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The words came out before I even knew they were going to, and the look I got from Jasper as he turned to face me made my blood boil even more. He thought he could intimidate me into shutting up. It had the opposite effect.
“If a woman wants to save herself for marriage, that’s her choice to make,” I said. “Just as it would be her choice if she slept with every guy in town.”
“None of us have a right to control our daughters,” my manager on the logging crew, Buddy, spoke up to say. “All we can do is raise them well, then let them make their own decisions.”
“He’s right,” Claire, who worked at the post office, said. “There’s no reason to ever ask a woman’s doctor to check that her hymen is still there.”
That was a record-scratch moment if I’d ever heard one. The air in the room got really thick, and Jasper’s face grew grim and dark.
“That’s a nasty rumor,” Jasper said. “And we’re ending that right here and now.”
“Dad didn’t do that,” Bo said, backing his father up. “But he did plenty of actual things. And that’s what I’m calling him on. It stops here. We can’t change the past, but we can end this today.”
He turned back to face his father. I glanced over at Tucker, who was staring down at the floor now. He looked just about as uncomfortable as I felt.
“You apologize to both Abbie and Maverick,” Bo said to his dad. “Maverick’s my buddy. He’s been good to me. He deserves respect.”
“He saved my life.”
That came from Tucker, who’d lifted his head and was staring across the room at the guys. Like everyone else, my attention turned to him. He seemed to shrink under the scrutiny.
All he did was shrug, but there was a story there. I just hoped I’d get to hear it someday.
“Fine,” Jasper Phillips said. “You’re right. I apologize to everyone here for my comments. They were inappropriate. I guess I have some work to do on myself.”
“Sure do,” Bo said. “We all do, though, right?”
Nods all around. But my attention was no longer on the drama in front of me. I didn’t know how long she’d been standing there or how much she’d heard of the conversation, but Addison was in the room.
And she was staring straight at me.
7
ADDISON
My plan was to try to get a few minutes alone with Brody. I could fix this. I was sure of it. But we had to see the bride and groom off first.
And then, people were starting to clear out. But Brody stuck around. I stayed not too far away, keeping an eye on him.
When he made his way over to me, my heart soared. And then he looked down at me with that intense stare that made me feel like the only woman in the world.
“Do you want to go somewhere and talk?” he asked.
I nodded. The room was clearing out, but there were still plenty of people around.
“Come with me.”
He reached out and took my hand. I was surprised how nice it felt to have his big, strong hand surrounding mine. It felt right. Meant to be.
He led me down the hallway, but instead of turning off into one of the bedrooms, he went all the way to the end of the hall. He opened a door that led into what looked like a closet, but as I turned around, I saw buttons on the wall by the door.
It was an elevator. Not the kind in a commercial building, though. It was more like a closet that moved.
Did anybody even know this was back here? Maybe that was the point. We’d get time to talk without being interrupted.
“You were going to give your virginity to me,” he said as soon as the door was closed.
He stood in front of me, arms crossed over his chest. Again, those muscles strained the seams of the suit jacket. Damn, he was sexy. I couldn’t help but think about how close I’d gotten to getting him naked.
