Just Want Somebody to Love (Bella Warren Book 1) (26 page)

She stopped at the door. “What about the farm? I do a lot here. I suppose I could train someone to replace me.”

Her mom smiled. “That’ll never happen. You’re not replaceable. But if you want to go, we’ll work it out. Think about what you want to do, not what you need to do. The rest will fall into place.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Whitney pushed out the door and went in search of her brother.

She shook her head, trying to picture him with a kid. If he had a girl, she’d make sure he did a better, more involved job than their dad had with her. Not that she doubted he would struggle. She had given Wade plenty of headaches over the years that he should be prepared for a little girl.

Wade was in the middle of a row with his notebook. Every other one of their farms had been required to transfer over to her spreadsheets and calculations. Wade still delivered his weekly accounts in the form of paper and scratchy handwriting.

He looked up from his pages as he wrote. “Wait.”

She smiled as he jotted a couple things that nobody else would be able to read. Only because she’d been reading his messy writing for years would she be able to make sense of the lines and marks that was supposed to resemble the alphabet.

That was going to make her work from Dallas harder. She could do most everything from a computer with Internet anywhere, but not Wade’s stuff. He could tell her over the phone. Or scan it and e-mail. That might be too complicated. He could take a picture of his notes and text her if they had a cell phone signal strong enough to get a picture out. Usually they didn’t. Or Kara could upload it. Every other farm she handled remotely. Why not this one, too?

She straightened. She could. She didn’t have to be here on the property to make sure Chester Farms ran without a hitch. That was Wade’s job. He would just have to evolve a little.

He tore the page off and handed it. “All done. Is that what you were after?”

She shook her head and picked at the corner of the paper in her hand. “Justin asked me to leave with him.”

“To go where?”

“Dallas.”

“That sounds like fun.” He flipped through his notebook, not grasping what she meant. “Because of Justin, we’re about wrapped up here. If you’re worried about the farm, we’re good. Take off when you’re ready.”

She folded the paper and pushed it in her pocket. “Wade.”

He looked up. “Yeah?”

“Close the notebook and listen.”

“I heard you.” He kept turning through the sheets. “You’re going on vacation with Justin. You don’t need my permission.”

“I’m not going on vacation. I’m leaving.” She bit her lip and reran her words through her mind. Weight just lifted. She was doing this. She was really doing this. A laugh bubbled up her throat. The grin on her face had to be the biggest she’d ever made. “And I’m not coming back.”

His brows dipped as he got it. “Ever?”

She lifted a shoulder. “When Tasha has her baby. Then the holidays. I’m not sure what Justin and Brandon do on their side with family.”

“Wait.” He put the papers down. “You’re leaving-leaving. As in moving?”

“Yes.”

“In with Justin.”

“Maybe.” That would make seeing him every day easier. Her brother had that brother look on his face. It didn’t matter how old she got, the brother look made her wiggle the same. “Maybe I’ll buy a house. It’s not like I don’t have any money saved.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

She lifted her shoulder. “I think so. The beginning of planting season, I was in a rut and just stuck. I didn’t know what it was, but then I figured it out. Things are happening all around me. You got married. Y’all will be having babies soon. Tasha’s pregnant again. I’m the same. Nothing is happening to me, and life is just passing. That rut feeling left when Justin came. I want a family. I want babies, and I’m not going to get them if I stay.”

Wade pulled her in a hug and kissed the top of her head. “Then you should go.”

“Thank you. And I’m not leaving you high and dry. I’ve already thought about the business.”

He rubbed her arms. “We’ll figure it out. If you can manage what you do with the farm from a room inside that house, I’m sure you can do just fine in a room in another house.”

She smiled at him. “You’re the best.”

“When are you leaving?”

“I have no idea. He’s trying to work a deal out with his brother. I would think a while still.”

“Have fun telling Kara and Tasha.”

She winced.

Leaving the farm meant leaving her two best friends.

Part of her that swelled with so much excitement deflated. She needed to tell them today, before she told Justin.

