Page 43 of Unbreakable Love

So maybe I went a little bit feral over the idea of another man liking Penny.

“You want to explain that again?”

“No.” I bent down, grabbed the boards I’d dropped, and hauled them out of the barn to the fence post farthest away. I’d start at the back, work my way forward, and possibly by the time I finished up helping Bryce, I’d have my shit back together.

Bryce stacked his boards next to mine on the finished fence line and wiped a gloved hand across his forehead. There might have been snow on the ground, but the air was quickly heating, so I stripped out of my coat and down to the sweatshirt I was wearing beneath.

“Leave it, Bryce.”

“I’ve never heard you say a woman was gorgeous before. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know?”

“I don’t need advice.” I needed to have a life where I didn’t have to always consider all possible worst-case scenarios before acting.

And this thing with Penny, whatever it was that made me all twisted and tight, didn’t feel all that great at all.

I headed back to the barn, grabbed my tools, and double-checked the battery on my drill. By the time I returned to the fence, I expected Bryce to be back in the brewery, leaving me to my pouting alone, but instead, he had his own belt on and his own drill in hand.

“Thought you weren’t helping?”

“Shut up. Like I trust you to do this by yourself.”

“Right. Because it’s not what I do for a living.”

We worked together, putting up the first four boards to the posts without any problem, without any talking. Bryce leveled and held. I drilled and screwed. We worked together in sync, a talent born from years of growing up two years apart and always having to help our dad with the cattle and fences and everything else life required.

We were lining up the beams on the second set of posts when Bryce had to ruin it. “It’s not a crime to find a woman attractive or date someone, you know?”

“Josie thinks every woman I see is her next mom. I can’t do that and break her heart if it doesn’t work out.”

“Gavin…”

“Stop, Bryce,” I spat out. “I get you’re trying to help, but you didn’t see her last night. Hell, you didn’t see her the night before when we went to the diner and she practically lunged at Penny in the booth where she was dining alone, and then we were stuck eating together.”

Bryce huffed a laugh and shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

“You weren’t stuck. You have no problems saying no to your daughter and even if Penny said it was fine, if you didn’t want to be there, you would have left.”

“Josie—”

“Stop with the excuses, Gav. I know you, and I know you’re as stubborn as Dalton is, and you have rules and boundaries for your daughter. The only reason you stayed at that table at Millie’s... and yeah, we’ve all heard about that... is because you wanted to be there. Stop lying to yourself. You probably wanted to look at her gorgeous face all night. You’re just too scared to put yourself out there.”

“You don’t know shit.” I turned back and drilled the beam into the post.

Bryce was wrong. Except…

“Josie’s already half in love with her, Bryce. You didn’t hear her last night, talking about Avery’s mom this and Avery’s mom that and how awesome it would be if we could always have dinner together. It was a mess.”

“She wants a mom, so give her one.”

I barked out a laugh. “You and Josie. You both think I can snap my fingers and a wife will appear like magic.”

“It’s not magic if she moved in next door. Listen.” He held up his hand, and I snapped my mouth closed. Fine. He wanted to lecture me when my brother barely dated himself. I’d listen. “All I’m saying is that you like this woman. There is no harm in seeing if it could go somewhere, or hell, you don’t even know if she likes you. But what’s the harm? You don’t think you could keep it from Josie until you’re more certain?”

“I don’t need another woman leaving her. She’s been hurt enough.”

“And so have you, but what are you teaching your daughter if you don’t take risks every once in a while?”

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