“I see.”
“I was planning on getting some takeout. Are you interested in that?”
Her expression brightened. “I could call for pizza or some sandwiches.”
He couldn’t figure it out. Why was she here? And then it struck him that he really didn’t care what the reason was. She was here. With him. Even if she wasn’t with him in the way he remembered.
He’d thought about Julie so much over the last ten years that it seemed a bit surreal, and a bit like old times all rolled up into one to be sitting there talking to her now. And she wasn’t running away. She’d come to him. They’d have time to talk. About what he didn’t care. They’d sit together and talk here or at some restaurant in town.
He wanted to know the truth. He wanted to know what happened with the baby they’d made together. But he wouldn’t force the issue tonight. He’d wait and the answers would come later when she trusted him again.
The man she’d fled from was gone. Hunter wanted her to know the man he was today. She’d fallen for a cowboy who was young and stupid and full of imperfections. But he wasn’t that guy anymore. He wasn’t a rodeo man who had been injured and fallen into drugs because of pain.
Maybe Julie wouldn’t love the man Hunter was today. Maybe she wouldn’t even like him. People change. But he desperately wanted to show her that he was more than just the mess of a man she’d run away from ten years ago when she was scared and pregnant.
Of course, some messes never went away. His apartment did look a bit like a bachelor dump. How is it that he never noticed it before?
“I have some menus from a few of the local places in town. They’re in the kitchen drawer underneath the silverware tray. Choose whatever you’d like. I don’t care what we get. I get food from all of them because I don’t cook.”
Her smile grew wide with the invitation. “Okay.”
“I’m just going to take a quick shower. I won’t be long.”
* * *
Hunter disappeared into the bedroom. Julie didn’t see another door so she assumed the bathroom was located inside his bedroom.
She’d never been to his apartment before. When they’d been together, he’d lived in the bunkhouse at the Lone Creek Ranch. She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d gotten his address from Brody after stopping by the Lone Creek Ranch.
She looked around as she made her way to the kitchen. It looked a lot like her brother’s apartment. Small. Simple. Void of color. What was it about men and color? They put either white or blue in their apartments.
Caleb had told her earlier that Katie was thinking of going to design school. It’s funny that she’d forgotten that about Katie. The two of them had talked about fashion and decorating their rooms when they would ride. That and boys. They’d talked a lot about some of the guys they knew from school.
Hockey and rodeo was the thing back then. She was sure it still was. Caleb said there was still a group of guys they’d gone to high school with who got together and played hockey on one of the frozen ponds as they used to do when they were younger.
There was no hockey now during the summer months. This time of the year it was all rodeo. Hunter used to talk about it all the time. He’d loved it. And he’d missed it after he’d gotten a shoulder injury that had kept him from riding. He didn’t seem bothered by the injury now. Maybe he’d had therapy or surgery to correct it.
She rummaged through the kitchen drawers until she found the silverware drawer that held the restaurant menus. She wasn’t hungry. Not really. She just didn’t want to be alone.
No, that’s not it. Not entirely anyway. She’d been alone many times. She wanted to be with Hunter. That surprised her more than she wanted to admit because she’d spent the last ten years wanting to eradicate him from her mind. She wanted to forget the pain that had caused her to turn into herself and run away.
It had been an epic failure to even try and something Dr. Matthews admonished her for every time she didn’t want to talk about the past.
He had changed in all the ways that she’d imagined him to be when Julie had known Hunter years ago. She had been instantly attracted to him the moment she and Katie had gone to the Lone Creek Ranch for riding lessons with Trip Taggart. Hunter was a ruggedly handsome older man by nearly ten years, something that also attracted the wildness in her as a teenager. And he’d had plenty of stories of his time on the rodeo circuit.
Back then, Julie and a few of her friends loved to talk about the up-and-coming bull riders and bronc riders on the circuit. Hunter wasn’t in a position to win a championship, but he was good, he’d made some money, and he was starting to be noticed on the circuit. She’d been starry-eyed and young and had fallen for him instantly when she’d seen him haying the fields with one of the other ranch hands.
His shirt had been soaked with sweat and his hair and face were filled with hay clippings from picking up bales and tossing them into the flatbed truck. But when she’d seen him their eyes locked and he held her gaze as she’d rode past them on the horse trail she and Katie had been riding.
Of course, Julie and Katie had made it their mission to find out who these ranch hands were. She hadn’t known about Hunter’s shoulder injury or that he’d been fighting through the pain on the circuit after he couldn’t get any more pain medication for it. He hadn’t had health insurance so he couldn’t afford the
