Just Want Somebody to Love (Bella Warren Book 1) (28 page)

She laughed. “I know. I’m no host. I have no desire to be one, but I miss being surrounded by the buzzing activity. I miss waking up to coffee and bacon. I miss people.” She turned her head up. “Maybe I just need to get out more. Or bunk on Kara and Wade’s couch.”

He laughed. “I’ve sat on that couch. You don’t want to sleep on it.”

She was laughing with her brother now, and the softening of her chest was welcomed. “So what’s your advice? You’re the wise one sent to fix me.”

“I don’t have any. I told them there’d be nothing I could do for you, and that you’d come around when you were ready.”

“I am ready to come around. I want to get out. I want to—okay, I don’t want to date right now, but I want to find someone eventually.” She faced her brother. “I just want someone to love, don’t you?”

He straightened. “I love you. And Mom. Wade most of the time.”

She smiled and hugged herself. “No, I mean, someone to
love
. Don’t you want that? And even more, someone to love you.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “No?”

“That’s really I want.” She pushed off her chair. “I want to get married. I want to have kids. I want…” She stopped and faced him. “I want what everyone around me has. I don’t want to be the third wheel. Or just the fun aunt. I want someone to love and a have life with.”

His grin got big as he straightened and slid the fruit salad back in the refrigerator. He came around the end of the bar and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back in about an hour or two.”

She turned, watching him walk away. “Where are you going?”

“To get something.” He stopped. “Or can you leave right now and go with me?”

“Yeah, I can go.” She noticed he hadn’t said where they were going, what they were doing, or what was on his mind. Either way, she slipped her shoes on and followed him out the door.

“Don’t look, but I’m pretty sure everyone is plastered to the front of Wade’s house. Look really depressed.”

“Why?” She hesitated and slowed her walked as she went down the steps.

“Because you’re going to need forgiveness when you get back. Slouch your shoulders. And look down.” He glanced to her. “Come on, Whit. I’ve seen you manufacture tears to get Wade in trouble. Surely you can do it to save your own ass.”

She hunched her shoulders as directed and climbed into his SUV. “I’m confused why I’ll need forgiveness.”

“I might have meant I’ll need it.” He turned the engine over and backed up. “No smiling until we get out of here.”

“I’m starting to be afraid.” And she fought a smile.

“Trust me.” He turned up the radio. “Enjoy the ride. You’ll see when we get there.”

A buzz hummed from her hip and quieted her excitement. She was afraid to check her phone because of who it might be. She tipped her phone away from her hip enough to see Justin’s name across the top of the text.

Nope.

She let the phone go, got comfortable, and rode to wherever Tate was taking her. It wasn’t the first text Justin had sent her over the last three weeks since he’d left. She really,
really
hoped it would be the last. Kind of sort of hoped it was the last.

She’d taken a glance or two at the messages. It wasn’t intentional, but when she unlocked her phone and the damn things were on the screen, it was hard not to see them. When a brain saw words, it read them.

Words like
how have you been?
And
wishing you were here.
And
I’m sorry.

There’d been more than one sorry. And more than one,
I wish you’d respond.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

She could block his calls, but she liked the satisfaction that the great Justin Rawlings didn’t get something he planned to have. Her. Suck it.

Tate slowed and turned at a red light, taking them into a neighborhood. “Almost there.”

She pushed to sitting. “I hope that means I get to find out what you’re up to soon.”

“Yep. Right now.” He slowed at a house in a neighborhood. A chain link fence peeked out from the side, and the biggest dog she’d ever seen barked at them from behind it. “Lord, he’s huge.”

Tate grinned. “She’s just a puppy.”

“A puppy. What are they feeding puppies these days?” She followed him out the truck. The dog’s bark echoed off the houses. His back would be mid-way up her thighs. Head bigger than hers.

He laughed. “She’s half Saint Bernard and half Great Dane. She was going to be put down, but my friend, Lori, rescued her.”

“Aw.”

Tate knocked on the door, and a slender brown-headed woman opened the door. “Hey, Tate.” She looked to Whitney and back to Tate. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted my sister to meet Peanut.” He gestured to Whitney. “This is my sister, Whitney. He pointed at the woman. “And Lori.”

