but yes. I want to know you, Marissa Fuller.”
“Marissa Fuller, mother of three. With baggage. With live-in parents. With a really busy schedule.”
“I’d like to steal up your free time,” he said.
She laughed. “Do I have free time? If I ever have time to myself, I always think I should spend it one-on-one with one of the girls. Or I should scrub the bathroom tub before my mother does, and she always gets to it before I can. My life isn’t exactly Italian restaurants and dancing and walks in big-sky country.”
He moved a bit closer to her. “But maybe you’d like to go to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Go dancing. Take a walk in big-sky country.”
“I’d love all that, Autry. But I’ve got responsibilities. Three young kids.”
He nodded. “Of course. But do you know who you sound a little bit like? My dad. He never felt comfortable taking a day off. He never relaxed or had fun. The business was everything, just like your home life is. As it should be, Marissa. Home and family—that’s everything. But you need some time to yourself, too. To recharge.”
“I wish,” she said. “But I’ve been doing this since I was eighteen, Autry. You’re what? Thirty-two? Thirty-three? I can’t even relate to that kind of freedom. I hear you jet all over the world for Jones Holdings.”
“Thirty-three and, yes, I do. Our corporate headquarters are in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I grew up. I live in a skyscraper on the twenty-fifth floor. But I’m never there. I have a whole atlas of destinations in mind to build our corporate profile and assets.”
“And no woman has ever tempted you to settle down? Like your brothers?”
He frowned and turned away, hoping his expression didn’t match what he was thinking. He didn’t want to talk about Karinna or Lulu. “I don’t have the luxury of that,” he said. “Not if I want to keep Jones Holdings expanding globally. Just like you don’t have the luxury of going to a movie whenever you feel like it. In three weeks, I’ll be in Paris, likely for a year.” He paused and looked directly at her. “Maybe until I leave, we can keep each other company.”
“Exsqueeze me?”
He laughed. “I don’t mean in bed. I mean I’d like to spend time with you.”
“I’m a package deal, Autry. Even for three weeks in August.”
“Kaylee likes me,” he said. “I’ve already passed the Fuller daughter test.”
Marissa smiled. “I suppose you have. She’s not easy to charm.” She took a long sip of water. “Look, Autry. You’re tempting. Very tempting. But my life isn’t about fantasy or what I think about before I drift off to sleep.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t have a little romance in your life.”
“Romance? I think I’m done with that, Autry.”
“Marissa—”
She took a deep breath. “My marriage wasn’t perfect. Many nights, Mike and I went to bed angry. It wasn’t easy for me to juggle working full-time with having three little kids and trying to take care of a home, so I became a stay-at-home mom. Money was tight, and Mike worked longer hours at the office to secure a promotion and a raise. We argued at times, the stress made it impossible not to, but we both agreed the sacrifices were worth it. Thing was, with so many added responsibilities, romance went out the window. That’s just the way it was and I wasn’t about to complain. I knew I had a blessed life. A home, a good husband, three healthy children. Till that one day when a drunk driver took Mike away.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She nodded. “I was so overwhelmed by grief and panic. I wasn’t really sure how I’d keep things going, but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other for the kids. The meager life insurance policy that Mike had helped for a while, but I worried about money constantly. So when my parents suggested we move in, I said yes. Ralph and Roberta Rafferty are wonderful grandparents, but I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman living at home with Mom and Dad.”
“I admire you, Marissa. You did what you had to do at every step.”
He thought about how tough her life was—rewarding and full of love, yes, but tough. He didn’t date single mothers, but if he couldn’t break his own rule, what good was it? For the three weeks he had in Rust Creek Falls he wanted to give her the world. Her and her kids. It wasn’t like he’d fall in love. Marissa was a single mother of three. There was already a great barrier built right in.
“Well, I’d like to get to know you while I’m here,” he said. “I’d like to treat you and your daughters to a little fun. Good clean fun like this picnic. Hot-air balloon rides. Baseball games. You name it.” He paused. “But clearly, I’m very attracted to you, Marissa. I think you’re drop-dead gorgeous. I like spending time with you. I like you. So romance is definitely on my mind. I just want to put that out there.”
He’d enjoy his time with Marissa, cement a bond with his brothers, repair things with them and his dad, then he’d jet off to Paris—no heartache for either of them.
She stared at him with those brown eyes, and again he could see her thinking. Assessing. Considering. “You’re not looking for commitment and I’m not, either,” Marissa finally said. “So...friends. No strings attached.”
“No strings,” he repeated.
But their agreement left him a bit uneasy. It was one thing to say no strings and another to really mean it. And hurting Marissa—or her kids—was unacceptable.
At dinner that night, when it was Kaylee’s turn to share something special that had happened that day, a Fuller-Rafferty tradition going back generations, the three-year-old couldn’t stop talking about the nice man who came on their picnic and did magic tricks.
Yes, Autry Jones did magic tricks. The man was full of surprises. Big ones and little ones. At the two-hour mark of the unexpectedly long picnic, Marissa had had to wake up Kaylee so Autry could meet his brothers and Marissa could go pick up Kiera and Abby from their playdates, but Kaylee had been a little grumpy and still tired. Autry had plucked a clementine from the bag and made it magically disappear and reappear atop Kaylee’s head, which had brought forth belly laughs and “do it again, Mr. Autry.”
“Who was it?” Abby asked, reaching for the bowl of mashed potatoes.
Marissa slid a glance at her mother, who was pretending great interest in passing the platter of roast chicken to her husband, but was really hanging on to every word. Marissa didn’t often spend time with any men. Nice or otherwise.
“While we were shopping for our picnic in Crawford’s,” Marissa explained, “we ran into someone I met at the viewing party last night. So we invited him to join us. No big deal.”
“Who was that, dear?” Roberta Rafferty asked, so nonchalantly that Marissa smiled.
“Autry Jones.”
Fifty-five-year-old Ralph Rafferty paused with his fork in midair. “Autry Jones? Is he one of the millionaire Jones brothers?”
Marissa knew Autry was rich. Filthy rich. And he looked it. But somehow, the man she’d gotten to know a bit last night and today was a bunch of other things before millionaire. Kind. Thoughtful. Patient. A good listener. And so insanely handsome that just thinking about his face—and yes, that amazing body—gave her goose bumps. “Yup. He’s in town for three weeks visiting his brothers.”
“Wait,” Abby said, her brown eyes the size of saucers. “Do you mean to tell me that the man I saw with Walker and Hudson at the Ace came on your picnic?”
Marissa bit her lip. It was one thing for her daughter to notice a cute