He only grinned. “My point is that you can tell them how you’ll be treated. You know why Wendi took up with Scooter?” Teller’s ex was selfish, so it likely hadn’t taken much, but I shook my head. “Because I told her that I was helping Dad with working cattle and couldn’t go on a wine tour in Napa Valley.”
“Sounds like a vacation you’d hate.”
“Every part of it, and I told her that. She still planned it. She got upset and told me I was a daddy’s boy who couldn’t think for himself.”
I flinched. Those words had been thrown in my face too.
“I told her that she wasn’t allowed to disrespect my family or me like that. So she cheated on me. Did you ever tell Bobby to stop?”
“What the hell do you think?”
“Did you do it in a way that would make him listen?”
“I’m not like you and Tate.”
He chuffed. “Again, no shit.” He sighed and pulled up the chair across from the desk. “Did you ever think that’swhyBobby and girls like Katrina targeted you?”
I gnawed on my bottom lip. “You think I made it easy for them? That they were justified?”
“I think you were afraid they were right. And I think you’d rather take it than risk ever behaving like them. You’re not me and Tate. So lean into it. What about you drew Ruby to you?” He gestured to himself. “I can tell you that she was never interested in me. I wasn’t into her either—FYI. Nor was she giving Tate googly eyes. Not one guy walked through here and got her undivided attention. But you did.”
I tucked that info away. It likely wasn’t real, but a small win was better than none. “I don’t have it now. Little hard to win her back when she doesn’t want me around, much less to touch her.”
“Romance isn’t all about touching. Nor is it fancy restaurants and impressing people you don’t care about. Figure out what that is for you two and romance her.”
“She doesn’t want me.”
“Is that what she said?”
“She can’t trust me again.”
“Sounds a whole lot like she’s scared. You are too. Start there.” He pushed out of his chair and swaggered out of my office like he’d just laid down the solution for world peace.
What the hell did I know about romance? Any time I had tried, it had blown up in my face.
Start with we’re scared? Teller didn’t know a goddamn thing?—
Is that what she said?
No, she hadn’t said she didn’t want me anymore. She hadn’t had to.
But what if... What if she could trust me again?
Just to humor Teller, what would earning that trust look like?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ruby
“Okay, how about this?” I aimed and clicked on the newest cocktail creation Wynter and Autumn had come up with for the fall menu in the tasting room. She was leaning on the counter behind it, half turned, with her long, pale hair down her back.
“I can’t believe I’m modeling instead of Junie,” she muttered.
Autumn stood behind me. “This is going to look so good,” she said as I tabbed through different settings and took snapshots.
I adjusted the settings back to normal. “Your turn, Autumn.”
She fluttered her hand over her hair. “Are you sure about this? I’m not a model.”
