Page 29 of The Rancher’s One and Only

And again, he just couldn’t imagine compromising all that sweetness.

She was just a nice girl. She didn’t deserve that.

“I can practically see the gears in your brain turning,” Rowdy said.

“Oh, do we make insistent commentary on each other’s love lives now?” He stared Rowdy down.

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Jessica.”

“You know full well she’s just my friend.”

“Why is that?”

“Fuck yourself, Jax.”

Jax smiled. “Touchy. I hit a nerve there.”

“No nerves were hit, my guy. But you’re being obnoxious. Jessica is a sacred object.”

He couldn’t really explain it, but Ernestine kind of felt like the same sort of thing. He had just never met anybody like her. He never had the opportunity to meet anybody like her.

“Well, I do like her. You’re right about that,” Jax said. “But I would never inflict myself on her.”

“The rumor is that women enjoy your company in that manner.”

“Thanks for the confidence boost, but that’s not really the issue. Yeah. I can do all the necessary things to make a few hours in my bed enjoyable. The whole rest of my personality.”

“Your personality’s fine.”

“’Til you get down underneath the external stuff. And into all that mess.”

Rowdy looked off into the distance. “I’m familiar with the mess.”

They didn’t avoid talking about their pasts. They had been friends—brothers—for so long that they knew each other’s stories like they knew every day would move from day to night. You didn’t need to constantly litigate things you knew were certain.

They also didn’t avoid the mention of it. Some nights were especially dark, even if that darkness was a sure thing, and it bore commenting on. So just as they didn’t need to speak on it all the time, they didn’t avoid it either.

“You get it, that’s the thing. You’ve seen grim shit. That’s why the three of us get on so well. We’ve all seen the worst. The absolute worst of what the world has to offer. And we know how the world is. But somebody like her… Even getting to the place in your life where you are a dinosaur bone scientist. That’s a whole different reality than the one that we lived.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“She’s sweet. That’s the thing. Sweet women shouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

“You sound like the immortal vampire in some teen TV drama.”

“Shut up,” he said.

“That’s what friends are for. For busting your chops when you sound ridiculous. You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

And with that, he took himself off to the next task. He didn’t love Rowdy having an inside line to the worst parts of his inner thought processes. But he was just going to go ahead and pretend the conversation didn’t happen. Hell, to the best of his ability, he wanted to pretend that he didn’t actually feel this way at all.

Dr. Ernestine Martin was one of the few truly pure and odd people he’d ever met.

He didn’t want to get his fingerprints all over her.