Page 7 of Never Enough

“People still ask me about that night. What happened between us and all that.” I make air quotes. “The drama.”

“See? So it’s perfect. People are curious, now we can tell them what happened that night.”

“You gonna fill me in because I still don’t know what happened?”

“What do you tell people when they ask?”

“That you were drunk and I drove you home.” I shrug. “Short. Simple. Doesn't invite follow-up questions.”

He snorts. The sound is almost—almost—amused. “That's not what happened.”

“It's close enough.”

“It's not even in the same zip code.”

“It's in the same state, and in Texas, that counts.”

He shakes his head but doesn't argue. Smart man. He's learning.

“We say that's when things shifted,” he continues, steering us onto the county road that leads toward my place. Live oaks line both sides, their branches meeting overhead in a loose canopy that throws dappled light across the hood. “That we started talking more after that. Spending time together. Keeping it quiet because of Kelsie.”

I watch the road blur past, the yellow lines swallowed under the truck's tires in a hypnotic rhythm. A roadrunner darts across the asphalt twenty yards ahead, fast and indifferent. Probably chasing a snake. I envy that roadrunner. That roadrunner doesn't have to construct a convincing romantic backstory with a man whose kiss is still tingling on her lips.

“Using Kelsie as the excuse is risky,” I say. “She's going to want to know why we didn't tell her. She's going to be hurt.”

“She'll get over it.”

“You clearly don't know your sister.”

“I've known my sister her entire life.”

“And in all those years, has she ever—even once—gotten over being left out of something without making it everyone's problem for a minimum of two weeks?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

“That's what I thought.”

He exhales through his nose. “I'll deal with Kelsie. I’ll tell her it was my choice because I didn’t want her to talk any sense into you before I’d ensnared you with my manly wiles.”

I snort. “Pretty sure men don’t have wiles.”

“Fine. We tell her we didn't want to put her in the middle. That we knew it would be complicated—her brother, her best friend—and we wanted to figure it out between us first before dragging anyone else in.” He glances at me. “That part's even true.”

I hate that he has a point. I hate it like I hate decaf coffee and people who say moist. It’s a visceral, full-body rejection that my rational brain knows is disproportionate, but my gut refuses to moderate. It’s an unnecessary word.

“And that's when you decided you suddenly wanted me?” I ask lightly. Despite the fact that my pulse isn't doing something stupid in my throat.

His jaw tightens. Just slightly. Just enough that I notice because I've spent twenty years cataloging the micro-expressions of Henry Blankenship's jaw and that is a piece of information I am not going to examine right now.

“That's when I decided to stop pretending I didn't want you.”

The words land heavy in the cab. They sit there between us, taking up all the oxygen, refusing to be ignored. They settle into the cracked leather seat between my thigh and his like a third passenger—uninvited, inconvenient, and impossible to ignore.

I swallow. Hard.

He's acting, I remind myself. This is just a story. The fake story. For our fake marriage.

He's simply rehearsing. Running lines. Getting into character. Henry Blankenship: walking, talking thirst trap in Wranglers and boots, cattle rancher, smart ass, and apparently a method actor who commits to the bit hard enough to make my cardiovascular system malfunction.