“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night.”
T.J. turned and walked into the living room, tossed the blanket and pillow on the couch, then sat down in one of the armchairs to stare blindly at some cop show on TV.
What the hell was going on? He wasn’t looking to get tangled up with a woman, was he? So why the hell did Heather telling him to buzz off matter to him?
He should be relieved. Instead he was pissed off by her stubbornness and by what he believed to be her unreasonable fear that he would somehow cause her or Seth some kind of emotional pain.
As he stared at the TV, he pondered their conversation. He knew her reluctance stemmed from having lost the two most important men in her life in a relatively short period of time. She had to have felt completely abandoned and although she might not realize it, her current resistance to getting close to anyone was due to her fear that she could lose any new person in her life the way she had lost her father and fiancé.
Was he open to taking on that kind of emotional baggage?
They certainly had an abundance of chemistry between them. They couldn’t be within ten feet of each other without him wanting to take her in his arms. And if her reaction to him was any indication, she wanted to be there.
So what did he intend to do about it?
He really didn’t think he had ever been in a real relationship. There were women he’d dated, but he had been so focused on his goal of winning world championships in bronc riding events and then buying a ranch and building his breeding program that he hadn’t been serious about any of them.
In his rodeo days, he’d spent time with some of the buckle bunnies who hung around hoping to add another rider’s name to the list of cowboys they’d bedded who had earned championship belt buckles. He wasn’t overly proud of his past, but his name had been added to several of those bunnies’ lists. And, of course, whenever he had an overwhelming urge for female companionship, he’d made his share of trips over to the Broken Spoke in Beaver Dam to find a warm, willing woman who didn’t want anything more from him than one night and a real good time. But he had never committed himself to any kind of exclusive or serious relationship with a woman, especially not a woman with a child in tow.
Heather wasn’t the type of woman a man took to bed and then walked away from the following morning without so much as a backward glance. She was part of a package deal. She had a cute little kid. Any man who entered into a relationship with her would be in a relationship with her little boy, as well. Was T.J. even thinking about trying to make that kind of connection with Heather? What if things didn’t work out? He certainly didn’t want to hurt Seth if they didn’t.
T.J. turned off the television and removed his boots, got up from the chair and stretched out on the couch. As he lay there, trying to ignore the obviously broken spring poking him in the middle of his back, he knew exactly what he was going to do and why he was so damned frustrated.
Heather was more than just a single mother who was barely making ends meet and had no one to turn to for help. She was the only woman who had piqued his interest this much in a very long time—maybe ever. He just couldn’t walk away from that. If he did, he had a feeling he would regret it for the rest of his life. His instincts had served him well over the years and he wasn’t about to start questioning them now.
Whether she liked it or not, she would have to get used to the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere. She needed someone to turn to if things got rough or slipped out of her control. And T.J. intended to be there for both her and Seth.
Now all he had to do was convince her to give him a chance. And he intended to get started on that first thing in the morning.
Five
The following morning, Heather woke up to find the pillow and blanket she had given T.J. the night before stacked neatly on the end of the couch, but he was nowhere in sight. As she continued on into the kitchen, she looked out the window over the sink to see if his truck was still parked next to her car. It wasn’t.
When a keen sense of disappointment washed over her, she tried to remind herself that this was the way she wanted it—the way it had to be. She should be happy that he hadn’t argued with her, that he’d done what she’d asked.
But she wasn’t.
She had spent a miserable night going over all of the reasons why she’d asked T.J. to stay away from her and her son. Surely that was the only way to ensure that Seth didn’t get hurt.
But reasoning with herself didn’t do a thing to stop the abject loneliness that seemed to go all the way to her soul.
Sighing, she turned to get a mug from the cabinet. That’s when she noticed a note on the counter in front of a freshly made pot of coffee. T.J. let her know that he had tended to the horses. He’d thanked her for giving him a place to stay for the night and told her to get in touch with him if she needed anything.