Whitney smiled and shook the woman’s hand whose grin grew larger. Who the hell was Peanut?

“Come in. She just had a bath, so now’s a perfect time.”

Tate walked in first, and Whitney followed them like a caboose through a tidy living room, and out the back door. The big dog ran at them, and she was Fred Flintstone with Dino going at her.

The dog stopped at Lori, and the tail wagged a hundred miles per hour. Lori leaned over and cradled the dog’s head in her hand. “Who’s my good girl? I have a visitor for you.”

The dog’s tongue bobbed out one side. Whitney couldn’t help the smile. They were never allowed pets because of the possible nuisance they’d be on the farm. Digging holes, pooping in the fields. Chasing whatever across the fields and wrecking plants in the process.

Lori straightened and looked to Whitney. “Whitney, this is Peanut.”

She laughed. “Nice sense of humor.”

Lori rubbed the dog along the gray and white flecks of her shiny coat. “It fits her. She’s a big girl, but sometimes she’s shy around new people. Squat down to her and let her come to you.”

Whitney did as told, and Peanut stretched her neck forward and took a couple test sniffs against her hands, arms, and neck. Whiskers caught under ear, and Whitney winced with a giggle. “Her coat is soft.”

Lori smiled. “Just like a felt blanket. And she loves to cuddle, so in winter you won’t even need a real blanket.”

Tate shifted his stance. “When Lori adopted her, she knew she couldn’t keep her forever. This backyard is too small for what she needs.”

Lori pulled a rag between her hands. “She’s already outgrown the space here. I swear we can go on a walk for an hour and she’s still full of energy.”

“I can imagine.” Whitney reached out, and Peanut stilled as she ran a hand over her neck and then gave her a scratch behind the ear. Peanut collapsed and rolled over.

Lori laughed. “You found her sweet spot. She falls over for it, and then when you can’t reach the ear anymore, she gets back up.”

Just as Lori said, Peanut stood and sniffed Whitney’s face. “She’s beautiful.”

Tate nodded. “She’s a handful. She needs someone who can give her lots of love.”

Lori smiled. “And she has lots of love to give back.”

Whitney stilled with her hand on Peanut. “Wait.” She searched Tate. “You want me to take her?”

Tate’s grin got bigger. “Yeah. You have a big house. You’re lonely. You have the huge yard that is Chester Farms. You need this dog. And she needs you.”

She cupped Peanut’s gray face. A white streak went between two of the largest puppy eyes she’d ever seen. She glanced around Lori’s yard, and it seemed even smaller now with the three of them standing out there. Laughter and tears choked the back of her throat as she rubbed at the velvet soft ears. “Wade is going to freak out.”

He grinned. “That’s why I didn’t bring Wade. Or ask his permission.”

Whitney sat back on her heels, and the big pup sat too. She leaned forward and her tongue went up her face like a paintbrush. “Goofball.”

“What do you think?”

Words choked in her throat as the puppy smelled around her hair and neck. She managed a nod as she loved on her new baby girl a little longer. “Thank you, Tate. I’ll take her.”

Justin couldn’t quite ignore the creeper vibe running over him as he sent another text. He wasn’t aiming to come off that way, but two birds were fighting over a branch, and it had been funny. Like things always seemed to be over the last month, when he saw something interesting, his immediate thought was to share it with Whitney.

There were zero logical reasons why. He’d never had this inexplicable need to have commentary on the goings-on of everyday life. He’d never felt the need to share things like his Chinese food that came shaped like a donkey, but now he couldn’t shake it.

And Whitney wouldn’t answer the phone when called. Attempts to call from his office or home so the number wouldn’t be recognized resulted in an immediate hang-up.

He sighed and clipped his phone on his belt.

Creeper Level: Stage Three. Achieved. Too bad there wasn’t a prize for that.

He pushed through the front doors of his office, and his assistant looked up from her desk. On seeing him, her eyes softened. That didn’t used to happen either. Started, oh, about the second morning after he got back to work.

