Page 60 of The Reason I Married Him
My stomach growls right on cue, and it’s loud enough to block out the sound of the wind whispering past the barn.
Wyatt chuckles. “Looks like your stomach has spoken.”
“Fine,” I say. “But we’re grabbing food and then coming back here. We’re not sitting at some table, eating food together while you try to stare longingly into my eyes.”
“It’s such a shame when you take the romance out of things.”
“Put your shirt on, I’m driving.”
“I wouldn’t have peggedyou as a truck girl,” Wyatt says as we bounce down the driveway’s dirt road toward town.
“I have to have a truck if I live on a farm,” I answer.
“But this truck is different. Very, uh . . . not comfortable.”
I roll my eyes as I pull out onto the back country road, which is paved. “Is your precious author ass getting bruised?”
“It is,” he says. “Will you rub it for me later?”
I shake my head. “Should have seen that coming.”
“You seem to have something against me being an author because you’ve made quite a few backhanded comments about it.”
“I have nothing against it. I could never write a book, but I just find it annoying that you come on this farm, thinking you know everything when your knowledge comes from Google and mine comes from real-life experience.”
“Understandable,” he says. “I can see how that would be annoying. Thank you for sharing your feelings with me.”
“Are you treating me like a child?” I ask.
“I sure as hell hope I’m not treating you like a child.” He laughs.
“No, I mean when you validated my feelings and told me you understood. That’s a technique we use with Mac when she gets upset.”
“That’s called empathy, Aubree. Are you not familiar?”
Such a smart-ass.
“Not so much,” I say as I make a left at the stop sign, pastures of cows on both sides of the road as we make the short jaunt into town.
“Are you not familiar because you weren’t shown empathy growing up or because you don’t like the acknowledgment of other people’s feelings?”
“Both,” I answer. “I don’t like emotions, and I don’t like feelings. I avoid them at all costs, and if you think this is a gateway to diving deeper into that mindset, you would be wrong.”
“Noted,” he says. “So if I were to, I don’t know, break my leg while finishing the chicken coop roof, would you feel bad for me?”
“I’d be grateful that you’d be out of commission and unable to bother me around the farm anymore.”
That makes him laugh. “Wow, okay. That’s some real sociopath kind of thinking, yet”—he glances in my direction—“I’m still intrigued.”
“What does that say about you?” I ask.
“That I like hardworking women who don’t take any shit from anyone. Hence why I want you to be my wife.”
“You want me to be your wife because of a cabin, not because of my personality.”
“Your personality is real and authentic. It might be a bit harsh at times, and sure, am I afraid that if we slept in the same bed, I might wake up with one testicle missing? Of course. But at least I’d know that the one testicle removed then stored in a jar on her nightstand was kept by a woman with character and ambition.”
“You are something else,” I say with a shake of my head and a slight smirk.
