Page 40 of Cowboy’s Last Stand (His to Protect #1)

Jason’s lips quirked into a smile. “He did. He says he knows how babies are made.”

“I told him,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Why did I do that?”

“For the record, I didn’t say I could deliver on it.”

“Good.”

He turned his gaze toward Marcus for a moment, and his smile faded. “Did you and Mike want more kids?”

A bittersweet longing bloomed inside her chest at the question. Mike had wanted a big family—as many kids as she would agree to. They’d joked together about the number. He’d suggested six, then tickled her until she’d collapsed with laughter.

Jason waited for her to answer with patience. When she didn’t say anything, he squeezed her arm and let it go. He didn’t want to make the same mistake he’d made the other night. He’d crossed the line, and he knew it.

He was trying.

She’d asked him to take better care of himself, and he’d made an effort.

He’d started sleeping indoors even though it was difficult for him.

She’d pushed him as much as he’d pushed her, if not more.

But he was still here, doing his best. He wanted to stay.

That was why he’d brought her flowers at work.

He was angling for another chance with her.

After dinner, they went home and watched a show about wild animals in the Australian outback. Marcus wanted to know if Jason had been to Australia or any other wild places. Jason listed the countries he’d visited on tours of duty or trips with friends. It was an impressive number.

Thirty minutes later, Marcus fell asleep on the couch.

Jason carried him to bed. Natalie turned off the TV and stared at the blank screen.

She couldn’t even begin to catalog her emotions; there were too many.

When Jason came back to the living room, he stood silent for a moment, his hands thrust into the pockets of his faded jeans.

“I’ll go,” he said, as if he could read the uncertainty on her face.

She rose to her feet. “No.”

“No?”

“We can talk.”

He glanced at the hallway, where Marcus’s bedroom door was still open.

Natalie understood the implication. They couldn’t talk in the living room without the possibility of awakening him, especially if things got heated again.

She moved past Jason into the kitchen. He followed her, resting his shoulder against the door frame.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked.

“What have you got?”

She searched the fridge, sighing. There were no adult beverages, as usual. “I think London stole my tequila the other night.”

“She left the house with Gabe.”

“That figures.”

“I have a six-pack upstairs.”

This news gave her pause because he wasn’t much of a drinker. He must have bought it along with the flowers in anticipation of this reconciliation attempt. She still wasn’t sure if they were going to reconcile.

“I can bring it down.”

“All right,” she said carefully.

When he returned with two longnecks, she was on the front porch, sitting on the glider with her legs drawn up. He popped the cap off one before he handed it to her. She took a bolstering swig and braced herself for a difficult conversation.

“I shouldn’t have asked you about the settlement,” he said. “It’s none of my business what you do with your money, or where it comes from.”

She drank a little more.

He continued in a formal tone. “It was also hypocritical of me to criticize your mementos, considering that I’ve harbored resentment toward my father for not keeping my mother’s things around the house.”

Natalie was surprised by his insight and the vulnerability he allowed himself in making this confession.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have insulted you.”

“Apology accepted.”

She sipped from her longneck again, contemplative. “I’m concerned about these arguments we keep having.”

“Passionate people argue.”

“There’s a fine line between passionate and short-fused.”

He opened his mouth, as if to defend himself, and then seemed to think better of it. Sinking to a seat beside her, he swallowed his retort with a swig of beer.

“Do you think you’re drawn to tension and conflict?”

His jaw tightened at the question. “I’m drawn to challenges, not conflicts.”

“You don’t like to brawl?”

“No.”

“You haven’t been in a fight before?”

“I have,” he admitted.

“When?”

He took another sip from his bottle. “When I was in the sixth grade, Johnny Mitchell called my mom a whore. I told him I wanted to fight after school, and he obliged me.”

“Who won?”

“He did. He had two years and about twenty pounds on me. I ended up with a black eye, a busted lip, and a mouthful of loose teeth. Even so, I got lucky.”

