“It’s not good and bad.” He had no clue how to dig his way out of this. Sure, it sounded wrong when he said it like that. Maybe it was even bad to think it. But the bottom line was there were women who were fair game in his mind, and then there was Kate. And she was an entirely different category.
“All right, then. What kind of girl am I?”
Jack tightened his hold on the steering wheel. “The type that could get taken advantage of by assholes.”
“You think I’m stupid?”
“That isn’t what I said. Stupid and inexperienced are two different things.”
“You think I’m wholesome.”
Yes. It suited him just fine to think that Kate Garrett was as wholesome as whole grains. “Comparatively.”
“Compared to what? The women you sleep with?”
Heat lashed Jack’s face. “You’re determined to take this the wrong way.”
“Enlighten me. What is the right way to take this? You’re sitting here telling me there’s a certain type of woman it’s acceptable to mess around with and a kind that isn’t acceptable to mess around with, and you’re putting me in the category that isn’t allowed to mess around.”
“It’s not just women,” he said.
“Okay, then. What kind of guy are you, Jack Monaghan? Are you the kind of guy a girl marries? Or are you the kind we’re supposed to want to bang?”
Hearing the provocative words on Kate’s lips made his stomach wrench up tight. “Kate...”
“Go on. Tell me. It’s hardly fair, since you have such a comprehensive assessment of me. I deserve one of you. So tell me, Jack,” she said as he turned the truck into the narrow drive that would take them to the Garrett ranch and on to Kate’s house, “are you the sort of guy that a girl should dream of getting in a tux? Or are you the kind of guy that a girl should think about getting naked with?”
He slammed on the brakes, without thinking, without meaning to. But he could not drive while she talked like that. “Dammit, Katie.”
“For such an experienced man, you’re acting very prudish.”
“You want to know what kind of guy I am, Kate?” He shouldn’t challenge her, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. Because she was pushing. And when Kate pushed, he had to push back. Now and always. “Let me lay it out for you. I’m not the guy you marry. I’m the guy you stay up all night with. I’m the guy who doesn’t call the next day. I’m the guy your mama would’ve warned you about if she had stayed around.”
The last words barely made it out of his mouth before Kate grabbed ahold of his shirt and tugged him toward her. “Now you’re being a jerk on purpose,” she said, dark eyes glittering in the dim light, clashing fiercely with his.
“You wanted to know what kind of guy I was. I think that should answer your question.” He felt like a tool. He’d lost sight of what the end goal was in this weird game they were playing. All he knew was that she was pushing, and he was pushing back. All he knew was that his blood was burning, and his heart was pounding faster than it should have been.
“You did. You’re an ass. Question answered.”
She raised her hand as if she was going to hit him, and he caught her wrist, holding her steady, their eyes still locked. She was breathing faster than he was, and suddenly, the anger riding over the heat burning in his blood fizzled out. The heat remained, his heart still thundering hard, steady. And he was still holding on to Kate’s wrist.
The feeling that had surrounded them back at the bar had returned. Deeper. Stronger. And there was no pretending he didn’t know what it was. He could feel her pulse fluttering beneath his thumb, faster and faster the longer he held her.
Fuck.
He released his hold on her and put both his hands back on the steering wheel. “I am. I’m an ass. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that.”
“Why did you?” she asked, her voice small now.
“I don’t know,” he said, lying through his teeth with the truck still idling in the middle of the driveway.
“It was offensive. Not just what you said about my mother.”
“I know. I didn’t start out meaning to be offensive. Saying it out loud, I realize it’s stupid. But definitely in my mind I think of the kind of women that I would pick up in a bar and the kind I wouldn’t. Or more specifically, the kind who wouldn’t go with me. Of course, saying it out loud forces you to listen to how stupid it is.”
“It is stupid.”
“I know.”
“So,” she said, folding her hands in her lap now like a good student. “You’re going to teach me to flirt.”
He didn’t want to. He didn’t want her flirting with the guys who were part of her group. He didn’t want her flirting with the cowboys who would come in with the rodeo.
And considering what had just happened a few seconds ago, that meant it was exactly what he needed to help her learn to do.
As long as he focused on protecting her, as long as he focused on the right angle, the weirdness between them would evaporate. It had to. It was an aberration, something he would have liked to blame on alcohol. But he couldn’t, since all he’d had was a Coke.
He could blame it on the full moon or on the way she had grabbed his chin. All things that had passed and would pass.
And since they were going to be working on the rodeo together, he really needed to get a grip.
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He eased his foot slowly off the brake, and the truck started rolling forward.
“But chastely.”
“I will give you certain tools. What you do with them is up to you. And does not need to be shared. And none of this should be shared with Connor or Eli.”
Ultimately, he had Kate’s best interest at heart, he really did. But since he wasn’t related to her, he was being slightly more realistic than they would be. They would probably lock her in her room and not care about the fact that she was twenty-three.
“Okay. It will be our secret.”
He turned his truck onto the little road that led to her cabin. And he tried not to dwell on the way the word secret sounded on her lips. Illicit and a little bit naughty. Nothing he and Kate talked about should sound naughty or illicit.
He swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
He breathed a prayer of thanks when he rolled up to Kate’s house. He needed to get home and get his head on straight. Tonight felt like some kind of weird detour out of his normal life. Suddenly, he’d become aware of some different things about Kate. Some things that he would rather have never been aware of.
And with that had come a thick, heavy tension that just wouldn’t clear up.
A new day would fix that. The sun rising over the mountains, bathing everything in golden light, chasing away the shadows that rested on Kate’s face now. The shadows that accentuated her high cheekbones and the fullness of her lips. The darkness that blanketed the whole situation and made it seem fuzzy. Made her seem not quite like Kate. Made him feel not quite like a man who had known her since she was a whiny two-year-old.
He put the truck in Park but left the engine running. “Good night, Kate,” he said, opting to use the name she preferred. All things considered, it seemed safer.
“Do you want to come in?”
His