Watch Me Fall (Ross Siblings, #5)(41)
What scared Starla far more about Jared’s words was that the he in question would apply not only to Brian Ross, but to every man she ever met who was worth a damn. Like, maybe…the one sitting next to her now, who hadn’t uttered a word himself since they’d left the restaurant. He was probably thinking that if he had any sense, he’d take this f*cking basket case home and never bother with her again. Why the hell did he want anything to do with her? He was a gorgeous man who, above all else, had his shit together. He could have his pick of hundreds of girls who had their shit together too. Macy was his ideal, for f*ck’s sake. Macy! Rich, educated, well-dressed, perfectly coiffed Macy.
And Macy wanted a guy like Ghost. Jesus, what a tangled web.
“Storm coming in,” Jared commented, finally breaking the silence between them. Until that moment, the only sound had been the gentle roar of the truck’s engine. Even the radio was off. She had no distraction from the chaotic nature of her thoughts. For her, the storm was already here, in her head, in her heart. Her pulse was like thunder in her ears.
“The girls are afraid of thunder,” he went on conversationally, almost as if he were privy to her thoughts. “I always try to tell them it’s not the thunder but the lightning they should be concerned about. I don’t want to scare them, but I want them to respect the danger. They’ll probably be huddled in bed under the blankets tonight.”
“You must miss them so much when they’re gone,” she said, scrounging through her brain and forcing out the first appropriate thing that came to her.
“Oh yeah. I do. I don’t like not being there. Especially when I know they might be afraid.”
For some reason, that made her f*cking eyes well up again. “Have you ever…” Her voice strangled on her, but she got it back under control, “…thought about working it out with their mom? For their sake?”
He was silent for a long time. “It really seems like the right thing to do sometimes. Just to see their eyes light up when they have Mom and Dad in the same room together. And it would probably be worth whatever Shelly and I would have to go through, at least for a while. But I don’t want them to wake up some morning and realize that we’re all living the perfect-family lie. I don’t want them to think that’s what they have to do too. I don’t want Shelly to throw away her chance to find someone who loves her the way she deserves. He’d just better love my girls too.”
“Hard not to,” she said, thinking of those bright eyes and excited snaggle-toothed smiles.
Jared’s own white teeth flashed in the darkness as he grinned. “They’re pretty lovable, aren’t they?”
“And you,” she said, tentative. “You deserve to find someone too.”
“It’s never been too high on my list of priorities, you know? I’ve sort of walled myself off.” His voice took an odd turn at the end, sounding almost puzzled, or as if he’d suddenly just worked something out for himself. Maybe he hadn’t even realized he’d been living that way. It was second nature for her.
As she turned that revelation over in her mind, though, a crazy thought occurred to her. Something she had no business asking him about, but suddenly she was insanely curious, and curiosity with alcohol was a dangerous combination. “So you were with Macy for, like, years, right?”
“Since middle school.”
“How old were you when you broke up?”
“I was nineteen. She was eighteen.”
“Did you get with Shelly right away?”
“Pretty much. Maybe a month in between there.”
Was her theory correct? Had this gorgeous man really only been with two women? Assuming he had been completely faithful to both, and she had no doubts he had been, at least physically… Surely not, though. Someone, somewhere had gotten into his pants at some point. A rebound in between, or after his divorce, or something. It was simply too hard to believe he hadn’t nailed a rodeo babe here and there.
From the driver’s seat, he chuckled. “I can sense you’re going somewhere with this.”
“No,” she said too quickly. “Just wondering.”
“The list isn’t extensive,” he said mildly, “but the damage is.”
Starla almost blurted out that she was the exact opposite. Her list was extensive. But the damage was minimal. She’d never been with anyone who could leave such a deep scar on her heart. Brian didn’t count; she’d never been with him.
Jared didn’t want to hear about that, though. Wouldn’t a man like him, who guarded his body as well as his heart, be put off by promiscuity? She’d never, not once, felt shame over her many sexual conquests. She didn’t now, really, it was just weird. As wanton as she was, she didn’t think she’d ever been with a man who’d had fewer partners than her, or at least not enough to make much difference. It had always been a pretty level playing field as far as she knew.
But this… Hell, it would practically be like deflowering a virgin. She had to giggle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, chuckling with her. And she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Only, um…those two? I’m sorry. You have to admit it’s uncommon.”
“Well,” he said, fidgeting a bit, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while the other gripped the wheel, “like I said, Macy and I were together from the time we were kids. I thought we’d stay together, get married, have a family, but she ended that. The one and only time I intended to have a one-night stand to forget Macy, I ended up married with twins on the way.”