The Cowboy and the Lady by Marie Ferrarella

Author:Marie Ferrarella
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2015-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“She means well.”

Debi blinked, suddenly realizing that Jackson must have said something to her, something she was apparently supposed to comment on. She’d been so lost in thought for a moment that all she had heard was a faint buzzing sound around her. She’d just assumed that it was due to the noise level in the diner.

Obviously, it wasn’t.

Embarrassed, she said, “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said she means well. Miss Joan,” he threw in for good measure. It occurred to him that he was trying to explain something to Debi that obviously hadn’t gotten through to her. He needed to explain something else first. “Once upon a time, Miss Joan and my late uncle used to see one another on a really regular basis. That’s why I think Miss Joan feels obligated to try to pair me off with someone.”

“Meaning me?” Debi asked in wonder. She was an outsider. If this Miss Joan was into playing matchmaker, wouldn’t the woman have picked someone she knew? Someone who lived here in this little button of a town?

But Jackson shook his head. He didn’t want her to feel intimidated. “Meaning anybody who happens to be female, unattached and within five feet of me.”

“Oh.”

Debi supposed she should be relieved that she wasn’t giving off any particular signals that would have made the older woman think that she was fair game. Because she wasn’t. Despite the fact that she was very vulnerable and lonely these days, she was determined never to put herself in that sort of a position again.

She would never allow someone else to almost literally break her heart as well as her spirit the way John had done.

In the year before her parents had been killed, she would have sworn to anyone who would have listened that she had found the kindest, most caring man on the face of the earth. Looking back, she now realized that he’d behaved that way because she had put herself at his beck and call. Time and again, she had deliberately gone out of her way to make sure that John was always happy and that if he needed something, she would fill that need for him, sometimes even before he could put that need into actual words.

In essence, without really being consciously aware of it, she had sacrificed herself, her personality and her own needs in order to make sure that John was always happy.

She only realized how much of herself she’d been giving when she had to stop giving so much of her time and effort to John. In essence, her whole life had been restructured in order to bring Ryan into her home.

Shortly after that, the kindest man in the world turned into a moody, self-centered narcissist. And he only got worse with each week that passed. As a result, she became more and more stressed.

Until the final straw came with his ultimatum.

Nope, she would never be in that kind of position again, Debi promised herself for the umpteenth time since her marriage had dissolved right in front of her like a wet tissue.

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