Justin rubbed his thumb over the sweat collecting on his glass. Ice water filled the cup, and he wished to hell it was something stronger. He’d been confident when he’d dropped Whitney off that she would leave with him.

Now that he’d sat in front of the TV for the last hour or so with his brother, that confidence eased into a nervous bunch in his throat. Once a person said no, they tended to stick with their decision.

He made another wipe over the condensation. Maybe he’d pitched too soon. He hadn’t been thinking, but the moment seemed right. She felt right. He shook his head and took a drink.

Brandon glanced his way. “Looks like something’s bothering you.”

“Just restless.” Close enough to the truth. “How much longer before you open?”

He flipped through sports highlights. “Another hour or so. Whenever someone knocks on the door.”

That didn’t surprise him. “You run a pretty relaxed shift around here.”

“That’s the way I like it. Few worries.”

Certainly wasn’t a stressful way of living. Considering the three AM mornings he’d spent over billing statements and working out payroll, Justin saw the appeal to the way his brother ran things. Some of the time. The rest of the time it didn’t seem like that kind of lazy, half-assed work schedule would be enough. Give him a month of that and Justin would be twiddling his thumbs.

Pounding rattled the metal front door in its frame. He jumped and sloshed his drink over his hand. “Someone must be thirsty.”

Brandon groaned and pushed out of his seat. “That’s probably not good.”

The banging continued. Loud, steady pounding. Hell might as well be banging. “Thank God your front door isn’t solid glass and just has a window.”

“The last time someone banged on my door like that, it wasn’t a customer.”

“What was it?” Justin stepped behind the bar and spotted Kara Chester and Tasha Abington through the windows. They beat on the door like they thought their tiny fists were going to break it. By the pounding they were doing, they just might.

Brandon frowned. “We’re closed,” he yelled at the two of them from his spot.

Tasha straightened. “You can open this damn door, or I can drive my car through it.”

“Damn it,” Brandon muttered.

Justin echoed that. “They do this a lot?”

“This is the second time.”

“What did they want the first time?” He followed his brother around the corner.

“Your head on a platter.” He unlocked the door and held it open. “Hi, ladies. Come in.”

Their stern glares pinned on Justin. He swallowed a knot and looked for the platter his brother mentioned. He smiled and their eyes narrowed further.

They made it as far as inside the door and stopped next to each other like a pair of smoking guns. “Do you know Anderson Smith?”

Justin didn’t have a clue. So far as he knew, he hadn’t met an Anderson in town, so hey, maybe this didn’t have anything to do with him at all. If not for the death stares directed at him.

Brandon scratched the side of his face and shrugged with a deep breath. “Not that I can think of.”

“He delivers your beer,” Tasha announced, crossing her arms over her shoulder and shifting her weight so that a hip stuck out.

Justin couldn’t recall the name on the guy’s shirt, if there’d been one at all. He’d been in and out so much, Justin hadn’t looked.

“You’re right.” Brandon looked between the two women and then at him. Justin didn’t know what to say.

Tasha continued. “After he delivers you beer, he stops by my shop and gets ice cream before heading home.”

Oh, fuck. An uncomfortable pit settled in his stomach. What had they said while the man brought in the delivery? They’d barely talked while the guy was in the room.

Tasha crossed her arms under her chest and pinned her hot gaze on Brandon. “Did you bet your brother he could make Whitney fall in love with him?”

Brandon turned as Justin rocked back in his heels and leaned against a table before he fell over. This was not happening. Not when he was so close. “It’s not how it sounds.”

Kara cocked her hip out. “Enlighten us.”

“It started kind of like that.”

“It’s either like that or it’s not.” Tasha looked him up and down, and there was a whole lot of hate in her dark eyes. “There’s no kind of about it.”

Brandon sighed. “It’s my fault.”

“No.” Justin caught him by the arm and let out a sigh. “It’s not. It was my idea.”

“Because I gave it to you.”

Kara pushed hair from her face. “I don’t care whose idea it was. Unlike you two, all I care about is Whitney. Get to the point.”

