Waiting on a Cowboy, page 6
He stepped closer, making it so easy to see the sincerity in his eyes. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Look, man, she doesn’t want you.”
Tate’s gaze never left hers. “You don’t know what she wants. I do. I’ve always known. And it’s her choice.”
Clint didn’t back down. “She chose me. You turned your back on her all this time. She’s done with you. She wants someone who really wants her, not some pity date.”
Rage filled Tate’s eyes as he turned to Clint with his hand already closing into a fist.
She jumped in between them with her back to Clint and her hands planted on Tate’s chest. “Tate, please don’t do this.”
Tate talked right over her head. “The last thing I feel for Liz is pity. Nothing, not even you, can ever break the bond between us.”
“I’m the one in her bed, not you.”
She spun around and faced Clint. “Oh. My. God. What the hell is wrong with you?” She’d had enough. What she and Clint did in private was none of anyone’s business. She didn’t want it broadcast like this, where any one of her neighbors could hear them.
The last thing she wanted was Tate knowing about her sleeping with another man. Stupid as it was. He had to know she’d been with a couple other guys. She couldn’t wait for him forever. But still. Clint went too far throwing it in Tate’s face.
“Me? He won’t leave us alone so we can be together without his interference. He’s got you all turned around. He tugs on the leash and you run back to him.”
She sucked in a breath and stepped back as those insulting words hit her.
“Do not talk to her that way.” The restrained anger in Tate’s voice didn’t even touch the rage she felt, but under it she felt the pain.
Liz turned to Tate but embarrassment kept her gaze from going any higher than his throat. “Please go home, Tate. I know you mean well, but your interference is making things worse. We’ll talk later. Right now, I need to talk to Clint.”
Tate put his hands on her shoulders and drew her back with him several paces. He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Will you be okay?”
She nodded but didn’t look up at him.
He hesitated a good ten seconds, then kissed her forehead like he often did before all this got complicated. “I don’t like leaving you like this, but I’ll do what you ask. Call me later so I know you’re all right.” He walked toward his truck. “You talk to her like that again, I’ll fuck you up.”
Liz leaned against the side of her car. Clint glared at Tate until he drove away, then he finally turned back to her. “How can you possibly be friends with him?”
“Why should I be with you when you talk about me like I’m a dog on Tate’s leash?” Humiliation heated her cheeks because it did feel a little true.
“Babe, come on, you know I meant that’s how he treats you.” Clint walked to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Can’t you see? He’s not jealous. He just wants to keep you to himself because you feed his overinflated ego.”
She pushed past him, grabbed her purse off the trunk where she left it to talk to Tate, and headed for the stairs to her place. “Thanks. I feel so much better.”
He followed her. “You don’t need someone like him in your life. You’ve got me. I care about you.”
Halfway up the stairs, she turned to face him. “Really? Then what is with all those texts insisting I answer you immediately.”
“I figured you were with him and things would end badly again. And I was right.” He looked her directly in the eyes to make sure his point hit home. “I thought you might want to be with me, someone who doesn’t want to push you away but pull you closer.” He put his hands on her hips, turned her around, and nudged her to finish walking up the steps to her door. “When you didn’t answer, it bothered me.”
She pulled the keys from her purse, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
Clint slammed the door before she took more than three steps into the entry, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back so hard she stumbled and slammed her head into the door before her back hit with a thump.
His fingers dug into the outside of her shoulder. “I am so tired of doing this with you. The bar, your work, at your condo. Every time I want to see you, there he is. You’re with me. You will not see him again.”
She put her hand on his wrist and tried to push his hand away, but his punishing grip never ceased. “Let go. You’re hurting me.”
“Say you understand. You will not see him anymore.”
“Clint, you’re hurting me,” she shrieked, unable to focus on anything but the pain in her arm.
Someone frantically pounded on the door. “Liz, it’s Ava. Open the door right now or I’m calling the cops.”
“Who the hell is interfering now?”
“Let me go. It’s my neighbor.”
Clint looked at his hand like he didn’t even realize he was holding her at all and released her.
“Liz, I’m not kidding,” Ava called.
She waited for Clint to step back before she dared to move. She could barely breathe, but managed to suck in a breath as she stepped to the side of the door and stood so she could keep Clint in her peripheral view.
“Oh for God’s sake, open the door.” Impatience and frustration infused his words.
Her hand shook on the knob, but she turned it and pushed the door open and away from her.
Ava locked eyes with her. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she automatically replied.
“See, she’s fine. You can go,” Clint ordered.
Ava held Liz’s gaze for another moment, then glanced at Clint. “Maybe you two need time to cool off.”
“This is none of your business,” Clint bit out through his clenched jaw.
Ava stared at her, silently prompting her to speak up.
She found her voice, shaky as it was with anger and embarrassment burning through her. “I think she’s right. You should go. We’ll talk about this later.”
Everything changed about Clint in that moment. His eyes filled with apology and he came forward and cupped her cheek.
