Rose shook her head as if he wasn’t getting it, then her eyes reconnected with his. “I worry he’d grow attached.”
He held her stare. Grow attached? “To whom?”
Her eyes flitted away, and she brought her thumbnail to her lips to chew it. “You.”
Offense nipped at him. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing. I…I said before I can’t be casual. With a guy. Not anymore. If Sage was here all the time, he’d grow attached to you, even if you’re never anything more than a friend. And if you don’t want an attachment…”
She was lost for words, and he quickly stamped down his irritation. He had no idea what her life was like, but she had good reason for her concerns. She’d met him on a rough morning after an alcohol binge. Great first impression, asshole. And she was still giving him a chance. But she was a mother first and always would be, no matter what heat fired between them. Women with kids. The package deal was real. He’d need to keep trying to prove he was worth the chance.
“Why would that be so bad?” He gentled. “Him gettin’ attached to me?”
She shrugged. “What if you, you know…” This nervous, uncomfortable Rose was so foreign to him. Where was the jokester? “What if you lose interest?” She looked back at him. “In me? What if a relationship between us doesn’t work out? Honestly, if he gets attached and then either my job here ends or we don’t work out, it would be hard on him, and I have to put him first. I don’t want to give a guy a serious chance with us and have the guy not take that chance seriously. Sage’s dad didn’t want him, and I can’t risk him seeing a dad in someone else who doesn’t want the job.”
Toby froze, feeling his chest squeeze again, but not because he thought he’d overstepped his bounds. This time, the embarrassment that filled his chest had everything to do with the reminder that his family had been right about his wild ways catching up with him. That, and she was making it very clear: a serious relationship with her was a job application for her son’s stepdad, too.
“Yeah.” She sighed at his silence. “Inheriting a kid and becoming a dad is usually enough to chase off the best and worst of you,” she said, trying to pull away. He grabbed her hand again instead, hoping to pass reassurance to her and refusing to let it go. “Honestly, though, there’s no sense in pretending this is normal. I can’t just accept a long-term job from a guy I like when I’ve got to worry about this.”
“What about you?” he finally asked. She’d dumbfounded him, but now that he’d found his voice, he had a bunch of questions, too. “You keep talking about your boy; you tell me that you haven’t danced in years. What about you?” He took a deep breath. “Don’t you matter? Are you worried about getting attached?”
Her hand in his worked itself in a kneading knot, and yet the idea of her becoming attached to him put a nervous skip in his pulse. “A little. Howie cheated when he was the only guy since Sage was born that I gave a chance. And Sage’s birth father, well.” She looked away but didn’t withdraw from his touch. “I was the other woman, and he was never going to give us a chance at all. He was fifty percent of the fun, but he was quick to bolt. And he left a life sentence on me to make sure my little boy has the best life I can give him.”
“Shh, baby, we agreed to take this slow. Ain’t no decision that needs to be made right this minute. The job is out there. A salary would be attached, whether UT keeps you on the payroll or I add you to mine. You and Sage could resettle here. We got some small but good schools, and any therapies he needs, we can pay for those privately if we need to.” Her eyes lit with argument, but he shook his head and quelled it by talking over her. “I’d write it into your contract as part of your health benefits and put you on my ranch hand’s payroll plan. If you take the job, you’ll be closer to your dad, too. And your mom.”
But what she’d said put brakes on his desire to keep running headlong into this relationship that, until now, had felt amazing. They’d only just met. Right? And what did he know about kids, aside from his nephews? Neither Seth nor Stephen were autistic. She’d made valid points. Just because he was cool Uncle Toby didn’t mean he understood squat about rearing a kid, especially one with the struggles Rose had just described.
Yet after all she had said, he felt stronger than ever about giving their relationship a try. But now, he saw the bigger picture. He also needed to show he cared about her enough to be dependable, stalwart…constant. He’d have to atone for these other guys’ mistakes. It wasn’t fair, but how fair was it to Rose, to go through life without the chance to fall in love because she worried that her kid stood in the way? Her son wasn’t the barrier she thought he was; her son wasn’t keeping guys away as he suspected she thought, because she was gorgeous and funny and brilliant. She was the one who was too afraid of getting close, because of all her hypothetical what-ifs that could go wrong and leave both her and her son wounded.