Justin started to talk a few times, then stopped and took a breath. It wasn’t at all how it sounded. Maybe it started that way a little, but that’s not how it was now. “If Whitney falls in love with me and moves to Dallas, then Brandon said he’d sign some papers for me that I want.”

Kara shrieked and the hairs stood on the back of his neck.

“But.” Brandon held out his hand. “When I agreed to this plan, I knew Whitney wouldn’t go for it. She’d never leave the farm. And she was pissed at him.”

Tasha shook her head. “Idiots. An hour ago she made up her mind to move. Anderson just finished telling me how the boys at the bar are tricking some girl into marrying him to get some business when Whitney popped in with Kara to spill the news.”

Justin blinked and stared between them both. Weight lifted off him. Whitney was going? “She agreed? She said she wanted to think about it, but she already agreed?”

Tasha made a noise that was only defined by women. “Oh yeah. I hugged her, stayed positive, and told her how amazing her life was going to be because you seemed like the real deal. All the while in the back of mind was this bullshit.” She waved her hand between them. “I had hoped you were a decent guy and Anderson was confused, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt and because Whitney was so damn excited. Because of all that, I didn’t rain on her parade until I knew for sure.”

Justin couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “She agreed to go with me?”

Tasha jerked away from him. “I guess now you can get whatever these papers are signed, since technically she agreed. I doubt she’ll go now. You’re disgusting.”

He shook his head. “It started as a bet. But I do like her.”

“
Oh
.” Kara looked to Tasha and back to Justin. He could hear the sarcasm smacked on thick by that one word. “Since you
like
her and all, it’s completely okay to play games with her head and try to uproot her from her family and friends for money.” Distaste growled out of her. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Justin dropped his head. If these two got to Whitney first, she would never give him the chance to explain. “Let me be the one to tell her.”

Before Tasha got anything out, both of Kara’s middle fingers went up and pointed his way. “You had the chance to be honest.”

The two girls spun out the bar before Justin’s already fast heartbeat kicked over one more time.

“Fuck.” He ran the other way to the back door for the quickest route to his car. Before he could get in it, a blue car left the parking lot and headed in the direction of Chester Farms.

He was one short mile away from getting sliced and diced. The dirt road leading to her house was covered in a cloud of dust falling from the girls in front of him. As trees parted at the end, he caught a glimpse of them going in her house and taking everything he wanted with them.

Damn it.

He had his car door open as he rolled to a stop and jumped out. His heart ached and his throat tightened. This couldn’t be happening. He took the four steps to the door in one leap and pushed through the front to try and salvage everything before it was ripped away.

He stepped in and stopped at the pair in the hallway. Whitney came from the second floor. “Is the farm on fire?”

The girls crossed their arms and took up ranks between him and the base of the stairs. Tasha tipped her head to the side. “Justin has something to tell you.”

“Okay.” Whitney eased her way between the two unmovable girls. “I have something to tell him, too.”

Kara shook her head. “You better let him go first.”

Whitney looked between the girls and then to him. She tucked hair behind her ear in the same way he’d so often done. Like always, it sprang free. Worry lines settled between her brows and damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to find out how this started. He wasn’t supposed to care.

He stopped and placed that foreign feeling in his gut. He cared. He didn’t want to hurt her, and yet, as she looked at him with her blue eyes—the last thing he saw before falling asleep and the first thing when waking up—he knew he was about to. He took a breath and looked at the women. “Can we have some privacy please?”

Whitney clasped her hands together, then released them and rubbed her arms. “What is the matter?” She licked her lips and faced him. “Did something happen?” She blinked her beautiful, unknowing eyes at him. “Did you change your mind?”

“No.” He spoke before he had a chance to think about what he wanted to say. With her, words came easy. Except this time, when he needed to explain. He hadn’t needed to explain himself in forever. Had turned his nose to the very idea of it. Now here he begged for the right words. He rubbed her arms. “I didn’t change my mind.”

He didn’t ask again, but turned her toward her open office door and shut it in the face of Tasha and Kara as they tried following.