She jumped, but he ignored it. “Babe, come on, let’s talk. I’ll take you out to a nice dinner. You’ll have a glass of wine. Everything will be better.”
She brushed his hand away. She hated wine. And right now, she hated that he didn’t know that and kept pushing what he wanted on her. “It’s been a long day. I’m tired.”
“We’ll order in, watch a movie. Whatever you want, baby.”
This time she made her wishes clear. “I want you to leave.”
Clint stared her down, but Liz didn’t give in. “Fine. But if I find out you called him . . .”
“Leave now, or I will call the cops.” Ava held up her phone, 911 showed on the display. All she had to do was hit the call button.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” That sounded like a threat.
Liz stepped back, indicating he should go. She needed time to calm down and gather her wits. Think. After all that happened with Tate and Clint over the last few hours, she simply couldn’t deal with anything more.
Some things were better dealt with at a distance. Clint’s volatile temper was one of them. She wanted him out of her condo and away from her.
Clint let out a frustrated sigh and brushed past Ava on his way down the stairs.
Ava stepped into Liz’s condo, closed the door, and locked it. “Are you okay?”
Liz crossed her arms and brushed her hands up and down them. “I am now. Thanks.”
“I had a boyfriend like him once. Started out great. He was sweet, loving, everything I always wanted in a man. Then one day a guy made a pass at me in front of him. A switch flipped. He became jealous. Obsessed with knowing where I was, what I was doing every minute of the day. At first, you think it’s cute he’s so interested. The first time he hurt me, it came out of the blue. We’d had dinner together at this cute little bistro. We got to the car to drive home, and wham! Out of nowhere he backhands me across the face. He said if I ever looked at another man the way I did to our waiter, he’d do more than slap me. I didn’t know what to say. I should have jumped out of the car and run for it. I stayed longer than I should have because he always had a heartfelt apology and spoiled me with flowers and gifts. It took me too long to see that they didn’t mean anything and didn’t make up for the bruises. It took a friend making me take stock of the relationship to see that I spent more days afraid of him than happy.”
“I don’t know what happened to the guy I thought I knew. It’s like you said, everything seemed fine until he saw me with a guy friend and he changed. I thought he was just afraid of losing me.”
“If he’s like my ex, losing you is not an option even if he needs to force you to stay.”
Liz didn’t think Clint had become that extreme. “I think he just let his anger get the better of him.”
Ava shook her head. “I used to make up excuses for my ex, too. Don’t let him get away with treating you that way.”
“Oh I won’t.” Liz raked her fingers through her hair. “I just wanted someone to date. Someone to have fun with. Someone who set off fireworks inside me when he kissed me.”
“We all want that, Liz. But it doesn’t have to be with that guy. Dating sucks. You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. Toss that fish back. Something inside him is rotten.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors.”
“You get my point.”
Liz nodded. “Thanks again for stepping in. I’ve had one too many arguments today and I just didn’t have it in me for one more with him.”
“People use words to argue, not their hands.”
Ava stepped in to hug her, hit Liz’s sore shoulder and winced for Liz. “Sorry. Arguments don’t leave marks. Arguments should turn into compromises.” She smiled. “And makeup sex.”
Liz nodded. “Thanks for the rescue and the advice.”
“Want me to stay awhile? Just in case.”
“I appreciate it, but I really just want some peace and quiet and time to think.”
Ava put her hand on the doorknob. “I’m just across the landing if you need me.” Their doors faced each other. No doubt, if Clint came back, Ava would hear him.
“Thank you. I’ll be okay.”
Ava unlocked the door, opened it, and turned back. “Keep this locked all the time.” With that, she stepped out and closed the door.
Liz locked up right away, went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, pulled out a beer, unscrewed the cap, and took a deep swallow just as her phone beeped with a text.
Her hands shook as she went to grab her purse where she’d dropped it on the floor just inside the door. She checked her phone, dreading a text from Clint, but it was Tate, and her relief eased away the trembling in her body.
TATE: You ok
TATE: I’m sorry things didn’t end well again
TATE: I still need to talk to you
TATE: Call me PLEASE
Tears cascaded down her cheeks. Overwhelmed from her talk earlier with Tate, and from Clint’s . . . she didn’t know what to make of Clint right now. It seemed like nothing went right with the men in her life today. Neither of them were acting like she expected.
Uneasy, feeling a little lost, she called Tate, needing to simply hear his voice.
“Hey, Lizard. How’s my girl?” His deep voice washed through her easing her heart. He’d never called her his girl before, but the nickname brought a slight smile to her lips even as she wiped the tears away.
“I’m a little out of it right now. My best friend and I aren’t syncing anymore. The guy I’ve been seeing is . . .”
“What?”
She shook her head, unwilling to get into it. Tate would overreact. Maybe she was blowing this out of proportion, too. “Never mind.”
“Liz, if something’s wrong, you can talk to me. Even if it’s about him.”
