Festive Faking (Rust Canyon #1)

15. Mac

Chapter 15

Mac

My eyes kept drifting toward Aspen as a line of kids hugged me around the knees on their way out the door, the event having come to an end.

I made sure my smile never slipped, but I was still rattled from earlier when she’d burst into tears.

It’d come out of nowhere. One minute, she was chatting it up with my new bestie, Skylar, and the next, she was sobbing in my arms. Then she sent me into a full-blown panic when she said she wanted to pull the plug on our week together, determined to tell her family the truth about us.

I was trying to get closer, and she was pushing me away.

Why couldn’t I let this go? Walk away and move on?

Because she’s special, and you know it. You’ve never met anyone like her, and if you let her go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.

It wasn’t only Aspen I was afraid of losing. It was this town, this community. They’d welcomed me, a complete stranger, with open arms. In only a few days, I felt a sense of belonging here.

“Well, this is certainly a surprise! What are you doing here?” Daisy’s delighted voice caught my attention, and my gaze swung toward the door of the diner to find Jett Sullivan had walked in.

He kissed his wife on the cheek before his piercing blue stare honed in on me. “Bottle of your fancy scotch arrived. Figured we could sample it while you and I have a chat.”

While I was glad the rush order I’d placed for a bottle of Macallan had made it in time, dread rolled down my spine at the idea of a heart-to-heart with Aspen’s father. Hell, spending any time alone with the man was enough to give me nightmares. He’d been indifferent at best since my arrival, and I could tell he didn’t think I was good enough for his daughter.

How was I expected to make him believe otherwise when I was still working on convincing Aspen?

“Sure.” I nodded, trying to portray a confidence I didn’t feel. “Sounds great.”

Jett hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “Truck’s outside.”

Oh, shit. He wanted to do this now ?

“Meet you out there.” I gestured to the Santa suit. “Just wanna get changed first.”

He grunted in response, and I fled to the tiny storage room I’d used to get dressed in earlier.

Aspen was hot on my heels, crowding into the tight space. This close, I could smell the scent of her shampoo and the syrup on her breath from the pancakes she’d enjoyed during a quiet moment in the chaos.

Tempted beyond belief to kiss her again, to steal some of that sweetness on her tongue for myself, I was halted by the alarm in her eyes.

“You can’t go with him.” Her voice came out breathy as her chest rose and fell rapidly.

“What am I supposed to do, Aspen?” I yanked off my Santa hat and ran a hand through my hair. “I’m a guest in his home. I’m dating his daughter. Can’t exactly afford to be pissing the guy off by being rude and declining his invitation to share a drink.”

Her blue eyes were wild, and I could feel the nervous energy rolling off her in waves. “You don’t understand. He’s going to want to know what your intentions are.”

“Are you sure?” Doubt leaked into my voice. “After only a year of dating?”

She huffed out a laugh. “You really have no idea how it works out here. Courtships are quick, engagements even shorter. A year is unheard of unless you decide to marry your high school sweetheart and have to wait because you’re underage.”

My eyebrows rose. “Did you just say courtship? People still use that word?”

“We’re staring down a crisis, and that’s what you’re focused on? My vocabulary choices?”

“You’re right. Sorry.” I got to work stripping out of the costume. “I’ll tell him that, right now, we’re both focused on finishing school and we’ve talked about the future but aren’t ready to take that step yet.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna go over real well,” Aspen muttered.

“Fine, then I’ll tell him that I wouldn’t dare clip your wings, that I want to watch you soar in your career before tying you down. Better?”

Her mouth dropped open, finally rendered speechless enough that she didn’t argue back.

I snatched the winter coat I’d been borrowing from Tripp off a hook along the wall and pulled open the door to the makeshift changing room.

“I’ll see you tonight for our date.”

“It’s not a date,” she shot back.

I peeked over my shoulder to flash her a cheeky grin. “Oh, it’s definitely a date.”

And I planned to make the most of it.

Jett brought two crystal tumblers and the bottle of scotch onto the back deck, where he gestured for me to take a seat.

Dropping onto a chair, I accepted the glass he poured for me, taking a sip and savoring the flavor before the liquor burned a path down my throat.

Yeah, that was the good stuff. My dad might be pretentious in naming me after a high-end spirit, but at least he’d picked one that I discovered I enjoyed when I grew old enough to drink.

The alcohol warmed my blood enough that I decided to break the silence that had stretched between me and Aspen’s father since we’d first hopped into his truck back in town.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what my intentions are with your daughter.” I mentally tipped my cap to the girl in question for slipping me that piece of info to lean on.

Jett took a long pull from his own drink before setting it down on the table resting between us. Looking me straight in the eye, he replied, “Actually, I’m wondering when it became real for you.”

My heart began pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t let the accent fool you, son. I know the name Aspen said on the phone a few weeks back was Mike. Same as I know you’re the man falling for her.”

