I learned a lot about myself this week. First, I apparently had a thing for tattooed women in overalls who ignored me most of the time. A really big thing. Second, apparently I gave off the energy that I would kiss said woman in a bar hallway while I was engaged to someone else.
That didn’t make me feel good, and I hated that Ada had assumed that about me. But it also made me wonder if she knew someone who would do that.
And if that was the case, I hated that too.
It was so easy to forget that she didn’t know me and I didn’t know her—even though I desperately wanted to.
It was the end of the first week, and the project had been coming along without a hitch. I knew that wouldn’t last forever, but damn, Ada was…impressive. She and Evan connected with the crew in a way that made them want to listen. Ada was quiet and professional—I’d heard crew members refer to her as “cool,” or “aloof,” but I didn’t think that was the case. Especially because every once in a while she’d throw out a joke that got the whole crew hollering. Then she’d sink back into her work, which is where she seemed the most comfortable.
She was always tucking pens behind both of her ears. She was so immersed in her work that she didn’t realize she already had one, so she ended up with these little pen horns.
It was fucking adorable.
I liked her a lot. But it was obvious that she was trying to have as little contact with me as possible, so I did my best to take the hint.
Even though all I wanted was to be near her.
I wanted to figure out what else made her laugh the way she did that night at the bar. I wanted to know what songs she listened to when she was having a bad day, or a good one, and what her favorite food was.
I wanted to know if her body reacted to mine the same way mine did to hers.
I wanted a chance.
But none of that was in the cards. Ada had drawn her line, and I didn’t want to cross it. Well, I did want to cross it. But I wanted her to want me to cross it.
Our kiss was still running on a loop in my brain. Every time I saw her, I remembered how pliable her body felt under my hands and how responsive she was to my touch.
I remembered the way she bit my lip and how she moaned into my mouth when I pinned her hands to the door.
Goddamn.
I didn’t get this way about women. I didn’t want to get this way. Because of that, I sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with me. I mean, I knew there were some things wrong with me—there are some things wrong with everyone—but my neutrality toward many of the women who had ever shown interest in me made me the odd man out, especially because I grew up around Gus and Brooks.
Before Emmy, Brooks was a playboy, and Gus would deny it now, but before Riley, he wasn’t exactly known for commitment because he never let any woman in. Except for Cam, but it wasn’t because he was in love with her, it was because she was his friend and he respected her.
Now he wasn’t a commitment-phobe, he was a dedicated father, and women liked that, too, but Gus still had the door closed on any sort of relationship.
As for me, it wasn’t that I didn’t want one—it was that I didn’t want one with anyone who’d ever been interested in me. And now I wanted to get to know the girl who was decidedly not interested.
Great.
Speaking of that girl, I could see her in her ridiculous little car as I walked toward the front of the Big House. It was Saturday morning, so there was no work at Baby Blue today. I’d taken my horse, Ziggy, on one of the trails around the ranch early this morning and then popped over to the riding ring to see Emmy.
I looked down at my watch. It was a little past ten, which was later than I expected. Ada was banging on her steering wheel, and I wondered why until I heard her try to start the car and it wouldn’t turn over.
The way that car was squealing and shaking when she drove it into Rebel Blue earlier last week, I’m surprised it got her to Wyoming, let alone lasted this long.
I walked up to her car and tapped on the window. She jumped and flashed me a dirty look after the surprise wore off, but I just smiled at her. I’d take her dirty looks over anyone else’s affectionate ones any day.
“Something wrong?” I asked as she opened her car door.
“This stupid piece of shit won’t start,” she said with a huff. She laid her head on the steering wheel, defeated.
“Where were you headed?” I asked, trying not to overstep.
“I just wanted to go buy a few hoodies and a few other things in town,” she said, head still against the steering wheel.
“We have an extra truck you can use,” I said. “It’s in the garage.”
Ada looked up at me. “Really? You’d let me use it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I? No one else is using it.”
“It’s not the ugly blue one that’s parked next to me, is it?” she asked, throwing a worried glance at Emmy’s truck, and I chuckled.
“No, that’s my sister’s, but I’ll be sure to let her know you think her pride and joy is ugly.” Ada’s eyes widened. Those big brown eyes did something to me.
She bit her bottom lip, and I was hit with the memory of her biting mine. “That’s…really nice of you. That would be great. Thank you.”
“Yeah, the keys are already in it. Follow me.” I held her car door open as she got out before shutting it and heading toward the garage.
