Page 35 of The Billionaire Land Baron

“Maybe we should just say what we’re thinking,” Shelby said. “Be direct.”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, rubbing his jaw. “I kind of like our attempts at flirting. I mean, no woman has ever complimented me on my height. It’s refreshing.”

“They’re probably all caught up in your eyes, huh? Or your broad shoulders. Or your smile.” Shelby covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my gosh. I have to stop talking.”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “To be honest, most women are just after my money.”

A palpable tension filled the room suddenly. “I’m not like that,” she said. Her face looked suddenly closed off.

“I know you’re not,” Jake said. “I wasn’t trying to say that.”

“Good.” She glared.

“Does it…bother you that I have money? It seems to. But maybe I’m wrong.”

It hurt to watch her face. Pain shuttled across it like clouds in the sky before a storm. He didn’t think she would answer, but finally she spoke, not looking at him. “I guess I just grew up without it.”

Jake may not be able to read Shelby yet the way Matt could, but he knew that she wasn’t telling him the full story about why.

“I grew up poor,” Jake said.

Her face snapped up. “You did?”

“Very. Thrift-store clothes, no money for sports or activities, eating from cans that came from the dented and damaged shelf. I get it.”

Before he’d even finished talking, her eyes, so sweet and soft moments before, were narrowed pools of fire. “We’re not poor.”

“Shelby, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just meant that I didn’t have money. I wanted you to know that it’s not like I grew up with a silver spoon or something. I was poor, then I got lucky and worked hard. I really didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It’s fine.” She rolled the water bottle back and forth across the table as Jake tried searching his mind for a safe topic of conversation. She stood and held out a hand. “Come outside with me?”

He loved holding her hand, no matter where she was taking him. Though he was a little nervous thinking of T-Ball out there in the dark as Shelby led him out to the dock. She let go only as she sat down on the wooden bench on the dock. He sat down beside her, wishing he had half her courage so he could pull her closer. She leaned in and his heart sped up. He put an arm around her and she sighed into him.

“Is T-Ball out here?”

“Probably,” she said. “But don’t be nervous. He won’t climb up here or something. He comes out a lot when I’m here. It’s like…our bonding time.”

“As long as he doesn’t have a jealous streak,” Jake said.

Shelby giggled and poked him. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Quiet settled over them. They stared together out over the water and the woods beyond. Jake guessed that the Sabine River was just on the other side of the woods. He should have known from the beginning. He should have looked at the map or paid attention when Greg dropped him off the first night or when he saw the map on Airbnb. It was all right there.

“I’m losing everything.” Shelby’s voice startled him. It sounded softer, broken in the dark.

He closed his eyes, feeling the guilt like a weight crushing his chest. “I’m really sorry, Shelby.”

He had to tell her. But the cowardly, selfish part of him was too tied to this moment, her body curled into his and the feeling of protecting her. It should have been someone else, like Matt. But Jake was here and Shelby wanted him. Guilt or no guilt, he couldn’t resist her.

“It was inevitable,” she said. “I mean, I’ve been putting it off for months. Years, even. It’s probably a good thing.”

“Good? How is it a good thing?” Jake wanted more than anything for it to be something good. For her welfare and so he wouldn’t feel badly about what he’d done. But he couldn’t picture that. This place held a magic to it, and he’d only been there a few days. She’d grown up here.

Shelby sighed and then waved her arm over the lake and toward the house. “This isn’t…sustainable. I’ve been living on borrowed time for a long time now. I can’t afford the payments and this is too much for me to keep and to keep Daddy too. The house is falling apart. I can’t fix it or pay someone. I can’t keep relying on Matt to keep it up and I don’t know how to do some of the things myself. The bank is just forcing my hand. If it hadn’t, I’d just keep on doing this. Spinning my wheels. But this isn’t working.”

“What will you do?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. Or the one-hundred-seventy-eight thousand-dollar question, since that’s what they’re giving me for the property.”

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