Page 46 of Promise Me a Forever Texas Love

In return, he’d ghosted her.

All because he had low self-esteem and couldn’t deal with his feelings.

He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he would never forget the night they spent in the treeboat. It had been the best night of his life. A night that had played out in his dreams over and over again.

It wasn’t about the sex. The sexual part of the night had been awkward and more than a little humiliating when he’d come only seconds after being inside her tight, sweet body.

No, the best part of the night had been getting to touch her and kiss her and release all the feelings he had bottled up inside him—all the love he’d been holding back because he didn’t think he was good enough.

The way she touched and kissed him back had made him feel good enough . . . until they woke the next morning and Cadee hadn’t looked at him with happiness and love shining in her pretty blue eyes. She’d looked at him with stunned confusion. Like she didn’t know how she’d gotten there.

Like she’d made the worst mistake of her life.

It had completely crushed his already fragile ego, and he’d run away when what he should have done was stay and talk things out. But now he was able to put himself in her shoes and realized she’d had every right to feel stunned and confused. She’d just lost her daddy and then had sex with her best friend. If he had given her time to grieve and digest what had happened that night, maybe she would have realized she had deeper feelings for him too.

But he hadn’t. And now he wondered if it was too late. If she would ever give him a chance to love her like he wanted to love her. Love her like she deserved to be loved.

“Huck?”

Huck blinked out of his daydream to find Arlene looking at him with an expectant look.

“Umm . . . sorry,” he said. “What did you say?”

“Why do you have a picture of Cadee on your phone?”

Huck wanted to kick himself for mooning over the photograph in Grounds For Divorce while he waited for Camden and Cadee to come in for their Sunday morning donuts. If he wanted to fix things between him and Cadee, he needed to take things slow. And having the biggest gossips in Promise Springs spreading rumors about them wasn’t taking things slow.

Of course, neither was stalking her.

For the last week, he’d stopped by the ranch almost every day under the pretense of fixing things in the tree house he’d noticed needed fixing. He’d spend thirty minutes sitting in the tree house twiddling his thumbs before searching Cadee out and following her around like a lost puppy begging for attention.

He needed to get a grip.

He lowered his cellphone and pinned on a smile. “Why wouldn’t I have a picture of Cadee on my phone? She’s one of my oldest friends.”

A frown settled on Arlene’s face as Adele yelled from behind the coffee machine. “I told you, Ar! Just because people have been gossiping about Huck spending so much time at the Stockton Ranch that doesn’t mean Huck has finally fallen for Cadee. Some women can just be friends with men.”

Ada came out of the kitchen with the bag of donuts Huck had ordered for Poppy. “Unfortunately, not us.” She set the bag on the counter in front of him. “Every time I tried to be friends with a man, I ended up in bed with him. And we all know sex screws up a good friendship.”

Sex had screwed up Cadee and Huck’s friendship, but he hoped they could figure out a way to have both.

Cadee still loved him. He could see it in her eyes whenever he caught her looking at him. He’d thought it was just leftover friendship love . . . until the porch kiss. He didn’t believe for a second she’d just kissed him to see what kissing a man with a mustache felt like. She had wanted to kiss him. And the way she’d kissed him, like he was a double-dipped cone, still made him horny as hell. If she could kiss him like that, maybe there was hope that their friendship could turn into something more.

Because he was through lying to himself.

He was head over heels in love with Cadee Stockton and had been ever since they were thirteen and she’d kissed him under the old oak tree behind the dancehall. It had all been a fun lark to see if the tree held any magic. It didn’t. The magic was in Cadee. Had always been in Cadee. From the first day they had met, she had weaved a spell around him.

Now all he needed to do was figure out how to do the same to her.

“Mornin’, sheriff!”

The A-Sisters’ chorused greeting pulled Huck from his thoughts and had him glancing at the door Sheriff Gentry was stepping in. The sheriff pulled off his hat and nodded at the sisters and then Huck.

“Mornin’.”

Arlene flipped over one of the cups sitting in saucers on the counter and filled it with coffee. “You want your usual order of donuts, sheriff?”

Sheriff Gentry slipped onto the stool next to Huck and placed his hat on the counter. “No. Just an egg and plain toast today.” He patted his belly. “I’m trying to lose a little weight.”