Breaking Bailey's Rules(12)

He let out a slow, controlled breath. In less than a week he’d allowed Bailey to penetrate an area of his mind he’d thought dead forever. And earlier tonight when he’d reached across the seat and dragged her body against his, it hadn’t mattered that they were both fully clothed. Just the idea of her being in his arms had brought out his primitive animal instincts. He’d wanted to mate with her. How he’d found the strength to deny what they’d both wanted was beyond his ability to comprehend, but he had. And for that he was grateful. There was no telling how far she would have gone to get her story. She might have had him eating out of her hands while he spilled his guts.

A part of him wanted to think she was just a woman, easy to forget. But he knew she wasn’t just any woman. She wasn’t the only person with rules, and somehow Bailey had breached all the rules he’d put in place. At the top of his list was not letting another woman get to him.

Whether it was her making him smile or her making him frown, or her filling him with the degree of anger like he was feeling now—she made him feel too much.

He heard the sound of doors opening and closing downstairs and figured the card game had run its course. Pretty much like he’d run his.

It would be to his advantage to remain true to what he knew. Bailey called it being a loner, but he saw it as surviving.



Bailey glanced at her watch as she got out of her truck once she’d reached Ramsey’s Web. Most of her day had been filled with meetings, getting to know her new staff as they got to know her management style. It was important for them to know they were a team.

However, no matter how busy she’d stayed today, thoughts of Walker had filled her mind. He was furious with her, angrier than he’d been two nights ago. Was his anger justified? Had she crossed the line in asking him to do that piece for the magazine?

She was still upset about his insinuation that she would go as far as to use her body to get what she wanted. She didn’t play those kinds of games, and for him to assume she did didn’t sit well with her. So the way she saw it, they’d both been out of line. They’d both said things they probably regretted today. But she had to remember that Walker was a guest of her family, and the last thing she wanted to be was guilty of offending him. Dillon had placed a lot of confidence in her, and her family would never forgive her if she had offended Walker.

She needed to talk to someone about it before she saw Walker today, and the two people she could always go to for advice were Dillon and Ramsey. There was a chance she would run into Walker at Dillon’s place, so she thought it best to seek out Ramsey and ask how she could fix things with Walker before the situation got too out of hand.

She found her eldest brother in his six-car garage with his head stuck under the hood of his Jeep. She loved Ramsey’s Web and during her brother’s before-Chloe days, she’d spent time here getting deliberately underfoot, knowing he wouldn’t have it any other way. The two years when Ramsey had lived in Australia had been hard for her.

The sound of her footsteps must have alerted him to her presence. He lifted his head and smiled at her. “Bay? How are things going?”

“Fine. I would give you a hug but I don’t want grease all over me. Why are you changing your oil instead of letting JoJo do it?”

Ramsey chuckled as he wiped his hands. “Because there are some things I’d rather do myself, especially to this baby here. She’s been with me since the beginning.”

Bailey nodded. She knew the Jeep had been Ramsey’s first car and the last gift he’d gotten from their parents. It had been a birthday gift while he’d been in college. “You still keep it looking good.”

“Always.” He leaned back against the Jeep and studied her curiously. “So what’s going on with you, Bailey Joleen Westmoreland?”

This was her eldest brother and he’d always had the ability to read her when others couldn’t. “It’s Walker.”

He lifted a brow. “What about Walker?”

She glanced down at her pointed-toe boots a second before meeting Ramsey’s gaze. “I think I might have offended him.”

Ramsey crossed his arms over his chest, and she could tell from his expression that he didn’t like the sound of that. “How?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Start from the beginning. I have time.”

So she did, not rushing through most of the story and deliberately leaving out some parts. Such as how she’d found Walker utterly attractive from the first, how they’d both tried to ignore the sexual chemistry between them and how they’d made out in her truck last night.

“Well, there you have it, Ram. I apologized to him last night about my wrong assumptions about his feelings on marriage, but I made him mad again when I asked him to do the interview.”

Ramsey shook his head. “Let me get this straight. You found out he used to be a movie star who left Hollywood after the deaths of his wife and child, yet you wanted to interview him about being a loner since that time?”

Ramsey sounded as if he couldn’t believe she’d done such a thing. “But that wasn’t going to be the angle to the story,” she argued. “Simply Irresistible isn’t a tabloid. I’m not looking for details of his life in Hollywood. Women are curious about men who hang back from the crowd. Not everyone is interested in a life-of-the-party type of male. Women see loners as mysterious and want to know more about them. I thought Walker would be perfect since he’s lived by himself for ten years on that ranch in Alaska. I figured he could shed some light on what it’s like to be a loner.”

“Think about what you were asking him to do, Bay. You were asking to invade his space, pry into his life and make public what he probably prefers to keep private. I bet if you had run your idea by Chloe or Lucia, they would have talked you out of it. Your plan was kind of insensitive, don’t you think?”

With Ramsey presenting it that way she guessed it was. She honestly hadn’t thought about it that way. She had seen an opportunity and jumped without thinking. “But I would have made the Hollywood part of his life off-limits. It was the loner aspect I wanted to concentrate on. I tried to explain that to him.”

“And how were you planning to separate the two? Our pasts shape us into the people we are today. Look at you. Like him, you suffered a double loss. A quadruple one, to be exact. And look how you reacted. Would you want someone to show up and ask to interview you about that? How can you define the Bailey you are today without remembering the old you, and what it took to make you grow from one into the other?”

His question had her thinking.

“And I think you missed the mark on something,” he added.

She lifted a brow. “What?”

“Assuming being a loner means being antisocial. You can be a loner and still be close to others. Everybody needs some me time. Some people need it more so than others. Case in point, I was a loner before Chloe. Even when I had all of you here with me in Westmoreland Country, I kept to myself. At night, when I came here alone, I didn’t need anyone invading my space.”

She nodded, realizing something. “But I often invaded it, Ram.”

“Yes, you did.”

Bailey wondered, for the first time, if he had minded. As if reading her thoughts, he said, “No, Bay. Your impromptu visits never bothered me. All I want you to see is that not everyone needs a crowd. Some people can be their own company, and it’s okay.”

That was practically what Walker had said. In fact, he had gone even further by saying she was dependent on a crowd. Namely, her large family.

“Looks as if I need to apologize to Walker again. If I keep it up, he’s going to think ‘I’m sorry’ is my middle name. Guess I’ll go find him.”

“That’s going to be pretty difficult.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Because Walker isn’t here. He’s left.”

“Left?”

“Yes, left. He’s on his way back to Alaska. Zane took him to the airport around noon.”

“B-but he had planned to stay for the wedding. He hadn’t met everyone since some of the cousins won’t be coming in until tomorrow.”

“Couldn’t be helped. He claimed something came up on his ranch that he had to take care of.”

What Ramsey didn’t say, but what she figured he was thinking, was that Walker’s departure had nothing to do with his ranch and everything to do with her. “Fine. He left. But I’m going to apologize to him anyway.”

“Um, I probably wouldn’t ask Dillon for Walker’s phone number if I were you, especially not if you tell him the same story you just told me.”

Bailey nibbled her bottom lip. How was she going to get out of the mess she’d gotten herself into?





Six

“So tell me again why you cut the trip short.”

Walker glared across the kitchen at his best friend, who had made himself at home, sitting at Walker’s table and greedily devouring a bowl of cereal.

“Why? I’ve told you once already. The Westmorelands are legit. I didn’t have to prolong the visit. Like I said, no matter what Bart believes, I think you and your brothers should take them seriously. They’re good people.”