AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you were, I wouldn’t even be here right now,” she said solemnly.
“I would never do that to you.”
“Good.”
Part of him wanted to wait until he had the horse rescue ranch or at the very least a home base, but he realized that he was tired of waiting for good things in his life. He wanted her and for some reason, she wanted him. “I just don’t want to break your heart if things don’t work out.”
“I don’t want to break your heart either,” she countered.
“You really are a pain in the ass—you know that?” he said, with grudging admiration.
“Thank you. Now, you can pay the bill this time. I’m getting it next time, though.”
He opened his mouth to argue.
“No,” she said, stuffing a forkful of cheesecake into his mouth. “And if either one of us is too stretched until the next rodeo, we do something that doesn’t cost a lot of money.”
It sounded too good to be true. He’d get to know her better and they could spend more time together. She knew not to expect much from him so the chance that he’d let her down was reduced.
“You can trust me, LeAnn,” he said after he swallowed the cheesecake. “I’ll never pressure you to do anything you don’t want to.”
She covered her hand with his. “And I’ll never pressure you to do anything you don’t want to.” LeAnn dug around in her purse and pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“We’re going to set down some rules and guidelines, so you don’t have to worry about anything.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not worried.”
“Well, then let’s just call this managing expectations. We’ve already talked about sex. We’re mutually exclusive. That’s a hard rule.”
“Agreed,” he said, watching as she wrote that down with her chicken-scratch handwriting.
“Two… We should share at least one meal a day together unless we’re busy or in another state.”
He nodded. “That seems reasonable.”
She looked up at him. “I don’t think it’s any of our parents’ business if we’re dating, but I’m not going to keep it a secret. I’m done with lying and hiding things.”
“I don’t speak with my parents that often,” he said. “But I might have to in the next few weeks if things don’t pan out for me. They’ll probably want to see me in person. Do you want to come with me?”
“Yes, please,” she said. “I’d love to meet your parents.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. They’re not like your parents.”
“That might be a good thing,” she said.
“I disagree, but I suppose the grass always looks greener on the other side. They were pretty much the exact opposite of your parents in every way. They were happy to foist me off on my uncle.”
“Why?”
Dylan played with his straw in his drink. “I had a brother who died when he was sixteen.”
Placing a hand over her heart, LeAnn gasped. “I’m so sorry.”
“His name was Danny. He was six years older than me, and I idolized him. But after he died, my parents just checked out. He crashed his new car. The cops said he had been going too fast around a corner and just lost control of it.”
“That’s awful.”
