But… damn whatever it was weaving around all that anger in her. It was something that had her utterly confused, and she struck out in an effort to erase it.
“Is your lecture over now?” she asked. “Because I’m already bored.”
“Bored?”
He narrowed his gaze, and she did the same right back at him.
“Yes,” she said. “Bored. You know why? Because I have a hundred other issues all poking at me from every side, and yours don’t even begin to compete with them.”
He took a moment, looking down at the porch, as if to compose himself. Then he let out a curt laugh.
She didn’t know what to make of that.
“Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m only looking out for Tex’s interests. Do you know what it would’ve done to him if he’d heard y’all arguing?”
“There’s more going on than even Tex knew.”
Caleb locked gazes with her, reading her, and she stiffened. But she also melted ever so slightly, deep in her core, where she never melted.
He cared. She could see that. But she didn’t want his care, didn’t want anyone to meddle because she and Jenna and their cousins would have this under control soon.
She rested her hands flat on the swing, leaning forward. “I told you before—I know how close you were to Tex, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Sometimes I wonder if you Byrds have any idea what Tex gave to you, what he did for you.”
Donna felt her face go pale, and she knew that he knew he was wrong.
He gentled his tone. “What I’m trying to ask you to do is to stop battling with each other and appreciate what you have. That’s all he would’ve wanted.”
He said it with such longing that her heart bumped against her ribs.
But her anger had been fully roused, and her voice was torn when she answered.
“I know what I have now, believe me, because I didn’t have much of it before.”
Before now, her life had been defined by a father who was all business, plus a mom who hadn’t been alive for years and whom Donna had missed so much that she had told herself to never put her heart out there again, where it could be stomped all over.
When Caleb took a step onto the porch, one booted foot still on the stair behind him, Donna didn’t move. Was he coming up here to get his point across even more emphatically?
But he didn’t advance. Instead, he slipped his thumbs into his belt loops, a sheepish look on his face.
“Sorry for laying into you like that,” he said. “I didn’t realize how seriously you were taking this.”
“As seriously as you do, evidently.” Breathe, just breathe.
But when he came all the way up onto the porch, breathing wasn’t easy. Plus, he was making her skin do funny things, raising goose bumps and causing her fine hairs to stand on end.
If he noticed the evidence on her bare arms, he didn’t say anything.
“Promise me you’ll let me know if you need help with any of this mess,” he said.
“I’ve got it covered.”
Brother, did he have a lot to learn about her.
His voice lowered. “I’m being serious. Just give a yell if you need me for anything.”
She wasn’t sure they were talking about family business anymore.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” She rose from the swing, and it creaked, as if in protest.
As she passed him on her way to the door, she smelled that saddle soap on his skin, and it filled her head, making her dizzy.
A chuckle stopped her in her tracks, and she glanced over her shoulder to find him shaking his head.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re what we call a ‘firebrand’ out here.”
“I guess that just means if you insist on getting in my business anymore, you’re going to get burned.”
He laughed, and the dimples made a grand appearance, tweaking her heart with sparks that showered down until they settled in her belly.
But just as quickly, she shoved the ridiculous feelings aside.
Not her type. Never would be. And just as soon as she got back to the city, it’d be much easier to remember that fact.
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