Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (17 page)

“Maybe next time I make plans I’ll come up
with something a little more man-friendly,” I said, trying to keep a brave
face. Cade returned my smile and nodded.

“If you give me a heads up, maybe I can plan
around it,” he suggested.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” I told him,
wagging my finger. “You can’t keep standing me up like this, you know.”

“I don’t stand you up,” he countered, his
smile half-falling from his face, and I felt a cold kind of dread in my spine.
“You just never tell me about what you’re off to do until right before you
leave.”

I wanted to point out that the first few times
we’d hung out together, it had been the same thing, but he’d been able to spend
time with me then.
That changed a little
while after you slept together. That’s the reason.
I pushed the thought out
of my head.

“In any case, you owe me a little bit of
time,” I said, turning away from him and towards my car. “I’ll give you a shout
the next time I’m making plans.”

I walked away from Cade before I could make
myself more upset and got into my car, backing up and then turning around on
the driveway to head to the dirt-and-gravel path leading up to the road.

I could see Cade walking to his truck in my
rear view mirror and part of me wanted to turn around and demand an explanation
—
a real one
—
for why he’d become so much chillier to me
than he had been before. But I knew that would just put him on the defensive,
and besides, it was none of my business, really.

The entire time I made my way into town,
though, I couldn’t help but think about Cade. It didn’t make any sense to me,
how he’d gone from being playful and flirtatious to being almost coldly polite
to me, almost overnight.

I was sure that he was interested in me
—
really, truly interested
—
even above and beyond a quick one-night stand.
I’d been sure for a while after we’d had our tryst that he was more than
willing for more, as soon as we could both get the excuse to be alone.

I hadn’t managed to convince myself of
anything stupid like that he would end up being Addie’s step-father, but I had
thought at least that we’d had something good going together, something that
would at least last a season.

I tried to keep the fact that it had happened
so soon after we’d hooked up out of my mind. No matter how I tried, though, I
couldn’t quite shake the feeling that now that Cade had gotten a pretty easy
lay out of me, he had lost interest
—
and that that was why. I didn’t want to
believe that he was the kind of person who would flirt with a girl and have an
interest in her right up until she put out, but I knew that there were plenty
of guys in the world who were exactly like that.

My mind turned to Titan, and I felt a rush of
brittle, bitter anger at the fact that he’d run out on me right before I’d had
his child, when we’d been engaged.

My parents had never tried to rush me into
finding another man or even suggested that I should be looking for a
replacement for Titan, but I knew that they wanted me settled eventually. Mom
had commented more than once that it would at least be easier on me to have
someone I could depend on, who loved me.

I felt guilty often, if only for the fact that
my parents had done so much for me, and I sometimes thought that if I had
someone to depend on, Tuck wouldn’t be quite as aggressive or so pushy about
his future ownership of the farm.

I had thought that Cade was different from
Titan, and I had to admit to myself that at least Cade had never proposed to
me, never actually gave me a reason to think that he was serious about me. But
the possibility that he had only been interested in a one-night stand, before
moving onto his next target, was hard for me to bear.

I hadn’t really thought much to the future
when we’d slept together, but afterwards, I had at least hoped that there was a
possibility of dating. I had thought we’d have at least a little more than one
little tryst together.

I was so lost in thought about the situation
with Cade and my feelings of rejection that I nearly missed the turn into the
mall.
Stop letting yourself get down
about this,
I told myself as I pulled into the parking lot and started
looking for a space.

I had more to be thankful for than I had to
complain about: my daughter was healthy, my parents were more than happy to
support me, I had a roof over my head and even my own space, and I had friends
who were willing to spend time with me.

Just because I didn’t have a husband, or
anyone to be the father figure my child needed
—
yet
—
didn’t mean that I was wrong, or that my life
was wrong. There were plenty of women in the world who raised their kids alone.
I shouldn’t jump on the first man to show me a little interest, and I shouldn’t
blame myself if he didn’t follow through beyond our first time in bed together.

By the time I found my parking spot and got
out of the car to walk to the mall entrance, I was halfway to believing that I
could
—
and would
—
just shake Cade off, that I would be fine, and
I’d forget about him completely.

If he wasn’t interested in me anymore, then I
would just pretend like he barely existed. I’d still bring food out for my dad
and my brother, but I wasn’t about to sweat the details, wondering what Cade
would like or want. I would make what I felt like making.

I went into the mall and started to find my
way to the food court where I was going to meet with my friends. In the back of
my mind, I couldn’t help replaying the night I’d spent with Cade. I tried to
remember something that I could hold out in my mind as evidence that it would
never work out between us, something that would give me the freedom to tell myself
that he wasn’t even that good in bed, that in the long run it was better that
he’d moved on so fast because I’d just get bored or be unsatisfied.

But it was impossible. Cade had been so much
better than Titan
—
and better, in fact, than the couple of guys
I’d been with before Titan
—
that there was almost no basis for comparison.
He’d been so good that in the weeks since we’d slept together, I’d had to find
ways to get some time alone
—
not an easy thing with an infant.

I forced Cade out of my mind as best as I
could when I spotted my friends at the meeting place we’d chosen. I was
determined to have a good time with them, not obsess over the fact that Cade
seemed to have decided he’d gotten what he wanted from me and didn’t want
anymore.

If Cade wasn’t interested in me, then I told
myself I would find someone else. I would get my revenge by finding someone who
was interested in me as more than a one-night stand, and I’d be happy long
before he found someone to settle down with.

