“Apparently Ryder and Sammy didn’t think so.”
“They’re different,” he said. “Anyway. Sammy wanted a baby.”
“So, I got the feeling that whatever happened with them wasn’t really...that kind of thing.”
“I haven’t put that much thought into it,” he said.
“I didn’t want to. But seeing as I walked in on them, and there’s not enough bleach for my brain. But I don’t think of you as a brother. I never have, really. I mean, I feel... I guess I feel safe with you. I always have. You... I don’t know. Like I said earlier. There is an inevitability to it. A certainty. I’ve always felt that way about you. Like you would always be there for me no matter what. Like I was safe with you.” She blinked. “I know it sounds silly, Logan, but that kiss brought a lot of stuff up to the surface for me. And it’s not really about being horrified that it’s you. At first it was. When I started noticing you. After the... After you touched me in the barn.”
“You keep making it sound like I did something really inappropriate,” he growled. “I put a hand on your face.”
“I felt it everywhere. Doesn’t that tell you something about how I feel? Yeah, it kind of blew my mind. Because I didn’t look at you that way. Because you were always a man. But somewhere in there I became a woman, and I just never changed the way that I was looking at you. But then... Then I did. And now it is what it is. I want you. And more than that, I know what it is to want somebody. But it has also forced me to confront some of the crap that I have, the...the reasons I don’t like to think about my own feelings.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I just couldn’t? Because if I did, then it would ruin everything for everyone else. I just didn’t want to be a burden. But I just was one by default. My parents had me because they chose to. I never question whether or not they wanted to take care of me. It was their life. Our life. Ryder didn’t choose me. Neither did you. Or Iris, or Pansy. Colt or Jake. I was just this little...useless thing. And I don’t like thinking about it. I don’t like feeling lonely, and I don’t like feeling needy. But sometimes I think I just am. I don’t know how to have all those feelings and not be a burden on somebody else. I’ve tried to not...ask for too much or want too much. I’ve tried to... I’ve tried to help. I never wanted to take more than I already had just by being young. So when you needed bandages... I bandaged you.”
The sadness in her voice, the depth of it, made him feel like he had fallen on that poker and driven it right through his chest. “We make you feel like a burden?”
“No,” she said. “You never would have. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t afraid. And thinking about...men and relationships and all of that...it brings all that up for me. Plus...”
“What?”
“I can’t be settled. I can’t be with somebody before Iris.”
“Why, because you’re younger?”
She said, “I mean, I can’t leave her to be the last one in the house without someone. And I just... I wanted to fix that. And I thought, I can deal with my feelings later, but maybe I can’t. And... I think I need help. And you promised.”
“You lost the best. It was supposed to be your concession, if I let you off the hook you should just...let me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Rose,” he said, feeling weary and defeated.
Because the woman he wanted more than any other was begging him to take her to bed, but the reasons were all wrong. The problem was the right reasons didn’t really exist. Not between the two of them. Because he could not offer her forever, and Rose was the kind of woman who should have it.
That thought stopped cold in his head.
That was just a thing he’d been telling himself to keep from touching her, but the truth was... Rose would sleep with more than one man.
Of course she would. He didn’t expect her to marry the first man who touched her. She was an all-in, both boots in the mud kind of woman. She harbored real insecurities in her heart, and she’d shared those with him today. Had told him she felt like it had kept her from dating, but he knew her.
When she did date, the guy would kiss her and she’d shove him into the bedroom. Maybe just to see. To satisfy curiosity.
It was how she was.
A doer.
What she deserved was a man she could trust. A man who cared about her. A man who would show her what good sex was so she never settled for less.
A man who satisfied her curiosity to the fullest extent and then some.
Damn, the thought of it made him ache. All the ways he could satisfy Rose Daniels.
The idea she deserved marriage with sex had kept him away from her. Kept her safe. But he’d just demolished that with a healthy dose of reality.
It would be some man, someday.
Why not him?
He wanted her.
She wasn’t perfect. She was a snarling little brat sometimes. She’d been terrible to Barbara. She’d gotten pissed off and said horrible things to him. And that didn’t make him see her as less. But it made him see her as a person. Just a woman, and not one who needed to be set up on a shelf.
Human, just like he was.
She made mistakes, and she’d make more.
And couldn’t he be part of her mistakes?
Why the hell not? Why couldn’t he give her this? Why couldn’t he give himself this?
He didn’t have the strength to say no. Because he was just a man.
“Come to my place after this,” he said, the words scraping his throat raw.
But they were spoken,