She managed a smile for him as she handed stack of papers. “Morning. Mock ups for next season’s advertisement are waiting for your thoughts. And they sent over some city names they’re looking to branch us into, and wanted to gauge your opinion.”

He nodded as he flipped through the pages. “Looks good.”

“Another sleepless night?”

He paused in turning through the papers he wasn’t reading anyway. It was hard to read when all the text blended. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he caught dyslexia in Bella Warren. “That obvious?”

She gave him that look. It was the same one he’d ignored every morning so far. This time, as another text went unanswered, he sat in a chair across from her. “I don’t know what to do. I’m texting. I’m calling. She’s not responding.”

She made a face. “Sounds like you’re nagging.”

Well. Yeah. “Nagging sounds better than what I think of myself.”

“Oh.” She winced and then shook her head with a sigh. “You like this girl, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, and so many moments of his time with Whitney went over him at once that it was a good thing he’d sat. “She’s funny. And she can take a joke. She can give one too. She’s so full of energy and life.”

“You’ve got it bad.”

He glanced up out of his Whitney-soaked thoughts. “What bad?”

“You love her.”

He could only shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love to know.”

“Do you think about her all the time?”

“Yeah.”

She spun her wedding ring around her finger. “When you walk in the room, does your chest feel lighter but also somehow fuller at the same time?”

It did just that when he thought about her. Until he remembered he lost her. Then it became some sort of indescribable ache, like a clawed beast lived in his chest. “Yeah.”

“When you look at her and you talk, it’s like you’re existing on this plane that nobody else is on? Is she the first thing you wake up thinking about and the last thing on your mind before you go to bed?”

He nodded.

She smiled and tilted her head to the side. “This is the big question. Because it could be that you still want to get her in pants and nothing else at this point.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I like her for more than sex.”

She flipped her wrist at him. “Settle down. Last question. Does she make you want to be a better person?”

“Yes,” he answered without thought, and then lots of thoughts filled his head. He wanted to be a different person for her. Not different, as in change who he was, but he wanted to do things for her. He wanted to get her opinion on things. He wanted to sit on a couch and watch TV with her and see what she thought of this show or that one. “I want her more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”

“Then you’re going to have to work harder for her than you have anything else in your life.”

That got his attention, because he worked damn hard for a lot, and he wasn’t sure how he could possibly work harder. “I don’t know how to do that. She won’t talk to me.”

“You broke her trust. If you want her bad enough, you have to do the biggest thing you can to show you mean it and that you’re sorry. You’re going to have to bend over backward to earn her trust. If you want her bad enough, it should be no problem to do whatever it takes, to give up everything to win her back. You’re the one who screwed up here. Not her.” His assistant made somewhat of an evil laugh. “It’s time to get your grovel on.”

He nodded. “I can do that.”

She chuckled again. “I’m not done. You’ll have to be creative. Flowers and candy?” She shook her head. “Don’t even waste your time. This isn’t like you forgot a dinner date.”

“We had something great. I screwed it up, but it was great. I want her back.”

“I hope you do, because this isn’t going to be easy. If it was easy, she’s not worth the effort.”

“Brandon said give her time to calm down.”

More laughing. At him. “If she rolls over that easy, she’s a doormat. And that’s no good for you.”

He pushed out of the chair. “I’ll try to think of something.”

“Go big or go home. Think about her. Think about what would make her happy.”

He scrubbed over the top of his head. She was happy when he was with her. That’s all he knew. “Mostly she keeps me confused.”

“Think about how you can fit in her life. Because until she forgives you, there’s no point expecting her to fit in yours. There’s no reason for her to accommodate you. You need to fit in her space so she lets you in.”

He stepped in his office with a lot more on his mind than he’d carried before. Thoughts of his time with Whitney mixed with missing her and wanting her back. Of all those thoughts, the space that should form ideas to win her back was suspiciously silent.

His soft leather chair cushioned him as he sat. He started the Newton’s cradle on his desk. The little silver balls ticked against one another in a soothing, tick-tock pattern. It was his go-to noise when he started a new project.

He stilled. He didn’t want to think of her as a project of sorts, but maybe that’s what he needed to do. He got some good old-fashioned paper and pen and charted out everything he knew about her.