Page 61 of The Bronze Garza

I glance over at him. “Yes to what?”

He careens around a water fountain in front of the gorgeous B&B, pulling into a “reserved” lot off to the left.

I’d expected a small, family-owned B&B, but this place is sprawling. Lit up like a dream in the night. People out on the wide, farmhouse-style porch drinking, talking, laughing. Foot patrols milling about the grounds.

“Yes, Girl Number 7’s husband knows about her past,” Reuben replies. “Yes, happiness, true love, and normalcy is possible for women who survived such traumas. Andyes, as a man, it’s something I could look past. It’s a non-factor. None of what happened to her was her fault, and any man who deems a woman as unlovable because of it, or sees her as ‘damaged goods,’ is no man at all.”

He jerks up the handbrake, pops the trunk, and hops out of the jeep.

I undo my seatbelt and clamber out, meeting him at the back as he lifts my bags out of the trunk. “Do you really think so? Or did you just say that to make me feel better?”

A staff member jogs up to us. “Good evening, sir. Ma’am. Would you like some help with your luggage?”

“No, no, we’re fine,” Reuben tells him.

As the man nods and leaves, Reuben gestures for me to go in the other direction, toward a three-story attached condo.

“Who’s got you thinking you’re damaged goods, Lyra?”

I shrug. “Myself, I guess.”

“Well, you aren’t,” he says tightly. “You’re beautiful, and sexy, and smart, and any man would be lucky to have you.”

I snort. “What movie did you get that line from?”

“I’m serious.”

“No, you’re just trying to score bestie points,” I say. “In books and movies, that’s usually what men tell women to make them feel better about being rejected even though they themselves wouldn’t have her.”

“Someone rejected you?” he asks with convincing surprise. “And what about being on an anti-men wave and all?”

I stop and face him. “Would you date me?”

“In a heartbeat,” he replies without hesitation. “If I wasn’t already owned.”

“Someone’s actually claimed you?”

He laughs. “Body and soul.”

I make a face and start walking again. “Poor girl.”

“Girl Number 7,” he says. “She’s my wife.”

This stops me in my tracks again. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. That’s how you know I’m not just saying things to ‘make you feel better.’”

I glance down at his hands—to the right that’s gripping the straps of my bags, then to the left that’s lax at his side. “I don’t see any ring, you dirty liar.”

He lifts his left hand and shows me the inside of his wrist. A tattoo is inked there. Two locked rings, with “J&R” above them, and a date below them. “More permanent,” he tells me.

“Wow, I...” I shake my head and blink. “There goes all my hopes of seducing you and hearing you use that sexy British accent during sexy times.”

“You mean this sexy accent?” he says in a deep, sultry English accent.

I shove his shoulder and we both laugh.

He leads me around the side of the building, up onto a small porch, and knocks on the door.