Page 38 of A Gift for the Hopeful Cowboy

“Are you okay?”

“Is it Rob?”

So many questions were torpedoed at her to the point it crumbled her reserves and brought down her defenses. She released a watery laugh. “It’s so ridiculous. I should have never agreed to it.”

They were confused, and why wouldn’t they be? People connected with each other and chose to love them—to be with them when everything else didn’t make sense.

But being with Rob had made sense. At least, it had made sense to her.

Pippa brushed at her tears and laughed again. “You’re going to think?—”

“It doesn’t matter what we think,” Allie pressed. “What matters is you have someone you can talk to.”

Jackie nodded vigorously. “What are sisters for if not to listen and build you up when you’re feeling down?”

“You wouldn’t be thinking that if you knew…”

Allie laughed. “Just tell us what’s going on and we’ll be the ones to decide.”

Pippa groaned. “Fine. You’ve worn me down, I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this. Remember when I told you about how Rob and I had a fling?”

Jackie and Allie glanced at each other but their expressions didn’t change even when they brought their eyes back to Pippa.

“Well, that’s not the whole truth.” Pippa flushed deeply. There was a reason she hadn’t told her friends this story. Allie was right. Pippa always had a plan. She had prepared for her future from the time she was little. The end goal had always been her restaurant and starting a family.

Life hadn’t turned out the way she’d expected it to, and she only had herself to blame.

She sighed again but it did nothing to ease the tension in her chest. “The truth is that my thing with Rob didn’t happen just once when we were younger. It happened every time I visited him in Rocky Ridge.”

“Hmm. That’s really interesting,” Allie said with glee only to immediately return her expression to that of a concerned friend.

“It was never serious.” Pippa shook her head. This was where it was going to get harder. “It wasn’t serious because he lived states away. He wasn’t going to come here and I wasn’t going to go there. We were never going to get a chance to have that sort of life… and not only because of the distance.”

By now, her face felt as hot as one of her skillets fresh from the stove. She closed her eyes, but she knew she’d never be able to hide from the truth of what she’d let herself get swept into.

“I—we made a pact. We promised that whenever I was in town, we’d spend time together… romantically.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Jackie offered. “You guys were close. We all know it.”

“It wasn’t bad. We had every advantage of dating when we were in the same town, but the second I came back home, it was like it never happened.” Pippa shrugged and looked away.

Allie narrowed her eyes. “Every advantage? Um, you didn’t…”

“No! Not that advantage!” Pippa’s eyes widened as she shook her head. Looking away she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can’t believe I agreed to it. Saying it out loud makes me feel like such a complete idiot. I should have never let him convince me?—”

A hand landed on her forearm and Pippa’s eyes flew open to see Allie’s understanding expression. “You’re being too hard on yourself. You had fun together. That’s what friendship and romance is all about.”

“Yeah, I fell for a guy who wasn’t available emotionally or physically.” Pippa let out a sad-sounding snort. “He literally couldn’t have been less available. And here I was thinking one day I’d be enough for him. That one day, I’d be the girl he never realized was under his nose this whole time.”

Allie squeezed her arm gently. “If it’s any help, I feel like I’ve seen evidence of that.”

“Evidence of what?” Pippa laughed. “Evidence he wants more? He’s really good at faking it. I swear to you, he wants nothing to do with me. Especially not now?—”

She cut herself off and her eyes widened a little more. Why couldn’t she keep this all to herself? Why did she feel the need to make things worse with each sentence that came tumbling from her lips?

“What could you have possibly done that's so bad? I doubt it’s as terrible as you’re making it out to be.”

“Oh, it is.” Pippa dragged both hands down her face. “When someone asks you to drop something, you drop it. You don’t keep pushing even if you disagree.”

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