I walked us over to my old GMC Sierra pickup. It wasn’t in the best shape, but it was drivable, and a hell of a lot more reliable than the car Ada’d rolled up in. Safer too. No collision could take this steel cage out.
It was at the back of the garage, so I’d have to move my truck to get it out. Ada looked at it, shook her head, and said, “I’ve never seen so many trucks in my life as I have at this ranch.”
“Welcome to Wyoming,” I said as I opened the driver’s-side door.
“Maybe I won’t get as many stares from the townspeople when I drive this bad boy,” she said. “This’ll help me fit in.”
“I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but a beautiful woman is always going to get stares. No matter what she’s driving.” As soon as I said it I regretted it. Not because I didn’t think she was beautiful, but because I felt like I had just pushed on her boundary.
It was like I could see Ada’s walls immediately going up. Shit.
She looked away from me and didn’t say a thing. When she looked inside the cab of the truck, her shoulders fell.
“I can’t drive this,” she said. I’d never heard her voice sound like that—small, timid.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that, but of course you can still drive the truck—”
“No, I literally can’t drive it,” she said. She was fiddling with the silver rings on a few of her fingers. “I don’t know how to drive a manual.”
I hadn’t even thought about that. Honestly, I’d forgotten this truck was a stick shift too. But there was something about her response that felt off-kilter in my head and heavy in my heart. It seemed a lot deeper than just not knowing how to drive a stick shift—that was pretty common, even in Meadowlark.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I said, trying to think about a way to phrase my next suggestion that wouldn’t send her running for the mountains. I didn’t know much about Ada, but I knew she spooked as easy as a horse faced with a plastic bag. “I can drive you,” I said quickly. “To town. I have to grab a few things anyway.”
She bit her lip again. She did that when she was thinking. Her eyes were firmly on the ground—refusing to meet mine as usual. “I guess…” she started, then said, “that’s fine.”
“My truck is that one,” I said, pointing at the brown pickup behind us. I walked to the passenger side with her, opened the door, and waited for her to get in.
She looked like she was thinking again, backpedaling, probably. “You know,” she said, “I think I’m actually good. Thank you for offering, but it’s not urgent. I don’t want to derail your day.”
Derail my day? I’d drive my truck off a cliff if it meant that I got a few moments alone with her, but she didn’t need to know that.
“You’re not. I need to go to town anyway and you need a ride.” I tried to make it sound transactional—like it was strictly business. She didn’t respond to me, but she responded to business.
“No, it’s fine—”
Yeah, I was done with that. “Get in the truck, Ada.” My voice was more demanding than I’d intended; Ada’s spine went ramrod straight, her eyes finally met mine, and she was staring me down.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do on Saturdays,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I do when you’re being ridiculous,” I said. I didn’t say things like that. I didn’t act like this, but she was just so…frustrating. “It’s a ride to town—not a marriage proposal.”
She didn’t like that response, but I wasn’t backing down. We stared each other down for a few seconds longer. I liked her eyes on me—even if they were pissed off. It was better than the cool looks I’d been getting from her all week.
“Fine,” she bit out before getting in the truck.
“Remind me to check the weather in hell,” I muttered to myself as I shut the door.
“I heard that,” Ada said.
“Good,” I retorted.
I walked around the front of my truck, opened my door, and positioned myself in the driver’s seat. It took less than a second for me to realize that Ada and I were alone—in a small and enclosed space.
She couldn’t run away from me in here, so I did something that I probably shouldn’t have done.
I grabbed her hand off the seat next to her and placed it on the gearshift knob—with mine on top of it. She tried to jerk it back, but I kept it there.
“What are you doing?” she asked, sounding both annoyed and confused.
“I’m teaching you how to drive a stick shift.”
“I don’t want to learn how to drive a stick shift.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. Ada let out an annoyed huff, but she didn’t deny it. I knew it—I’d seen her face back there, and I knew it. This was something I could do for her. “All right, so right now, the gearshift is in neutral, but if you move it over”—I moved the stick using both of our hands—“and down, it’s in reverse—did you feel how it kind of clicks into place?”
She nodded. She tried to look uninterested, but I could tell she was interested.
“I’m not going to be able to look at you while I’m driving, so answering in words would be good when I ask you a question.”
“Yes, sir,” Ada said with an exaggerated eye roll. Well, that shot straight to my dick. Maybe I hadn’t thought this through, but it was too late to turn back now.
