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“I apologize if you feel we didn’t give you a chance, but please look at this from our perspective and our hopes of Belle being happy. You have a chip on your shoulder, you hate religion and have told Belinda not to plan on you ever having a relationship with your Savior, and you want to take her far away from us. You and Belinda fight nonstop, and she’s either high as a kite or ticked at the world when you’re together. We want her to be happy and Mike makes her happy. He doesn’t upset her and make her cry. The honest truth is that you don’t make her happy, and she cries far too often about you.”
Jagger loved Belinda. He wanted her to be happy. Did he really hurt her and make her cry instead of making her happy? That hurt. They did have heated discussions sometimes, but they didn’t fight all the time. They always made up brilliantly, and he’d never treated her with disrespect or unkindness. She’d never once told him that he made her cry. Was her dad telling the truth? He stared into the man’s hazel eyes and saw no deception there, only concern for his daughter and pleading for Jagger to be reasonable.
“If you love her, please let her go. Let her be happy.”
Jagger looked at her mom and then back to her dad. He’d always seen her dad as a pompous hypocrite, claiming to be the best Christian around while looking down on Jagger and disparaging him to Belinda, but he could see the man truly loved his daughter.
Jagger loved her completely. He wanted Belinda to be happy. Did that mean he had to let her go?
“No!” he roared, stepping toe to toe with her dad. “I can’t let her go. I love her. We’re meant to be. No way could Belinda be happy with Mike. He’d bore her to tears within a week.” His Bee was ‘allergic to boring,’ in her words, and he loved that about her.
Her dad looked … exhausted. He rubbed his chin. “What’s it going to take to get you to leave her alone?”
“I’d never turn my back on Belinda.”
“I can convince you she loves Mike and is happier with him.”
Jagger made a noise of derision. “Even if I saw that, you’d have to beat me bloody, knock me out, and drag me out of here to get me to leave.”
“Okay. I’ll take that offer.”
“Sheldon,” her mom cautioned.
The pastor held his gaze, steady and confident. That made no sense. What did he have to be confident about? Belinda loved Jagger.
“You’re a man of your word?” her dad challenged him. “If you see for yourself that Belle is happy and loves Mike, and I knock you out in a fist fight, you’ll walk away and not contact her again?”
No way would any of those three things happen. Belinda wasn’t happy with Mike and didn’t love him as anything but a friend. Anyone beating Jagger in a fist fight was a laugh; that had been proven time and again over the past four and a half months. He was a legend already in hand-to-hand combat. The middle-aged preacher beating him? Knocking him out in a fist fight? Impossible. His buddies Hays and Shawn would be laughing at the very idea.
“I promise,” he said.
“All right.” Pastor Ralphs let out a tired sigh and tilted his head. “Let’s go. I’ll show you how happy she is with Mike and how in love they are right now.”
Jagger’s gut turned over. Right now? Bee was with Mike? Was the pastor setting him up? How would he keep breathing if Belinda was happier with Mike? He rolled his shoulders. No way. He couldn’t even picture it. Belinda’s blue eyes only sparkled in that special way for Jagger. He could easily imagine her teasing, sassing, arguing, or loving on him. Their kisses were fire and joy and the only heaven he ever needed.
She stings like a bee, but her honey is so sweet.
Maybe they’d grown apart these past four and a half months of not being able to see each other and rarely connecting on a FaceTime call, but it didn’t matter. He and Belinda were meant to be together. They both knew that.
He nodded to her mom, trying not to notice the sympathy in her gaze, and followed her dad off the porch. They walked side by side along the beautiful wood-chipped path lined with flowers and trees toward the ranch’s outbuildings. Neither of them said a word. The tension between them was thicker than his mom’s lemon custard, but this tension wasn’t delicious; it was awful.
He should want to ease the tension and attempt to make her dad see he was a good guy, not want to fight him. It was too late for that. He was too keyed up and her dad had goaded him into this. The pastor seemed certain they would see Bee and Mike together. Why were they together? Was his Bee cheating on him? Jagger was furious that her dad was bent on pulling him and Belinda apart, but he was also terrified that there was truth to her dad’s words. Had Belinda given her heart to someone else? Did Jagger make Bee cry and hurt her instead of making her happy? Both thoughts made him physically sick.
His thoughts spun with concern and the unknowns, landing on the fear of … Bee and Mike? His stomach turned over. She had talked about Mike in every phone call and mentioned him in texts and emails, but she didn’t sparkle when she talked about the man. Mike was a platonic friend. It was like him telling her stories about his buddies Hays and Shawn.
They made it to the barn and the pastor said, “They should be back from their ride any time now. Promise me you’ll stay hidden, just watch, and not speak or try to go after her.”
Jagger blew out a breath, cracked his knuckles, and rubbed his hand over his too-short hair. Could he promise that? As soon as he saw Bee, he’d want to run to her and hold her and love her. She’d be ecstatic to see him. She’d throw herself in his arms and kiss him good and long.
Jagger frowned. Would Bee run to him? Why did she only briefly respond to his texts and rarely take his phone calls anymore? She’d been home from Africa for a month; it should’ve been easy to connect.
“Fine,” he bit out, instantly regretting the word.
Her dad nodded and led him to one of the empty horse stalls. They hid in there together, her dad texting someone on his phone. Jagger wanted to look, to ask if he was setting Jagger up, but it didn’t matter. There was no way Belinda would act happy and in love with Mike. He wasn’t worried.
He was only sweating because it was odd to stand quietly in this spot by her dad. He’d kissed Belinda in this very stall, hiding out from her dad. Those stolen moments had been exhilarating and they’d silently laughed together. There was no laughing excitement now—only an awful heaviness.
At least with the military training Jagger had excelled at the past eighteen weeks he was good at being still and observing. It was beyond awkward standing next to her dad and waiting. Even worse, it felt like his future hinged on whatever happened next and he couldn’t do a thing to influence or change the events.
