I had to swallow quickly to keep from spitting out my beer. My brother, the sheriff, had a tattoo on his ass? I looked at Brian, whose ears were turning pink with embarrassment.
“You’ve got an ass tattoo?” I asked. “When the hell did that happen?”
“While back,” Brian admitted.
“What is it?” Cal wanted to know.
Brian smiled at Caitlin before answering. “That’s personal.”
I glanced at Julia who was watching the interplay between the others. She seemed amused by it all. I caught her eye. “I’m notgetting a tattoo for you, but I can sing you a song.” I headed for the stage, knowing what number I wanted. It took just a minute to queue up. The words showed on the prompter, but I didn’t need them. I knew the lyrics by heart and began to sing a country love song by Kenny Chesney that I’d long admired.
It wasn’t my usual choice for karaoke. On other nights, I’d gone for something upbeat or a song that got laughs. But with Julia watching, I wasn’t in the mood for anything lighthearted. I was feeling serious and the sincere, unguarded song expressed that better than my words could.
I found Julia and kept my eyes on her as I sang, really feeling the lyrics and how they related to her. It was almost a shock to realize how much the song expressed what I felt for her.
Her gaze was on me, and I was hopeful that she felt the same thing. Maybe I’d get my happy family after all. A surge of optimism went through me as I finished the song. I walked off the stage to thunderous applause, headed straight for Julia. When I reached her, I didn’t hesitate. I pulled her to her feet, wrapped my arms around her, and kissed her much to everyone’s enjoyment.
“Did you like it?” I whispered to her, my hands cupping her face.
She nodded but didn’t speak. I saw a tear in the corner of her eye and took that as a good sign. We had some things to work out as a couple, but our relationship had taken another leap forward. I sat next to her throughout the evening, feeling closer to her than I had in days. This was good, this was what I wanted.
Our relationship wasn’t fixed, and I wouldn’t push it. I could wait, at least a little while, to get everything else. So despite the closeness I felt between us, I dropped her off at her ranchand went home. It had been hard pulling myself away with only a good-night kiss, but worth it to make sure we stayed on the right track, and that we held our relationship together instead of letting it splinter apart.
THIRTY
JULIA
Last night at the Squeaky Wheel felt like a turning point for Jake and me. When he sang to me, I felt like the only person in the room. Even Caitlin and Amy seemed surprised, but then again, maybe they hadn’t known that he would drive out to Beaumont for karaoke.
Jake Thorne was a passionate man and when he turned all of his focus on me, my pulse raced and goose bumps broke out on my arms. I was surprised he hadn’t asked to stay the night, but after our disagreement at the baby shower, our truce was tenuous and I could understand the urge to be cautious.
Baby steps were needed. We still had so much to figure out before we could make any decisions on the direction of our relationship.
In the meantime, thanks to Sofia’s help getting all that stuff out of the guest room, I was able to paint the walls. I dragged one of my dad’s radios out and plugged it in, twisting the dial until I found a country western station.
The paint I chose had zero-VOCs, but I still wore a mask as I poured it into the tray and set the roller into it. The paint went on smooth and I had to admit, there was something deeply therapeutic watching the sunshiny yellow roll onto the walls. I couldn’t wait to see it finished.
The color called me back to warm summer days filled with bright flowers and cute woodland animals. Once I finished, I decided I would look for wall wraps with baby animals on them. That seemed fitting for the child of a rancher and a veterinarian.
In no time, I had three of the walls painted. One of my favorite songs came on, and I turned up the radio and started dancing around the room, alternating using the paint roller as my dance partner and as a microphone.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I shrieked and whirled around, the roller slipping from my hands and landing on the tarp I placed on the floor in a wet squelch.
“Jake! You scared me. Why didn’t you knock?”And why does he look so angry?
He strode over to the radio and turned it off with a snap, the sudden silence deafening. “I did knock. Shouted your name, in fact. Not that you could hear me with all this … noise.”
Noise? Since when did he think music was noise? I frowned at that and was about to pick up the paint roller and wipe up the mess when he did it for me.
I pulled my mask down below my chin. “As you can see, I’m painting the nursery. Do you like the color? I thought we could do something similar in one of the rooms at the ranch. Or if youthink the yellow is too bright, we could add some white to it and?—"
“Why are you painting the room at all?” he demanded.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I took a deep breath and let it out. “Because I want the nursery inmyhouse to be painted yellow.” It was obvious to me and I couldn’t understand why he seemed so put out. Was it because of the physical activity? “Dr. Somers said it was fine for me to continue my normal activities at this stage, and painting is easier than some of my livestock calls and?—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Jake slapped the roller into the paint tray, splashing paint over the sides and began aggressively adding another coat to the walls I’d just finished painting.