“How?”

His lips curved into a smile. “Because the next day, Henrietta Birdsong kissed me on the cheek and told me I was brave. I had a major crush on her.” He leaned back against the glider and propped one arm on the backrest. “Let’s just say I have no regrets.”

“What happened to her?”

“Last I heard, she became a tribal lawyer in Missoula.”

“That’s what your mother wanted for you.”

He shrugged. “Some things don’t work out.”

“No,” she said. “They don’t.”

The smile on his face faded. They had to discuss the major thing that hadn’t worked out for Natalie: her marriage to a man with a dangerous job and a hero complex.

“You were right about the settlement,” she said tersely.

“I haven’t touched it. I told myself I was putting the money away for Marcus, but the truth is that I haven’t been able to come to terms with Mike’s death.

They gave me this lump sum, this cold calculation of the cost of his life, and I was expected to just…

accept it. I almost gave it all to charity because the thought of spending it made me ill. ”

Jason stayed quiet, listening.

“For the first few months, the grief was so heavy that I could hardly get up in the morning to take care of Marcus. Then I started to feel numb, and that was better. I’ve been sort of frozen, I guess, because it helped me survive.

It eased the pain. That money is frozen too.

It’s become tied up with Mike’s death in my mind.

As unreasonable as it sounds, I might never be able to spend it. ”

Saying nothing, he rose from the glider. He went to the porch railing and leaned his elbows against the balustrade. She studied his back as he stared out at the deserted street. The new mailbox glinted in the moonlight.

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done around here. I hope you know that.”

“I don’t want your gratitude,” he said in a low voice.

Her muscles tensed with unease. She was baring her soul to him, and he wasn’t satisfied. “What do you want?”

He turned to look at her, his eyes narrow. “You know what I want.”

Yes, she did. He wanted her heart and soul. He wanted to shove her out of mourning and force her to confront the reality she’d been avoiding for years. She shook her head in denial. “You want too much.”

He cursed under his breath. Perhaps he’d imagined this discussion going a different direction. He thought he could buy her flowers, crook his finger at her, and take her to bed again. She remembered what he’d said about women rarely saying no to him. He wasn’t used to expending any effort.

“You’re throwing away your future,” he said, “because you won’t let go of the past.”

She rose to her feet, annoyed. She wasn’t throwing anything away.

She was trying to explain her choices to him, even though it was none of his damned business.

The problem wasn’t her reluctance to move forward.

It was his frenetic pace. He wanted everything right now .

“Maybe I need some time alone to figure things out.”

He gave her an assessing glance. “Is that what you told Wade?”

She flushed at the question.

“You don’t need time alone,” he said in a scathing tone. “You’re just afraid of the way I make you feel.”

“You’re right, I’m afraid. It’s how normal people react to danger.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed as the barb struck. “You think I’m dangerous?”

Natalie didn’t answer. She knew it wasn’t a fair statement, but she couldn’t retract it. She couldn’t stop pushing his buttons.

“Not only dangerous but short-fused and unstable,” he said with deceptive calm.

“If the shoe fits…”

He closed the distance between them and spoke directly to her face. “This isn’t about my temper, or my sleeping habits, or my eagerness to defend you. What scares you is the fact that I’m in love with you.”

She inhaled a sharp breath of dismay and staggered backward.

The other day, he’d told her he was falling for her, and she’d cut him off.

Now he’d said it again, loud and clear. He’d put himself out there, voicing the emotions she was so terrified of.

He’d named the exact thing she was feeling, and she couldn’t even blame him because she’d goaded him into it.

Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut?

Jason studied her for a long moment, his signature intensity coming off him in waves. He seemed to be waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t, he straightened abruptly. His eyes become shuttered, and his features hardened into stone. He gave her a curt nod as if her silence was answer enough.

Then he strode down the porch steps and disappeared into the dark.