Right Where We Belong (Silver Springs #4)(33)

“Everything in a marriage comes down to compromise,” she said.

Still battling an onslaught of testosterone, he tucked the hair that’d come out of the tie holding the rest back behind his ears. “Surely, not all marriages are difficult.”

“I would hope not, but why take the risk?”

“A good marriage must be as wonderful as a bad marriage is terrible, I guess.”

She glanced over at him again. “You’ve never been married?”

“No.”

“And you’re...what? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

“Twenty-nine.”

She moved the dirt on her driveway around with one toe. “Since you’ve been asking me some pretty tough questions, I have one for you.”

The wind was growing stronger. Gavin pulled the tie out of his hair, gathered it all back and secured it more tightly. “Shoot.”

“Have you had any long-lasting relationships?”

“I was with someone named Winn for a couple of years, but we were barely out of high school, too young to even consider marriage.” He thought of Heather, who’d come much later. He wondered if he was being fair to leave her out, but they’d never been together for more than a few months at a time, and she’d never been anyone he’d considered marrying—until now.

“Where’s Winn these days?” Savanna asked.

“Living in LA, building a family with someone else.”

“Do you ever regret the breakup?”

“Not really. We’re still friends, and that’s enough for me.”

“You keep in contact with her?”

“I keep in contact with most of the women I’ve dated.”

“That’s kind of odd, isn’t it?”

“Why would it be? I care about them, as friends.”

“Is Winn happy in her marriage?”

He crossed his legs at the ankles. “I don’t think she’s terribly unhappy. She echoes what you said—marriage is a compromise.”

“I’ll never marry again, never be willing to put up with so much or try so hard to make the best out of something bad. But I always wanted a family, so once I made that commitment, I figured I needed to be happy with what I had.”

Gavin grinned to lighten the mood. “And now that you have the kids, you no longer need a man. You’re free to become a lesbian.”

She stared over at him. “You’re so different—like a pretty rock that you almost step over because you assume it’s the same as all the others. But then you pick it up and realize how lucky you are to have found it.”

As a child, he’d been a rock no one wanted. Even his father hadn’t cared enough to fight his stepmother to keep him. And because of Savanna’s word choice, which was what he got from people who didn’t approve of his long hair or tattoos, he wasn’t sure she meant it entirely as a compliment. “A pretty rock?”

He thought she might back away from that statement, now that he’d questioned her word choice, but she didn’t. She seemed completely unapologetic in her opinion. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re the prettiest man I’ve ever seen. And it has nothing to do with your long hair. Everything works together just...perfectly.”

Gavin was tempted to pull her to him. She was shivering, and he wanted to warm her. He wanted to stand behind her and shore her up in other ways, too. Working at the ranch, he’d had a lot of practice patching up broken hearts. Like his adoptive mother, fixing things, fixing people, came second nature to him. If not for that, he was fairly certain he wouldn’t have been able to patch himself up after what he’d been through. So many of his brothers struggled worse, especially Seth.

His tendency to gravitate toward broken things made him wonder, though. Was part of his attraction to Savanna due to the fact that she needed someone so badly? He felt that was a suggestion Aiyana would’ve made, and his mother was usually right. She could read people so well. But if Heather was pregnant, she needed him, too, and yet he had far less desire to be with her.

“Are you still paying that expensive lawyer to defend Gordon?” Gavin asked.

“No. After I lost confidence in Gordon’s innocence, I fired Detmer and asked for the balance of my retainer.”

She was rubbing her arms for warmth as she replied, so he shoved off the car. “You’re cold. I’ll let you go inside. Thanks for showing me your new ride.”

After a brief hesitation, she caught his arm. “Why don’t you come in with me? I can’t offer you anything except a glass of milk—and that’s only because you got it in the first place—but it feels nice to talk to someone. You have such a...a measured way of looking at problems.”

He knew he shouldn’t accept the invitation. Maybe she thought she was only looking for someone to talk to, but she hadn’t let go of him, and he could feel desire curling through his veins.

He opened his mouth to tell her they’d have to talk later. But then she added, “Just for a few minutes?” and he couldn’t bring himself to refuse.

“Sure,” he replied. “I have a bottle of wine. I could grab it if you’d like a glass.”

She nodded. “That’d be nice.”

Again, he told himself he should bail out. But he didn’t. “I’ll be over in a minute.”