“Who do you want to be?”
The question is so simple, but it bowls me over.
“I don’t know. I was so tied up in my job. Now I don’t even know. A rancher? Part of my community? Around for my family? A good uncle? A good son?”
She shakes her head at me slowly. “No, those are all things that you think other people want you to be.” She reaches across the table, index finger poking me in the center of my chest. “Who do you want to be? Be selfish. You already told me you want to be a firefighter. Why are you pretending that’s not on the table now?”
I don’t know what to say, but she forges ahead.
“Me? I want a job I can’t wait to go to every day. One that isn’t dependent on how I look, one that I’ll have worked impossibly hard to get. I want to walk into a store or a cafe and have people be happy to see me. I want them to wave hello at me. I want a fancy-ass truck with leather seats and all the bells and whistles. I don’t want to work at going unnoticed constantly. I want to look respectable, but I also want to be respectable. I want to be respected.”
Vitality courses through her and I want to soak it all up. Just being around her makes me want more for myself.
I want to answer her question with the same kind of fervor and surety, but the only thing I can think is, “I want to be yours for real.”
“Wanna dance?”
Bailey has had two margaritas now and I can tell she’s feeling good. Loose. She seems … relaxed.
I chuckle and take a sip of my Coke. I’d kill for a beer right now, and I think I could handle one, but I still have to drive us back to Chestnut Springs, and I have precious cargo. “I’m not a big dancer, Bailey. Or not this type of dancing.” I gesture at the DJ, lifted on a podium across the dance floor. Bodies bounce and writhe in the pit between us.
“More of a two-step kinda guy?” She grins at me and pats my shoulder as she stands up, jeans hugging her hips, breasts full and on display over the neckline of her top. She’s totally oblivious to her sex appeal.
As I watch her walk away from me, weaving through the crowd toward the dance floor with her head held high and her shoulders rolled back, she doesn’t look young or inexperienced. She looks like a woman who could bring me to my knees.
I can’t help but note that other men are noticing her too.
My eyes never leave her. Her hair shines, reflecting the flash of blue and purple lights from above. When she finds an open spot, her toned arms slide up over her head, her eyes flutter shut, and her hips sway in time with the sultry beat of the music.
It’s a punch to the gut.
She’s fucking stunning. And confident. I can’t peel my eyes away. I can’t believe this is my Bailey Jansen.
Quiet, nervous, borderline mousy, Bailey Jansen.
But that’s not who she is today. That’s not who she is at all.
She’s someone else entirely and her transformation is something to behold. It feels like a gift to sit here and watch her be herself.
And it’s a gift I only get to savor for so long before I see a hand slide around her waist. One brush of another man’s fingers over the single inch of exposed skin between her waistline and shirt, and her eyes snap open.
Her gaze latches onto mine from across the room.
The guy shouts something in her ear from where he stands behind her and she smiles, still staring directly at me.
Then she holds her left hand up.
I see her palm.
But he sees her ring.
I see the guy chuckle and say something else before patting her shoulder and moving away. Which is perfect because he just freed up my spot.
I’m out of my seat and moving across the dance floor toward my fiancée within seconds. We don’t drop eye contact even once. When I get to her, I skim my hands over her waist, that inch of skin, as though washing away the other man’s touch.
“Bailey,” I growl against her cheek and press a brief kiss there as she wraps her arms around my neck.
“Beau.” She says my name like a sentence, as I do hers, and returns the one simple kiss to my cheek.
I tug her close, lining our hips up, reveling in the feel of her swaying against me, the vibration of the loud music that rattles in our bones.
Dropping my lips to her ear, I confess, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
The dancing, my life, this deal with her—I mean all of it. I have no idea what I’m doing. And for a man who’s had a plan for so damn long, it terrifies me.
She sways against me, fingers raking through the closely trimmed hair at the back of my head. “You’re just being here with me. That’s all I want.”