Page 29 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
I’d been planning to keep some distance between Jess and Roe, using her as an excuse to control the speed of our relationship. I’d be unavailable for dinner dates because Roe had this or that going on. I’d be busy on the weekend taking Roe out and about. But now that she’d declared her wish for Jess to be my boyfriend, he’d see through all of my excuses.
Jess stood and gave me a knowing grin. “Yeah. We’ll see.”
Unlike my response, it was not a deflection of her question. His was a challenge. He was daring me to try and keep up my walls, block him out. The defiant and determined look in his eyes told me that no matter how many barriers I put in his path, he’d crash them all down.
Eff.
Roe and I stood watching his truck as he drove it down the lane. She waved like a crazy person at his taillights until he was no longer in sight.
She was completely smitten.
And if I was being honest with myself, so was I.
But I wasn’t going to be honest with myself. I was going to keep up my guard, just in case.
Over the next two weeks, Jess and I fell into a comfortable routine.
Phone calls to say hello. Texts to check in. Quick lunches if we both had the time. Dinners at the farmhouse one or two nights a week. Rowen, Jess and I at the café on Friday nights.
Everything I learned about him made me like him more. What Ben, Maisy and Milo had said about him was true. He was a good man.
But I still had reservations about our relationship.
I was just waiting for the inevitable. For him to realize that he could do so much better. He had a good job, was loved by his community and was the most perfectly handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on. I was just . . . me.
I had to be missing something. Maybe if I’d had more dating experience, I would have been able to see past his charming demeanor and beautiful face. But as it was, I hadn’t a clue.
I’d slept with Rowen’s father because of his charisma. That, and I’d been lonely. At the time, my mother’s treatments hadn’t been working and when I wasn’t at work, I was taking care of her. It had been extremely stressful and emotionally draining. So when a hot guy dressed in an expensive tux had started showering me with affection, I had believed he was sincere. It wasn’t until after we’d had sex that Nate showed his true colors.
At least with Jess, I had maintained some sexual distance. The most we’d been doing was kissing.
Every day I reminded myself to proceed carefully. To put some distance between us. To take a step back so I could more objectively judge Jess’s character.
But the trouble was, I couldn’t stay away.
Maybe once I got to know him a little bit more, I’d be able to make sense of Jess Cleary.
And I told myself that when he did dump me, it wouldn’t hurt that much.
The farmhouse property included twenty acres in total. Since I didn’t know what type of creatures roamed the wild areas of Montana, Rowen and I had limited our outdoor explorations to the areas where the grass was short. And I had only spent a few minutes in the barn.
Today I was cleaning it out so I could park the Explorer in there this winter. Eventually I wanted a garage but this year, it wasn’t in the budget.
The barn was an old building. The wood siding had long since lost its original color and was now a battered shade of gray with small patches of brown too stubborn to fade. Rust splotches from old nails dotted the boards.
I heaved open a large paneled door and assessed the room. The main area was spacious and empty. Filthy, but otherwise bare. My sandaled feet were dusty from the inch of dirt covering the floor and my nose was scrunched from the musty smell.
At the back of the barn was an old stall I presumed was built to keep a horse.
I decided that was where I’d start my cleaning. The small stack of moldy, rotting hay bales in the corner was likely the cause of the smell.
Along the stall’s walls were rows of leather straps and ropes. I knew nothing about horses so they were either for riding or bondage. The image of Ben practicing bondage jumped into my head involuntarily and I gagged.
I struggled to picture happy thoughts. Anything to replace the icky image in my mind’s eye.
I was so focused on lollipops, unicorns, butterflies and rainbows, I wasn’t paying too much attention to anything else. When I bent to pull a moldy bale away from the wall, I heard a quick hiss, which was followed by a sharp, blinding pain in my right forearm.
What the hell? That effing hurt!
