Page 35 of Last Chance Cowboy
“Something like that,” he said. “You have to give it time. I don’t think you can rush through it, and I don’t think you can get mad at yourself when it comes up.”
“Well, don’t be nice to me. That’s weird.”
“I wasn’t being nice to you when I rescued you from your fate?”
“I guess that was nice. But I was thinking it was more heroic.”
He grimaced. “Lila said it was heroic.”
“You don’t like that?”
“Not especially. No. I get it a lot, being a veteran. But I don’t like it, because I am not sure that I’m more heroic than anybody else. In fact, I know I’m not. Most people, I think, rise to the occasion when they’re put in difficult situations. I happened to put myself in a difficult situation, but I had my reasons, and I wouldn’t say they were benevolent. So no, I don’t like the label of hero. I think it gets overused. Especially here. I didn’t risk anything to save you.”
“But I appreciated it all the same.”
Their eyes locked together, and she took a deep breath, trying to quell some of the tension in her chest.
“So. When’s your next day off?”
She laughed. “I just got back.”
“Liar. You had sweet rolls for the barbecue the other day.”
“I made them at home!”
“It was still baking, and I want to know when we get to start this.”
“I…” She wanted to ask him why he was doing this. But she was afraid the answer was that she was just so pathetic he didn’t have a choice. That finding her as he had, such a hideous creature, curled up and helpless against the elements, had ignited sorrow even in Zane.
That made her feel particularly tragic, and she actually didn’t want to hear that.
At all.
“I’m usually off Monday and Tuesday, but I decided not to take any days off this week.”
“That’s silly,” he said.
She planted her hands on the table and squinted, looking at him. “Did you just call me silly?”
“I did. Because I didn’t want to say the word I was thinking in this family establishment.”
“And now, Zane Barton, did you just exercise social restraint?”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to establish a basic set of facts. One of them being that your behavior is just a little bit unusual.”
“You don’t know me well enough to have established whether or not my behavior is unusual.”
“False. I do.”
“My point is, you gave yourself some time to rest, now you’re going to punish yourself for it?”
“Why do I get the feeling that everything you’re saying is one of those whole do as I say, not as I do things?”
“It might be. You’ll never know.”
“Never?”
