Page 90 of Breaking All The Rules
He glanced at his mother swiftly, shocked at the suggestion, rejecting it immediately. “Mom…no. That’s ridiculous. It’s only been a few months.”
She gave him one of her wise old smiles. “Some people know within a few hours, Austin.”
He snorted. “That’s lust, not love.”
She held up her hands in surrender. “Oh, to be young and know so much,” she teased.
Austin gritted his teeth at the reference to his age. A month ago, it hadn’t been an issue for him—it had never been an issue. But a lot had changed recently, and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to being anxious that Beatrice’s issue with their age difference could, once again, become a thing.
Bugging his eyes at her, he said, “Good night, Mom.” Then he leaned in and pecked her on the cheek.
“Night, son,” she called after him.
Austin departed, glad to be away from the shrewdness of Margaret Cooper’s wildly pinging radar. Still, her question turned over and over in his brain as he drove into Credence. He liked Beatrice—very much. He liked her more than any other woman he’d been with. He’d never laughed so hard or enjoyed himself so much. Did he lust after her? Hell fucking yes.
But love…?
He shied away from it. From its enormity. From the sure and certain knowledge that Beatrice would reject it and him, outright, if it was even uttered. They needed more time before declarations were made. Time to become so much a part of the fabric of each other’s lives that not being together was simply unbearable.
And that’s where he needed to keep his focus.
Austin felt much better about their direction as he climbed the stairs to Beatrice’s apartment twenty minutes later. She was here with him in Credence and that was all that mattered. Okay, she was no longer a woman of leisure and her new job was demanding a lot of her time, but his job was demanding, too.
The first thing he noticed when he stepped inside the apartment was that Beatrice wasn’t at her desk. The second was the small suitcase sitting ominously on the couch. And all his bravado and mental pep talks crashed to the ground into a fiery death spiral.
“Hey,” she called from behind him.
Austin turned to find Beatrice sitting up in bed, her red hair a vibrant splash against the dull gray of the wall. With one hand, she was petting Princess, who was sprawled across her thighs, and with the other, she was holding a sheaf of papers.
“Did you get things sorted?” Austin asked, trying to sound normal while all the time the suitcase loomed in his peripheral vision like a loaded shotgun.
She grinned and held up the papers in her hand. “Finally, yes.”
Austin nodded, his gaze wandering to her suitcase. He swallowed against a mouth that was suddenly dry as Eastern Colorado dust. “Are you…” He returned his attention to Beatrice. “Going somewhere?”
“Yes. To LA. In the morning. Gotta leave at five to make my flight in time.”
There was no hesitation, no tentativeness, no apology in her voice. No, hope you don’t mind. Of course, she didn’t need his permission. But it did put his position in her life squarely in place. This, he realized suddenly, was the downside to avoiding any relationship tags.
If nothing was official, there wasn’t any need to consider the other person’s thoughts/feelings/opinions about decisions that, while up to the individual, could impact the other person.
“Oh…when did that happen?”
“Kim and I were talking on the phone and we decided it’s so much better to pitch these things face-to-face. Teleconferencing is fine for a lot of things, but for something like this, being in the same room is so much more advantageous.”
“Right.”
She gave a half laugh. “You’re looking a little weird. It’s just for Monday. I’ll be back Tuesday.”
Austin’s relief was like a cool breeze blowing through his system as he forced the muscles in his face to smooth out and smiled. He sighed with faux-dramatic intensity. “Except if you’re dazzled by all those big city lights and we’ll never see you again.” He kept his voice light and teasing, but that right there was his absolute worst fear.
“Not freaking likely,” she said with vehemence. “I’m a country girl now.”
Her words were comforting, and the tension across Austin’s shoulders eased.
“I don’t know,” he continued to tease, because he would act like this was no big deal if it killed him, “all those guys in suits.”
She smiled and shook her head, her gaze taking a very thorough wander over his body. “Give me a guy in jeans and a hat who knows how to do a burnout any day.”
