Summer Love_ A Steamy Small Town Romance Anthology - Piper Rayne Page 0,227

The softness was replaced by the original stoicism. “Where do I fit into that scenario? If you did find time to drive an hour each direction, I’d rather you spend it in your workshop than with me. I don’t want you to lose that part of yourself.”

Her words made sense, but at the same time . . . And then he had the solution.

“Move down here with me.”

She looked stunned by his suggestion. “My job is—”

“Likely ending anyway.”

Though she recoiled at his harsh words, he kept going.

“I’m just saying, if Mom does sell . . .” He gripped her hands tight. “Then move here with me. You can find a job here. Every stock contractor in the state knows you. Anyone would hire you. I’ll go to school, you’ll work, then once I’ve graduated—”

She stopped him with fingers to his mouth. Her eyes remained blank. “That isn’t my dream, Bobby. It’s yours.” She pressed her lips together, her gaze dropping for a second and her fingers lowering. “It’s yours and Bria’s.”

He shook his head. He didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m not a replacement for the woman you’ve always wanted,” she told him, picking her bag back up off the floor. “I’m not a stand-in, and I refuse to ever be one. Also, I have my own plans for my life.”

“And what? Those plans can’t include me?”

Fire flashed in her eyes. “What they won’t include is me sitting around, waiting for you, only to see if you might someday still want me. Go back to Bria, Bobby. Live out the life you’ve always planned.”

Fury grew inside him. “Don’t do it, Jewel. Don’t walk out that door.”

“Or what?”

He shook his head. Too many years of letting Bria yank him back and forth finally caught up with him. “I’m not going to have another relationship that runs hot and cold. If you walk away now . . . I won’t be waiting for you if you change your mind.”

She laughed, the sound hitting him like a bucket of cold water. “I’m not asking you to wait for me, Bobby. This is not me suggesting a break. I’m saying that we’re done. We’ve run our course. I spent the last decade loving you. Ten years. While you’ve loved someone else. I’m not going home only to wonder every day if she’s back yet. If you’re still waiting for her. And I’m not giving up my own life to move down here and hope you choose me.” She hitched the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “I’m going home, and I’m finally going to move on. I’m going to stop loving you, once and for all.”

Her fingers wrapped around the doorknob, and he once again pressed his palm to the door. His movements were gentle this time, however. His mind reeled.

She loved him.

Yet, she was going to walk away and then quit loving him?

“Jewel—”

A knock sounded on the other side of the door, and both of them jumped. Then finality settled over the room.

“That’s my ride.” She didn’t look at him. “I have to go.”

And he knew that he had to let her go. Time was up. He’d tried. And he’d failed.

Reluctantly, he lowered his hand. Taking a step back, he showed her that she was free to go. He wouldn’t try to stop her. However, when she pulled the door open, it wasn’t her car driver waiting on the other side of it. It was Bria.

Jewel’s gaze whipped back to him, and he saw the crack. The stoicism she’d been holding on to since walking out of his bathroom had fled. She was broken inside.

“Jewel”—he shook his head—“don’t. Let me call you next week. Let’s—”

“He’s all yours,” she said to Bria. Then she walked out of his life.

Chapter Eight

The afternoon dragged as Jewel sat in her office. It had been a week since she’d walked away from Bobby, and a week that she’d been working every spare minute to find a solution to not losing the Double B.

She reached for the cup of pens sitting on her desk and moved them to the other side. Then she moved them back. She shifted the position of the single folder lying in the middle of the flat surface, picked up then set down the tiny bull Bobby had given her as a teen. Nerves had eaten a hole through her, and if Mrs. Brandon didn’t hurry and make it down for their appointment, she feared she might throw up.

“Bulls are fed, boss. Settled in