I called out to my friends and thought only
about the fun we were going to have while I could be away from the house,
instead of thinking anything at all about how much more fun it would be with
Cade. I hugged my girls and we set off, and I finally succeeded in no longer
thinking about the farmhand at all.

Chapter Twenty Two

Cade

When I’d told Autumn that I had errands to
run, I’d been lying; and when I saw the way her face fell just for an instant,
before she recovered and the way that she tried to play off her hurt feelings
from my rejection, I’d felt terrible, but I knew I had to stick with my story.

I went straight home from the Nelson farm and
took a shower to clean off the dirt, sweat, and fertilizer, and sat down in my living
room, at a loss. I had the rest of the afternoon off, and I didn’t have to go
by the farm the next day to work. By all rights, I should have taken Autumn up
on her offer. After all: it was a harmless group outing, wasn’t it?

But I knew that Bob Nelson almost certainly
wouldn’t see it that way. I’d promised him when he hired me that I wouldn’t
fall in love with his daughter and that I wouldn’t let her distract me from my
work.

In one sense, I’d honored that promise: I
hadn’t gotten distracted from my work. But I had started to get feelings for
her before we’d ever even slept together and having sex with Autumn had only
made it worse.

I’d turned down her invitations to hang out a
few times, and every time I’d felt lousy doing it, not only because I knew that
she probably felt like shit for being rejected, but because I really and truly
wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to get to know her better, and I
definitely wanted to have sex with her again.

It was all too easy for me to remember what
our first
—
and so far only
—
time had been like.
Fuck.
Autumn had felt so good, so right, wrapped around me. I
wanted more, but I had promised not to get involved with her.

I gritted my teeth. I had told Bob Nelson that
I would stay away from his daughter, since he’d gotten the red flag from the
time I’d already spent with her. I needed to keep to that promise, or I’d be
out of a job.

Worse than that, I could screw things up not
just for me, but for Autumn, as well. I could make things more tense between
her and Tuck, and I could end up making drama for her. It was best if I
distracted myself as much as possible.

I scrubbed at my face with my hands, trying to
decide what to do with myself. If I stayed home, I knew I’d spend the rest of
the night thinking about what Autumn was doing, wishing I’d said yes to her
invitation
—
Bob be damned.

I already wished I’d said yes to Autumn’s
invitation, even if the outing wasn’t all that exciting. Going to the mall,
hanging out with her friends, wasn’t a great outing, but it would at least have
given me some time with Autumn away from her family.

And that was the danger. I wanted to spend
time with her; I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to be with her. I was
already too late in terms of having feelings for her, but I could at least keep
myself from acting on them. I could keep myself out of trouble, keep her from
having anything more than passing, regular attraction to me.

But I needed to find something to do with
myself so I wouldn’t dwell. I thought about what I could do; I needed to get
out of the house, but the idea of going out with any of my girl friends wasn’t
exactly alluring. I knew I’d spend the entire time comparing any of them to
Autumn.

“That just leaves one thing,” I said to
myself. I found my phone plugged into the wall and took it off the charger.

I called up my friend Drake. “Hey, man,” I
said, sitting back down on the couch. “You get paid this week?”

“Yeah, man, sure enough,” he said. “You got
something in mind for me to blow my money on?”

I laughed. “A few beers, maybe catch a game
somewhere?” I didn’t really like the idea, but it would be better than sitting
at home, stewing about the girl I shouldn’t even have ever kissed, much less
had sex with.

“I think they opened up that new laser tag
place in town,” Drake told me. “We could check that out. Get a couple of the
other guys from the crew.” He had worked with me on more than one construction
job; there was a group of us that tended to do the work on a regular basis, and
we’d become friends over time.

“Sounds good, my man,” I said. “Let’s call up
some of the guys and make a night of it: grab some burgers and beers, get our
laser tag on, and all that.”

“I’ll call Joe and Skinny Pete, if you’ll get
Harold and Max,” he told me.

“I can do that. Catch you at…” I checked the
time. “Say six? Give us plenty of time to get our drink on a bit before we head
over to the laser tag place.”

“I’m down,” Drake agreed.

I hung up and started the process of getting
ready to go out. First, I called Harold and Max, let them know the idea that
Drake and I had worked out; Harold had a girl he was going out with, but Max
was down for a guys’ night out.

I had already taken a shower, but I changed
out of my pajamas and into a clean pair of jeans and a button-down shirt
—
not something super nice, but something that I
could wear out with my buddies without looking like a total scrub. I shaved and
pulled my hair back out of my face, and tried not to think about how nice it
would be to be getting ready to go somewhere with Autumn instead.

Stop thinking about that. You’re going to be hanging out with the
guys.

I knew I’d have to make an effort to find a
pretty girl to flirt with, not that there were that many in the town that I
didn’t already know, but there was always a chance that I would find someone.
Even if I did run into someone I knew already, I told myself I would make the
effort.

I needed to do whatever it took to get Autumn
out of my mind and to keep my promise to Bob Nelson.

Not to mention that Tuck clearly has issues with me spending any time
with his sister.
That
was another reason not to let myself get involved with Autumn, and to push her
away: Tuck had been getting increasingly aggressive ever since I’d started
flirting with her. I needed to put some distance between myself and his
beautiful sister if I wanted to be able to keep my job for the rest of the
season.