She sighed but looked up at him, gesturing for him to go on.
“I get you might not want to tell me everything on the first date. But…well, I’ll just say it.” He took a big, deep breath first, though. As he blew it out, he looked past her to the cabin, then brought his eyes back to hers, where they hooked and stuck.
“I obviously like you. I want to know everything about you, and that right there is where I know you’re going to back out. So I just…I want us to agree that while we don’t have to tell everything with every question…I want—” He blew out his breath again, clearly frustrated and unable to come up with the right words.
But Briar knew what he wanted. “You want us to talk about meaningful things,” she said, giving him the words he lacked.
“Yes,” he said, the word almost an explosion out of his mouth.
“You’ll give me room to think about things before I talk about them,” she said. “But you don’t want me to ignore you andnevercircle back to talk about them.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “So you just said you were tired, but when I asked you what that meant, you shut down.” He brought her closer and tucked her hair again. Briar found him to be so gentle and yet so stern too.
“And I want to know what you meant, but I can be patient while you figure out the right words to use to tell me. But in the end, I want you to tell me, whether that’s today, or tomorrow, or in a couple of weeks or months.” He ducked his head until she met his gaze. “Okay?”
She nodded, her emotions already wavering so close to the surface. Why, she had no idea. Something about Tarr simply undid all of Briar’s defenses, and he’d been wearing her down for almost a year.
Thatwas why she was tired.
She was tired of fighting him off. Pushing him back out whenever he somehow got inside her life. Rebuilding the walls around her cabin, her dog, her heart.
Hewas why she was so tired.
“Okay, Tarr,” she whispered.
“Okay.” He moved out of the way but kept his hand on the small of her back as she climbed up on the runner of his truck. “I like your boots, Briar.”
“Thank you,” she said again, dropping into her seat.
Tarr closed her door, then joined her in the cab of the truck. Feeling like someone had invaded her body, Briar reached across the console to take his hand in hers. He sucked in a breath, but Briar ignored it.
His low chuckle threatened to turn into a full laugh, but then he said, “Yeah, I think you like me too. You’re just not sayin’ it with words quite yet.”
Briar ducked her head, her face burning as she untucked her hair so it would fall between them, effectively hiding the blush as it continued to bloom through her body.
Tarr let her stay quiet as he backed out of her driveway and rumbled down the dirt road to the highway. Briar breathed in and out, trying to come up with what to tell him. Her mindseemed to splinter in one direction in one moment, and then crack back the other way in the next.
As his blinker clicked through the cab, the pop songs Tarr loved so much in the background, Briar finally looked away from her side window and over to him.
“I’m going to get the special,” she said. “Online, Yolks Up said they’re doing a pumpkin spice pancake stack, with white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.”
“That sounds like it’s totally up your alley,” Tarr said with a smile.
“It comes with maple-pecan syrup, and I’m going to get so many sides of bacon, I hope you brought your platinum card.” A true smile came to her face then, and when Tarr looked over to her, she actually laughed.
Tarr joined her, chuckling as he said, “You can have as much bacon as you want, sweetheart.”
And she knew he could pay for it, because Tarr had been a champion in the rodeo for years. “Are you sure? Bacon is at a premium price these days.”
He shook his head, clearly able to take her teasing. He squeezed her hand and said the best words on the planet: “You can have anything you want, honey.”
Briar believed him, and she believed he’d do whatever he had to do to give her whatever she wanted. She’d seen him show up, day after day, even when she screamed at him to get out of her house and never come back.
He came back.
Every day, he came back.
He’d made sure she took her meds and got to her doctor’s appointments. He’d fed her, and tucked her into bed, and held her when she felt so much pain, she’d cried and begged God to simply take her home to Him.
