“Really? Are you sure it’s no trouble?”
“Of course not,” Mia said. “And we’ll keep an eye on Bubba for you. I just saw him come in.”
“Oh…okay.” Marisol debated confessing to Mia that she and Robert weren’t on the best terms right now, but decided against it. She had nowhere else to go if Mia decided she didn’t want her to sleep over, and hopefully Robert wouldn’t be in the mood to talk about their aborted make-out session. “Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I’ll probably go right to sleep.”
“Okay. Take care, and help yourself to anything you need. Medicine, food, drink, whatever.”
“Thank you,” Marisol said. “I appreciate it so much, Mia.”
“No worries, sweetie. Hope you get to feeling better.”
Marisol hung up and started down the street and around to the back of the shop, her chest feeling nearly as tight as it had when she’d walked away from Robert. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had someone treat her with such generosity. She and Mia were hardly more than strangers, but the other woman hadn’t hesitated to take her in, and trust her with the keys to her home. It was touching and made her wish more than ever that she could be that kind of person, that she hadn’t been burned so many times she didn’t trust anyone with the keys to her apartment, let alone the key to her heart.
But as she retrieved the house key and let herself into Mia’s place, she wondered if maybe she had finally fallen in with the kind of people who could be trusted, the kind of people who could make her believe the human race wasn’t a blight on the earth, after all.
Maybe she’d finally met friends who weren’t only around for the fair weather, and a man who could look into the darkness surrounding her heart and see something beautiful hiding in the shadows.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Bubba stayedat the Ticklish Iguana long enough to hear that Marisol “wasn’t feeling well,” and would be sleeping over at Mia’s place, and to slow dance with Tulsi so she wouldn’t feel abandoned when Sawyer and Mia took to the dance floor to sway to “Must Be Doing Something Right.” But as soon as the song ended and he’d installed Tulsi on a bar stool with a fresh light beer and a cheese quesadilla, Bubba made his excuses and called it a night.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he was tempted to head up to Mia’s place—there was a light shining from the second floor and he knew Marisol was in perfect health—but he took the left toward home instead. Marisol had made it clear she didn’t want to see him tonight. Or maybe any night. Hell, he didn’t know if she’d be returning to the ranch, or staying on as his manager, let alone finishing what they started.
No matter how explosive the chemistry was between them, Marisol refused to let him in, and he wanted more from her than a one-night stand.
Earlier, as they’d stood locked together in the sunset light, kissing like it was the reason they’d been put on earth, Bubba had been struck with the bone-deep certainty that Marisol was meant to be more than his manager, or his friend. Kissing her was like discovering electricity. He knew other people had catalogued the phenomenon before him, but he’d never known the true meaning of desire until he’d held Marisol in his arms. She flicked all of his switches, but she did more than turn him on—she fired him up. She made him want to vanquish demons, and heal every hurt he read in her deep brown eyes. He wanted to prove to her that there were good people and safe places in the world. He wanted her to see herself the way he saw her, as someone worthy of happiness and love.
He could love her. A part of him already did. A part of him had fallen for her the first time she’d picked up her guitar and discovered the perfect set of chords to compliment the chorus he was writing, like she could hear the same music that swirled through his head, fighting to find a way out. He didn’t have much in the way of armor, but what he did he’d been willing to lay at her feet that very moment.
But she didn’t feel the same way, and she was wearing a bulletproof vest, a coat of chain mail, and holding an iron shield three inches thick. He might never get close enough to see what was in her heart, let alone have a chance of touching it. This feeling growing inside him would probably be yanked up from the roots long before it had a chance to bear fruit, but it didn’t matter. Love doesn’t have the sense to know when it’s doomed. It’s one of the best, and the worst, things about it.
No amount of reasoning through all the things that stood in the way could change what Bubba felt. His heart wanted what it wanted, and it refused to give up on Marisol just yet.
So when he slammed through the front door to the ranch house to find his mother sitting at the kitchen table clipping coupons with the old ten inch television on the counter turned on for background noise, he crossed the room and flicked off the set. He wanted his mother to hear what he was going to say, and to understand how important it was that she welcomed Marisol back with open arms—if and when Marisol decided to come back to the ranch.
“What’s bothering you, Bubs?” Laura Mae asked. She might not be the most demonstrative mother in the world, but she always seemed to sense it when one of her boys had something weighing on his mind.
“It’s about Marisol,” he said, settling down in the chair across from her. “She’s sleeping at Mia’s tonight, but I want to be sure she’s comfortable here when she gets back.”
Laura Mae’s eyebrows rose as her gaze dropped to the sale paper in her hands. “Of course. Is there something else she needs? Was the bed uncomfortable? That mattress is almost as old as you are. I could grab one of those egg crate things to throw on top of it if—”
“She didn’t say a word about the mattress, or anything else,” Bubba said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if she felt uncomfortable here.” He paused, not wanting to call his mother on her bad behavior, but knowing he had no choice. It didn’t matter how strange it felt to have their roles reversed, Marisol was worth stepping into uncomfortable interpersonal territory for. “You weren’t very welcoming to her when we arrived yesterday. Honestly, I was shocked, Mom. I’ve never seen you act that way.”
His mother’s eyes flicked back up to his. “What way is that?”
Bubba cocked his head but didn’t say a word, knowing his mother well enough to realize letting her sit with an unanswered question was the quickest way to get her to talk.
After less than a minute of silence, his patience was rewarded.
“All right, fine.” She set her scissors down and tugged her reading glasses from where they were perched on the end of her nose. “I know I was rude, and I’m sorry for it, but I couldn’t help myself, baby. Every time one of you boys has brought home a girl like that, it’s been nothing but bad news.”
Bubba’s brows drew together. “A girl like what?”
“You know like what,” Laura Mae said with a hard look. “Like Terri and Patty Lee and that blond girl with the big chest that John took up with the summer before he met Lily. That girl almost ruined him for decent women.”
Bubba didn’t remember the blonde with the big chest, but he remembered Terri and Patty Lee—two of Cole’s former conquests—well enough to know Marisol was nothing like them. “Terri and Patty Lee couldn’t change a light bulb if they had a manual, Ma. And Patty Lee was one of the meanest things I’ve met outside of a snake house. Marisol is crazy smartanda nice person. If you’d taken the time to talk to her, you would have realized that.”
“Maybe she is,” his mother said, crossing her arms. “But she’s also very pretty, and very sexy, and she wasn’t wearing much in the way of clothing when you two rolled up.”