“Okay, so a manual has three pedals instead of two, and to make the truck move, you’ve gotta ships-in-the-night the gas and the clutch.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means they have to pass each other, so you let off the clutch while pressing on the gas, and where they meet in the middle is the sweet spot.”
“The spot that makes the truck move?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, pushing the truck into motion and getting us out of the garage, basking in the sensation of my skin on hers again. I moved the gearshift back to neutral just before the truck stopped. “And when the truck stops, make sure it’s not in gear or you’ll kill it.”
“Kill it?” she asked. I put the truck in first gear and let my foot off the clutch, and the engine sputtered and died.
“Kill it,” I said. I took my hand off hers and immediately missed the way her skin felt, but I had to restart the truck. Then I put my hand back on hers. “We’re in first gear right now, and that’s where we need to be every time we start going forward. Once the truck gets moving,” I said as the truck started down the drive, “we go to second.” I pushed in the clutch and shifted. “And once you hit about fifteen miles an hour”—clutch, shift—“you go to third, and so on.”
“And you push in the clutch every time you shift?” she asked.
“Yes. Push in the clutch, foot off the gas, and shift.”
“That’s a lot to remember,” she said quietly.
“It’s not as hard as it seems,” I said. “I promise.” After that, we were silent for a while. I could tell that Ada was focused on me, on our hands, on what I was doing—trying to take it all in—so I didn’t push a conversation.
I let us be.
After a few minutes, Ada said, “I was married before.” Her voice was small again—the way it was when she said she couldn’t drive stick. I kept my hand on hers and tried not to react. I was surprised that she’d offered up anything about herself, and I wanted her to continue. “We had one car. It was a stick shift.”
“But you couldn’t drive it?” I asked, tightening my hand that was on the steering wheel.
“No, which meant I didn’t leave the house unless I was going somewhere within walking distance or my ex drove me.”
“He didn’t try to teach you?”
“He said I didn’t need to know how to drive it when he could take me anywhere I wanted to go.” An image of Ada flashed through my mind—an image in which she looked like a bird in a cage. My head was reeling about what that meant—that she wasn’t able to do things on her own—and it made me fucking angry.
Whoever this asshole was, I wanted to find him and kick his ass off a cliff. “At the beginning, I thought it was sweet that he wanted to drive me everywhere—I thought he was taking care of me—but after a few weeks, I started to feel trapped.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure how to make this better.
“It’s okay. It’s over now,” she said simply. I kept my eyes on the road because I knew if I looked at her, I would stop the truck and pull her to me.
I downshifted from fifth gear as we came to the last stop sign before town and turned to her. Our hands were still atop each other, and I could feel her heartbeat in my fingertips. “I really can teach you how to drive stick, Ada, if you’ll let me. You don’t have to feel trapped like that again.”
She looked away from me, and I had no choice but to start driving again. After a few minutes, a small “Thank you” came from the other side of the cab.
I stayed quiet, not sure how to care for her right now. Should I push the conversation along? Or should I stay quiet and let her be?
Luckily, I didn’t have to decide because Ada spoke first. “So do you actually have things to pick up in town or were you just being nice?”
I smiled and answered honestly—well, semi-honestly. She didn’t need to know how badly I wanted to spend time with her. “Both.”
“I’m going to be nosy to distract from the fact that I just spilled my guts to you a few minutes ago. What do you need in town?” She used air quotes when she said “town.”
I hesitated for a second. “Do you want the real answer? Or the easy one?”
“The real one,” she said without hesitation. “I just told you about my ex-husband, and I don’t think it gets more vulnerable than that.”
“You showed me yours, so I have to show you mine?” I said, amused.
“Something like that,” she responded. I thought she smiled a bit too.
“Well,” I started. “I have to pick up my antidepressant from the pharmacy, and they close at noon on Saturday, so your car had perfect timing in biting the dust. I might not have made it.” I didn’t mind sharing this with Ada. I was open about it, and I wanted her to know me.
Whether I liked it or not, this was part of who I was.
Stupid sad brain.
Ada was quiet again, so I jumped in. “Now we both know something about the other,” I said.
“Yeah,” she finally said with a small smile. “Look at us, being open and shit.”
“Feels kind of good, doesn’t it?”
“Actually, yes,” she responded. “I—um—” She hesitated for a second. “Thank you. For making me feel less weird about dumping all of that on you. It’s nice to feel like I’m not the only one who has shit to deal with.”
Yeah, it was.
