn’t wired that way. He wore his heart on his sleeve and was always looking for a new adventure.
And when it came to women?
Yeah… he let his dick do the thinking all the time. That sort of thing might have been funny when we were in our twenties, but damn. We were a lot closer to forty than twenty these days, and I wouldn’t always be around to bail him out of every boneheaded decision he made.
All that aside, he had a good head for business, and he was closer to me than my own family, so I still tried to cut him some slack every now and then.
But not with Janessa Thoreson.
I just couldn’t.
“I know how to have fun,” I said, finally replying in spite of myself. He knew me as well as I knew him, and that included knowing exactly what buttons to push. “But it’s obvious you want her. Just admit it.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “I’ll admit it when you do. Because it’s obvious you want her, too.”
I opened my mouth to deny it but couldn’t. And even if I had denied it, Cade would’ve known I was lying. We’d both had our eyes on Janessa since she moved back home from college, but there was just no getting around the fact that she was too damn young.
“But it isn’t going to happen,” I said. “We both want her, and she’s too inexperienced to even think about sharing.”
Not that I hadn’t thought about it.
A lot.
Mostly alone in my room with my right hand. But no. There just wasn’t a way that I could see to make it work.
“What are we going to do, then?” Cade asked as we made one last turn onto the long driveway that led up to the house Janessa shared with her uncle. “If I can’t have her and we can’t share?”
“Then neither of us can have her,” I said. “We’re damn sure not going to let a woman come between our friendship. That would just be stupid.”
No matter if the woman in question was so pretty and wholesome and sweet that I hadn’t been able to get her off my mind for weeks.
“Fine,” Cade said, though I could tell he wasn’t very happy with my assessment. “I guess you’re right.” He looked over at me as we parked in front of the house. “So, we have an agreement? Hands off?”
“Hands off.” I nodded.
Now we just had to stick to that agreement.
The delicious smell of fried food was making my stomach rumble as I slowly walked through the Thoresons’ house. The Thoresons were among a handful of large land-owning ranchers left in the county—along with Cade and me—so I’d been to the ranch a few times over the years, but only for business and never left on my own to walk through their actual house.
