Roping the Cowboy Billionaire - Emmy Eugene Page 0,71

she got to her feet. “You worked in a garage without air conditioning until you could afford shop space. You traveled if you needed to. You learned to carve. You bought the tools with credit and paid them off.”

She pulled a carton of cream out of the fridge. “If you want that man, you can have him.” She set the cream next to the brownies, which were still far too hot to eat. Momma dished them up anyway and poured cold cream over them.

“You just have to ask yourself one question: What do you really want?”

21

“Yes, a week,” Blaine said, aware of his acidic tone. He honestly did not care about going back to Bluegrass Ranch. He had plenty of money, and someone else could step up and get the fields finished, monitor the horses for a few days, and worry about everyone in the family.

Blaine was done with all of it.

“Blaine,” Cayden said, and he also wished he wasn’t on speaker with the three brothers older than him. Spur had called, but they’d staged an intervention of sorts, and Blaine was glad he hadn’t told any of them where he’d gone.

He felt stuck in the middle of two extremely hard places, the same as he’d been his whole life. As the fourth son, he was constantly between the older brothers and the younger ones.

Right now, he was stuck between Kentucky and Georgia, in a tiny Tennessee town he’d forgotten the name of. He’d driven all night, found somewhere to sleep, done that, and then answered Spur’s texts with one about how he wasn’t coming back to the ranch for a while.

Spur’s first words out of his mouth when Blaine had answered the phone were, “Define a while, Blaine.”

“What?” Blaine asked.

“What’s goin’ on now?” Trey asked. “You left for a date last night, and you didn’t come home.”

“Didn’t have a date,” Blaine said, the sight of Tam’s angry face right there in his memory. I hate you, Blaine Chappell.

Get out.

Don’t call me.

We’re done.

I hate you, Blaine Chappell.

She’d said that to him before, but in a teasing, flirtatious voice. The one she’d used last night hadn’t held any of that. Not a single touch.

He deserved what she’d said to him. He shouldn’t have reacted to Hayes being in her shop the way he had. He shouldn’t have said he and Tam weren’t dating.

“I don’t like you out there alone,” Spur said.

“I’m fine,” Blaine said.

“What if your week becomes more?” Cayden asked.

“It won’t,” Blaine said, but he wouldn’t promise any such thing if they pressured him to.

“Go on,” Spur said. “I want to talk to him alone.” Scuffling came through the line, and then Spur’s voice didn’t echo quite so much when he asked, “Blaine, do you remember what you told me to do when I was having trouble with Olli?”

“Spur,” Blaine said. “This is a hundred percent different.”

“How so?”

“You’re you, and I’m me.”

“I don’t get what that has to do with anything,” Spur said.

“I know you don’t,” Blaine said. “You’re the oldest, Spur. You’ve always had ten times the confidence I have. You’ve been married twice. No one has ever cheated on you.” He stopped talking, because Blaine didn’t need to go on.

“You asked me if I wanted to do the right thing,” Spur said. “I know you do too. You told me I didn’t want to hurt her. I know you don’t want to hurt Tam either.”

“Already did that,” Blaine said, his throat sticky. “She hates me.”

“She does not.”

“She said so,” Blaine said, collapsing onto the bed and running his hand down his face.

“She did?”

“I was cruel to her,” Blaine said. “I reacted instead of thinking. I—I don’t deserve her anyway.”

Spur took the longest time to respond, and when he did, all he said was, “Follow your heart.”

Blaine nodded and let his phone fall to his lap. He looked around the hotel room, trying to find the right thing to do. He didn’t want to get hurt either, and he was definitely hurting.

“I miss her already,” he said out loud.

He and his brothers had not always gotten along. When problems happened, Blaine had learned how to apologize and ask for forgiveness. He thought of his mother, who had been working hard to be better than she’d been before.

Blaine had spoken to her and cleared the air. Could it really be that simple for him and Tam?

He didn’t see how. Ever since he’d shown up on her doorstep and kissed her, everything had been so complicated. Blaine took forever to work