He glanced down at their joined hands and the kindness in the gesture. He shifted his fingers on top, holding her grip and caressing her skin. Her fingers were roughened from working with them, even though the rest of her skin seemed so smooth. For some reason, that simple observation made him want her even more.
“I’m sorry if I crossed a line or rubbed you wrong,” he said, unable to look into her face as he said it. “I’ve been thinking about what you said all day, about getting the sites documented, and I knew you’d be the right person for the job. I wanted to offer it to you…”
She leaned over, and her soft lips pressed to his stubble to plant a gentle kiss. A shiver of desire shot through him. He couldn’t help it, even though his feelings were jumbled.
“You didn’t cross a line.” She pecked him again. Slowly. “I’ve always got Sage to think about. I can’t fail him, because I’m all he’s really got. I’m sorry I’m so weird about it—”
He turned his head and captured her lips with his as he felt her warm breath about to peck his cheek once more, desperation nibbling at his gut to feel her reassurance reciprocated. She sank into the kiss, leaning against his lips as if suddenly needing more. As if she needed to feel his reassurances reciprocated, too. As if she was trying to feel if she could trust him.
Hell yes. He swiveled his office chair toward her and dragged her forward by the hand he still clasped, feeling her rise out of her chair. His palms slid around her hips to transfer her onto his lap, her thighs straddling him. His tongue pushed into her mouth as he heard her crew gasping at the movie through the crack in the door. He ignored that someone might walk up on them. They could shove it with their gossip anyway. He wanted Rose Morales’s tongue to dance with his tongue the way her sexy body had danced against him and wanted her to say yes to his proposition.
He felt his heart clench as he gripped her hips to hold her close, sliding his hand up her back to her nape to palm her head and hold her to him, tipping his head to deepen his kiss. But while his blood fired hot and gave his cock some desiring surges, there was something different about this kiss, shared after such a personal conversation.
He wanted her, yes, but he wanted something else. To prove himself to her. He had a plan in front of him for his land that made him hopeful. And proud. He had a woman on his lap that he wanted with such intensity it had given him pause more than once, right before he launched pell-mell after her again.
“Give me a chance,” he whispered hoarsely as he slid his lips across her cheek and jaw, littering rough pecks upon her face that only fired his blood and caused his groin to nudge beneath her rear. “I want a chance ’cause I know you’ll be happy with me.” His kissing intensified. He felt her fingers biting into his shoulders to hold him at his words. “We got all the time in the world to let something grow between us.” The practical declaration seemed to draw her chest up close to his, her beautiful breasts that had tormented the backs of his eyelids every time he closed them and remembered the look of the bountiful flesh in his shower. “Take a running start, and leap with me. We’ll take it as slow as you want in the air. I ain’t going anywhere.”
His words caused an avalanche of emotion to roll off her, and she flung her arms around his neck, jostling the bill of his cap, and demanded he kiss her again with the push of her tongue against his. Ah yes, he leaned her backward to arch over her, craning forward so his tongue could return the fine favor. He had her willingness to try. He could feel it now.
A soft creak outside the door, a telltale sign that someone was hovering just beyond the crack, gave him pause. He’d heard that sound a million times as a boy when his mom had come to check on him while sleeping and as a teenager when his dad came to check that he hadn’t snuck out the window to joyride with friends.
Rose pulled back, eyeing his sudden freezing with a furrow of her brow. Her hands upon his neck stilled. He looked at the door, listening. All of the same sounds out in the great room echoed up to the rafters as the students shouted exclamations at the TV. Sounded like The Last Crusade’s infamous blimp scene. He looked back at Rose, then gently pushed her hips to stand her up, sliding out from beneath her to go to the door.
But upon pulling it back, no one was there, and the sound of the back door opening and closing creaked and clicked as someone came or went. He leaned out into the hallway, the sound of the students louder, and he could see the backs of a few of them on his leather couch as they joked, laughed with one another, and stuffed tortilla chips into their mouths. Nothing seemed amiss. The closet door beside his office was closed, as was Shirley’s office.
“You’re being paranoid,” he mouthed under his breath, when he heard his phone ring.
He turned around to see Rose answering her phone. Rose had the same ringtone? She used the same generic sea breeze chime that had come standard on their phones? Where was his phone? He patted his pocket, remembering he’d set it down in the kitchen, and went out to grab it, when he noticed Howard was gone.