13
Tamara Lennox couldn’t believe what she was about to propose.
Bad word choice, she told herself, her voice still not working. She’d been friends with Blaine since the moment they met. They were just two peas in a pod, cut from the same cloth, and born with the same eyes.
That was what her mother said, anyway.
She’d always gotten along with him, and some of her best memories included him.
Why shouldn’t she include him when she needed him most?
“Are you going to say anything?” he asked. “Or am I supposed to guess what your idea is?” He folded his arms, and the man had some impressive muscles. He liked to lift weights in the shed where he worked, and Tam suddenly wanted to see how heavy the barbells were.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, I’m going to say something.”
“Spit it out,” he said again, looking out across the field. He seemed off, but Tam couldn’t put her finger on exactly how. She’d always been able to tell when something was bothering Blaine Chappell, and something was definitely bothering him.
“I think you should be my boyfriend,” she said, spitting it all out at once, just like ripping off a bandage.
He turned toward her, his eyes wide. He had eyes the color of coffee with a lot of cream in them, and she’d always found them beautiful. She’d seen them dance when he laughed and water when he cried. She’d seen a glint of naughtiness in them in the past, and plenty of happiness or contentment as he simply lived his life.
“Excuse me?” he asked, reaching up to press down on his cowboy hat. He never went anywhere without that thing, and Tam knew better than to try to remove it from his head. She’d thought that would be a funny joke, but Blaine had disagreed. She’d learned that day never to touch a man’s cowboy hat unless she felt like losing a limb.
“You and me,” she said, rushing still. “It would be perfect. Hayes wouldn’t know the difference, because he was always saying you were getting in between us. He seriously thought we were having a fling on the side.” She knew she wasn’t winning him over, but she pressed on. “You could then get back out in the dating game. We go to dinner, women see you’re available and willing, and bam, when we break-up—after Hayes leaves town—you’re back on the market. It’ll be easy for you to get a date.”
He cocked his hip and squinted his eyes. With the folded arms, and the cowboy hat, he really had the disgusted, are-you-kidding-me look down just right. “This is a joke, right?” he asked.
“It’s not a joke,” she said, playfully pushing against his chest. He didn’t move an inch. “It’s an idea.”
“It’s a bad idea,” he grumbled, turning back to the ATV he’d obviously ridden out here.
“Why?” she asked. “You find me so disgusting you couldn’t hold my hand through a movie?”
“No,” he said.
“You hate my hair,” she said next. “It has been frizzing out a lot lately.”
He rolled his eyes, but he didn’t deny that her hair was too frizzy. She’d curled it that day, and that seemed to tame some of the poof.
“We won’t have to kiss or anything,” she said, watching him closely. She’d thought about kissing Blaine plenty of times in the past. She’d entertained a crush on the teenager for a full year, until he graduated, and she stayed in high school. Then again once she finished the farrier program and then a leatherworking course, specifically for making saddles. She’d returned to Dreamsville then, and Blaine was back in town too. He’d taken a few college courses but hadn’t graduated.
He didn’t need a degree to work on his family’s prestigious ranch and inherit a ton of money. Just how much, he’d never told her. He had a lot of brothers, and the most he’d said was, “It’s a lot, Tam. For all of us.”
“You said you didn’t want to let in someone new,” she said. “I’m not new.”
“These are really bad arguments,” he said.
“You wouldn’t even be letting me in. I’m already in.” She would never hurt him. “How hard can it be? We hold hands and go to dinner. We practically do that anyway.”
“We do not,” he said.
“I just had my arm laced through yours.” She mimicked him by cocking her hip and folding her arms. “We stand out here and watch the sun go down. Anyone passing by would think we were together.”
He looked at her then, and she saw the idea bubbling and brewing in his mind. Victory was close, and Tam just needed to close the deal.
“You definitely won’t get arrested for dating me,” she said. “It only has to look like dating on the outside.” She’d wanted him to ask her out on her thirtieth birthday too. They’d once made a pact with each other that if they didn’t have a significant other on her thirtieth birthday, he’d ask her out.
He’d obviously forgotten, because she’d gotten a deluxe set of mats for her car instead of an invitation to dinner. She’d said nothing, because Blaine obviously wasn’t interested in her romantically, just like he wasn’t now.