The Bride (The Bride #1)(32)

Not one touch since the towel incident. And I had said a lot of sexist things.

I hated the shift.

In our not-normal world, we had found a way to be normal.

Janet accused me once of falling for Ellie, and I was so damn proud to say that I hadn’t. That she’d been wrong. That all men weren’t assholes with dicks and no brains. That it didn’t matter that Ellie was beautiful because she was still freaking seventeen. And that when she turned eighteen that wasn’t going to magically change anything either.

I wasn’t a man waiting for a number.

Not going to lie, when I went to Missoula for those few days this past summer I had felt a little… guilty wasn’t right. Awkward, maybe? Not because I picked up some girl in a bar and basically had nonstop sex with her for three days. That I had no guilt over.

I had needed that, and it felt good. It was just that coming home to Ellie reminded me that I wasn’t so noble I couldn’t abstain for sixteen months while we got through this thing.

So I was a man, and I did have a dick. But I wasn’t some damn animal who couldn’t restrain myself with my brain when I needed to.

Yay me. The problem was, since the towel thing, despite her caution, Ellie had been giving me these looks.

Sometimes I would actually catch her staring at me, like she didn’t even know she was doing it, and I wanted to know what the hell was going through her head.

Only I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know for a second that she had thoughts like that. Which if I verbally communicated to her she would say was sexist.

She was going to be eighteen. She was allowed to have sexual thoughts. I was a man who was very much in her world. I wasn’t an asshole, but I knew I was attractive to most women.

I had had zero problem picking up… what the heck was her name? Sherry? Shari? Something like that.

It was not unheard of that she’d seen me and realized I wasn’t some eunuch she was living with. I wasn’t her father. And though we’d basically been raised together I wasn’t her brother.

Which sucked if that turned into some kind of crush. Imagine having a crush on your husband, only to have him turn around and divorce you in a couple of months.

Because that had to happen. I could not stay in that house one day past her eighteenth birthday or everyone would think something was going on. That something had been going on.

No, I was leaving on April twenty-third, and I really hoped when I did, I didn’t hurt her.

“I’m going to go mingle,” she told me.

“I’m going to stand in this corner and drink my beer.”

Her head tilted in that way it did when she was disappointed in me. “You’re so predictable. Do you realize that about yourself?”

“I do.”

“It’s a party.”

“And I’m here. Don’t overdo it on the punch.”

She sighed. “Kay.”

I did as I said I would. Nursed my beer because I was driving and checked out the room of people. The same room of people who were here last year, all in different sweaters.

“Hi Jake.”

“Mrs. Nash,” I said as she walked over to me. “No Mr. Nash?” There was never Mr. Nash when there was Mrs. Nash, but still I had to ask because it was polite.

“At home with the kids. I’m coming here for a while, then he’s going to another party later and I’ll take the kids.”

Right. Because Riverbend didn’t have about twenty age-appropriate babysitters.

“How is Ellie doing?”

It was a common enough question. No one ever asked her directly. So much easier to do it with me. It pissed her off actually and I could see why. I wasn’t the boss of Ellie. I wasn’t the caretaker of Ellie.

I was only her partner. For this part of our lives.

Still, I had to be polite so I gave the standard answer. “She’s doing great. Grades are good and she’s learning a lot about ranching.”

Mrs. Nash smiled. “No, I meant how is she doing?”

Right. Because not eleven months ago Ellie had lost her dad. Sometimes as strong as she was, even I forgot that.

“She’s okay. She’s strong. She’s determined. She’s more of a rancher than I would have thought. Takes to all of it, even the ugly stuff. She hates to go in my room for any reason, I think because it makes her sad. If our laundry gets mixed up she leaves my stuff folded outside my door. She cries at the weirdest things on TV and I know it’s because something reminded her of Sam. If I ask her if she wants to talk about it, she lifts her chin three feet up in the air and says she’s fine. Like her dad. She’s grown up a lot. And in a way that’s good, because come April this all falls to her, but in a way I’m sorry she didn’t get to experience her senior year. I doubt she’ll go to the prom. She didn’t bother with the homecoming dance. She’s focused. Which is important. Mature for someone so young, which is also important. But she’s not as goofy as she used to be. She doesn’t laugh as much. It bothers me sometimes.”

Mrs. Nash made a sound in the back of her throat and I looked at her.

“Jake Talley, I’ve known you your whole life and those are more words in total than you have ever said to me.”

I wasn’t sure I understood why that was important.

She put her hand on my shoulder. “She’s lucky to have had you through this.”