LUCKILY for me Cyrus had washed, dried, and folded all my clothes before I woke up so I had something clean to wear. But that wasn’t enough, apparently, because he wanted me to agree to let him pick me up a few things.
“Like?” I asked as I was watching him shove clothes into an overnight bag for the weekend.
“Underwear,” he teased me. “T-shirts, socks. You love to run. What are you planning to run in while you’re here? I didn’t find any basketball shorts or anything else. You don’t even have any shoes other than your boots, which have holes in them.”
I squinted at him. “Maybe I should just stay here while you guys—”
“No.” He shook his head. “There’s a mall on the way out of town. Just don’t give me your usual crap and simply agree to let me get you some staples, okay? Please.”
I shrugged. “As long as I can pay you back.”
“But if you pay me back, then we’re on your budget and not mine, and I hate that.”
“This is your only option,” I said flatly. “Either I keep the receipt so I know what I owe you or we’re not goin’.”
“Why? Why do only you get a say?”
“Because I’m a goddamn grown-up, that’s why,” I snapped at him. “For crissakes, Cy, why are we even fightin’ about this?”
“Stop,” he snarled back at me, whirling around to face me, fuming. “You always do this. You always turn it into a money thing, and it’s not. This has nothing to do with money and everything to do with your stupid fucking pride.”
“You do not take care of me,” I told him, shaking my head. “I take care of me. Period.”
“No, not period,” he almost yelled, which surprised me.
He usually gave in, afraid I’d leave, and I played that card and threatened him to get him to back down. But this time was different because of his sister and because of the boys. He knew he had me, and my honor would never let me leave. I had given my word—unlike with Aidan or his brother in Alaska. Only Carolyn had pressed until she got it.
“You’re not going anywhere, at least not for two weeks, so if I want you to have new jeans since yours all have holes in them, I’ll get them for you. Whatever I want, I’ll get, and you’ll just take it because you have to.”
“I ain’t no doll for you to dress.”
“Why do you always have to fight with me?” he roared, stalking from the room, sputtering with fury.
I sat down hard on the end of the bed and waited.
Minutes later he was back.
I arched an eyebrow for him.
“No one ever makes me as angry as you do.”
“No one else even makes you angry at all, I reckon.” I grinned at him.
He thought about it a minute, and the look I got, full of amazement, made me laugh.
“Jesus, that’s true. You’re the only one who can get a rise out of me.”
I couldn’t stifle the snickering. “Come here.”
“Let me get you some things, all right? Not a lot, I won’t go nuts.”
“Swear.”
“I do.”
I nodded and waved him over to me.
He ran and leaped and I went down under a hundred and sixty-five pounds of very happy, carved, toned neurosurgeon.
In the car, or Carolyn’s huge-ass boat of an SUV, I stretched out in the back as Cyrus rode shotgun next to his sister.
Since Cy said my boots needed to be resoled—and he was right, they did—we dropped them off on the way, then drove to the mall with me in a pair of rubber galoshes that was all they had at the shoe repair place that we could buy for me to walk back out in. The first order of business was to get me some new footwear.
The boots at the department stores would not make it a week on the range so I passed. But I got a pair of running shoes and a pair of heavy hiking boots because the leather was thick and the sole was sewn on and not glued, which made it more durable. I had left my cowboy hat at Cy’s place, but my head was cold, and I felt naked without it. He got me a wool beanie.
“This is gonna fix things?” I asked him as he wrapped a scarf around my neck and his sister helped me on with a peacoat.
“Yes.” He beamed at me. “You look good. That coat is hot.”
I glowered at him.
“What? It is.”
“It’s a coat,” I grumbled.
“Can I get you dress shoes?”
“No.”
“Just a pair of black lace-ups to keep at my house?”
“No.”
“Please. You’ll need them.”
“For what?”
“I have a dinner to go to while you’re here.”
“I’ll stay home.”
His eyes softened.
“I mean, I’ll stay at your house.”
“You said ‘home’.”
“You know what I meant.”
“It was nice, how it sounded.”
“Oh for crissakes, Cy, you know I would stick around if there was shit I could do in San Francisco, but there ain’t, and I won’t live on you and be a whore!”
“Jesus,” Carolyn gasped.
“Shit,” I muttered because I forgot she was there as well as where I was.
“Letting me take care of you would not make you a whore,” Cy said tightly, his jaw clenched.
“But if I can’t provide for myself, I can’t respect myself. And how can you respect me if I don’t? It won’t work, and you’d come to hate me.”
He shook his head.
“You would,” I assured him. “And I won’t take that chance.”
“Why?”
I leveled my gaze at him. “I just won’t.”
He sighed heavily. “Well, I want you at that party with me, you stubborn piece of crap, so I’ll get the shoes, you wear them, and I’ll keep them.