I buried my face in my glass of scotch in an attempt to stall as my mind raced with how to handle the fact that Aspen’s dad had seen through our act. But beyond that, he’d seen right through me.

Sensing my reluctance to respond, Jett kept talking, which was shocking because I could count on one hand the number of words he’d spoken to me before setting foot on this deck. “Never thought about having kids before I met Daisy. My ma wasn’t kidding when she said I was tryin’ to get myself killed when I was younger. I was an adrenaline junkie. It gave me a high hoppin’ on the back of a horse that had no interest in a rider and letting it try to knock my ass into the dirt. Sometimes I made it look easy, and other times . . .” His voice trailed off. “Truth be told, my pop died when I was sixteen, and I learned firsthand that life’s too short. So, I decided I’d rather go out doing something I loved than grow old and live with regrets.”

Finally having a moment to regain my bearings, I gestured to the land he owned that stretched past where we could see on the horizon. “What made you decide to switch to the business side?”

Jett pulled in a deep breath through his nose before letting it rush out past his lips. “The last time I got bucked off, it was pretty bad. Landed wrong, snapping my collarbone.” His fingers traced over the spot, and he winced at the memory of the pain. “But that wasn’t the worst part. I wasn’t quick enough to move out of the way, and the bronc stomped right on my chest. Broken ribs punctured my lung.”

I grimaced; the recounting of his career-ending injury was gruesome.

“Would you believe it if I told you the last thing I asked before they wheeled me off to surgery was when I could ride again?” He scoffed. “They say your brain isn’t quite fully developed before you’re twenty-five, and looking back on the fool I was, I believe it.”

“I mean, it sounds like you loved it,” I remarked.

“Not more than my wife,” Jett huffed. “She was there when I woke up, and in that dingy country hospital room is where she told me I was going to be a father. We’d been married a few years but hadn’t exactly been tryin’, so I was shocked to high hell, but at the same time, it was enough to scare me straight. I had too many people countin’ on me, and I couldn’t afford to be reckless with my life anymore.”

“Aspen told me you spent a few years living as a family in the cabin,” I confessed.

He hummed. “As soon as I was released and on the mend, I made promises I prayed I’d be able to keep to banks that probably knew better than to extend a loan to a guy whose only job history was competing in rodeos. But I was too desperate to let myself fail. Daisy, God bless her, was just so happy to have me safe that she agreed to move into that cabin—which needed a ton of work back then—while pregnant to support my new dream. I’m ashamed to admit there were more than a few months when her paycheck as a schoolteacher went into repayin’ the loan when I fell short.”

I tipped my glass to him. “You made sacrifices and worked hard to take care of your family. Not every man can say that, and you have my respect.”

“I’m proud of what I’ve built, but my greatest achievements in this life are my children. The day Aspen was born . . .” Jett let out a heavy exhale. “It was almost as if I took my first breath right alongside her. Everything was different from that moment on. I was forever changed.”

The man was pouring his heart out to me, but I found myself chuckling. “Guess that’s her superpower. Changing a man’s entire life by bursting into it.”

Leaning forward, Jett rested his forearms atop his knees. “I’ll ask you again since I didn’t get an answer the first time: When did it become real for you?”

Swallowing, I admitted, “The attraction was there on day one. The respect for her talent followed shortly after. But it wasn’t until we came here, and it hit me there might come a day when I’d be forced to say goodbye to her forever, that I realized I didn’t want that to happen.”

He nodded, seemingly pleased with my answer. “Tripp is like his mama. They wear their heart on their sleeve. But Aspen? She’s like me. Her stubbornness is a shield; it protects her from getting hurt. Unfortunately, she was witness to her best friend finding the kind of love only found in fairy tales, and it undermined her whole belief system when it didn’t pan out. I’d liken her to a mistreated horse; the memory of past pain—even though it was only by association—runs deep, and she’s scared to trust.

“It’s no secret she has a tendency to pick the kind of guy who isn’t right for her. I know she’s not doing it on purpose, but I think, on some level, her brain chooses them because it’s safe. If she’s with someone who can never truly love her, they can’t hurt her.”

Surprisingly, that made a hell of a lot of sense.

I could tell she was conflicted. She’d share something deep with me, then close off and run away not long after. The only reason she hadn’t done so after the shower incident last night was because I decided to be vulnerable and had asked her to stay. Maybe that had been the key all along, because keeping quiet about how I felt had her second-guessing every interaction.

I’d been saying I was going to do it for days, but it was finally time to lay my cards on the table and let Aspen decide where we went from there.

Jett must’ve seen the decision written on my face because his lips tipped up. “You ready to shoot your shot, son?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

He gave me a nod of approval before reaching into his jacket pocket and tossing me his keys. “You can take my car tonight. It’s good luck.”

I would take all the help I could get.