Bounty (Page 109)

“Right,” I said warily.

“And you aren’t either of those folks,” he concluded.

I nodded. “I’m not. My dad wasn’t. My mom isn’t. Lacey appreciates good champagne and knows the difference between well vodka and top shelf. She’d still leave that restaurant and go get some fish and chips.”

“I hear you, gypsy,” Deke replied. “And what I hear from you sayin’ this to me is you’re worried we don’t fit.”

“No,” I denied carefully. “I know we fit. What I’m worried about is that you don’t agree.”

“You aren’t stupid,” he muttered and my stomach dropped.

While I experienced that alarming sensation, he leaned toward me, grabbed the plate that I’d lost interest in and took it with his, dumping them in his sink. He then opened his narrow fridge and came back with two fresh beers. He twisted the caps off both, flicking them across the space. One hit the sink. One glanced off the side and came to land on the small counter.

I watched all this with distraction, not liking where he’d left it, not sure what to say next.

He handed me a beer before he put his to his lips and took a long pull.

When he lowered it, he also lowered his eyes to mine.

It was then I figured I’d instigated our talk and now it was time to get into it and get past it.

He just didn’t say anything.

So I did.

“I am who I am, I do what I do and I can’t change that primarily because I don’t want to change that.”

That time his head twitched as his brows shot together. “You think I want you to change that?”

I was now seeing my mistake.

I should have exercised patience and let him lead.

It was time to backtrack at the same time tell him where I was at so he could (hopefully) springboard from there.

“Actually, I think I just want you to talk about whatever it was you wanted to talk about so we can get it out of the way and go back to being Deke and Justice, the new Deke and Justice that I like better which includes orgasms, nighttime pizza and Butterfinger Cups added to our togetherness and banter. So I started this trying to explain that I am who I am, I do what I do but I’m still just the woman you know. I’m not anything else and I want you to go in understanding that in an integral way so down the line it doesn’t come between us.”

“It come between you with anyone else?” he asked.

I felt my face get soft.

“You’ve gotta know, honey, even before I got into the business, with the last name Lonesome, there were people who wanted to be around me not wanting to be around me, but wanting to be around that. That’s why Lace and Anca and I are so tight. We all got that. And we could always trust with each other there were no ulterior motives.”

“And you trust I got no ulterior motives,” he stated, but in a way he wanted it confirmed.

“Of course I do.”

“Babe, want nothin’ to do with your money.”

The way that was stated was not just a confirmation to my confirmation. It was almost harsh.

And because it was, it seemed borderline insulting.

“I know you don’t.”

“Want nothin’ to do with your fame.”

At that, my stomach clutched.

Money was money, everyone needed it and only fools would say life didn’t get better in some ways the more you had of it.

Fame was something else.

Fame was something that, you got it, it was nearly impossible to shake. Degrees, maybe. But in some ways, it always followed you.

It was also something you could never control. It was an entity on its own, untamable, able to give good at the same time cause disaster.

You might not want any part of it, but once it was there, you didn’t have a choice, whether it was yours or it was someone’s you cared about.

And I knew with nearly everybody in my family having some level of fame, and having lived most of my life not actually having my own, it was harder dealing with it when it wasn’t yours, but someone’s you cared about.

“Those are both parts of me,” I said, my voice sounding constricted. “I can’t get rid of them, and like I said, I don’t really want to. They come with the territory of not only who I am but what I love to do.”

“You’re not gettin’ me,” he declared.

I didn’t want to be a bitch but he wasn’t giving me anything and I felt it down to my bones that this conversation meant everything.

Absolutely everything.

I sensed Deke Hightower was my place in the world.

I’d sensed that all the way back in Wyoming.

So this conversation might be the most important one I’d had to that point or ever would have in my life.

Because of that, I laid it out.

“Well then maybe you should say more than a few words at a time because I was a bit nervous about whatever this talk was, honey, but now you’re freaking me out.”

We had been on opposite ends of the couch, but not far apart because the couch wasn’t big but Deke was.

When I said those words, he reached out a hand, hooked it in the bend of my knee that was up on the couch and he used that to tug me closer so that knee was pressed against the side of his thigh.

And he didn’t remove his hand.

“I’m not givin’ you a lot of words, Jussy, because I don’t know how to say them,” he shared the instant he pulled me closer.

“I guess the only thing to say to that is to tell you that I like you, Deke, a whole lot. You know that but maybe you don’t know how much. And how much I actually do like you, you should also know you can say anything to me.”