“He has every right to be angry that—”
“You love me, not him.”
She sighed and hung her head. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s true. Right?” He sounded unsure.
“We had this talk at your place. Nothing has changed.”
“Maybe it has for me.” His voice softened with those words.
All too familiar hope sprang up inside her, but she squashed it down because she couldn’t be disappointed again or feel the fool for thinking he might actually—finally—return her feelings.
“After how we left our talk and what happened tonight—”
“What happened?” Urgency filled his voice.
She hesitated too long to answer because she didn’t want him to know that Clint scared her.
“What. Happened?” The force he put into that question hit her in the chest and made her heart beat faster.
“Never mind.”
“Liz, seriously, you’ve never had a problem speaking your mind with me. Just tell me.”
“Let’s stick to us.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, I think we should try us.”
“Don’t you get it, Tate, I’ve hoped so many times that you would look at me differently. That you’d feel the way I do. And now you give me maybe something has changed for you and you want to try. Do you have any idea how crushingly disappointing it is to hope you mean it but know it’s probably not true. It’s not real.”
“How do you know when I don’t?”
She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead where a headache started to pound. “I can’t do this right now. Not after . . . everything that’s happened today. I need time to think. I’m going to take my beer into the shower and wash this day away.”
“Take the bag of OREOs you keep in the cupboard over the oven instead of the pantry so you don’t see them when you go in there and eat them all instead of real food.”
Of course he knew that about her. He knew everything. “OREOs are real food.”
He chuckled. “I know you think that.” He paused. “I don’t want to hurt you, Liz. I don’t want to lose you either.”
“You won’t. We’ll always be friends.” She barely got those words out her choked-up throat before she hung up on whatever he might have said. Wrung out, she left the phone on the charger on the counter, grabbed the bag of cookies, and headed down the hall to her room.
Texts started dinging on her phone. One after the other as she set the cookies on the bathroom counter, stripped off her clothes, winced at the red marks marring her left shoulder, gulped a significant portion of her beer to ease the wave of anger and fear that washed through her, then popped a cookie in her mouth before she turned on the taps and stepped under the steaming spray.
She let the tears fall again, remembering Clint’s dark and angry eyes and the fear that overtook her when he didn’t let her go. If Ava hadn’t stepped in to help . . . she didn’t want to think about what Clint might have done next.
She tried to focus on Tate and the sweet, hesitant way he tried to repair their relationship. Not that it was broken. She just wanted more. And if she couldn’t have that, she wanted to find what she wanted with him with someone else who loved her like she loved Tate.
He put it out there, kind of tested the water, by telling her he wanted to try. She appreciated that he’d do that for her, but she’d come to terms with him not loving her. That’s why she’d forced herself to start dating and how she ended up with Clint.
He started out a good guy. But tonight it became clear that he wasn’t the right guy for her.
And Tate, she’d rattled him by making him think she didn’t want to be friends anymore.
Any minute, he’d come to his senses and tell her that their friendship meant everything to him and that’s all he wanted.
Her heart ached with the echo of all the other times he’d made that clear to her in so many words.
She stepped out of the shower, dried off, ate another cookie, turned off the light, listened as two more texts came in, closed her bedroom door, and crawled into bed despite not having dinner or it even being close to her bedtime.
She let the quiet punctuated by text dings surround her. She felt the aching loneliness of her home and especially her bed. She wished Tate was here to wrap his arms around her and hold her safe and loved in his arms.
Dreams.
She wished they were real and not the reality she’d lived today.
She closed her eyes and remembered the way Tate had called her his girl. After all the bad, that one thing chased away the nightmare of today and gave her some peace.
Chapter Seven
Tate hefted the last hay bale off the trailer and handed it to Declan to stack in the barn. He wasn’t sure who got the better end of the deal when he stood tall and groaned at the ache in his lower back. He jumped down. The thud of his boots hitting dirt reverberated through his knees to his back, setting off a new round of spasms.
“You’re getting old, man.” Declan smacked him on the shoulder.
“I’m two and a half years younger than you.”
“Then you’re seriously out of shape.”
Tate held up both arms and flexed his biceps. “Who’s out of shape?”
“What did Liz think of those guns?”
Tate dropped his arms. “I’m still trying to pin her down.”
“And do what to her?” The mirth in Declan’s eyes made Tate grin, but the last couple days hadn’t been at all funny.
“Shut up. You know that stuff you asked me?”
Declan raised a brow. “Yeah.”
“I thought about it. Maybe there is something there if her seeing this guy makes me want to punch him every time I see him.”
“You not liking this guy means you want to pin Liz down?”
More hard questions.
“There have been times,” he admitted. “But I always put the brakes on it because it’s Liz. Our friendship meant too much to me to mess it up. And . . .”
“And?”
“I thought she deserved better.”
Declan’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Tate, man, that’s not true.”
“True or not, she was always the girl who wanted a commitment.”
