“Still, you feel responsible.”
She was right. I did. Because I was the oldest. My father had told me that enough. You’re the oldest. You need to take care of things. Take care of your brothers and sister.
I hadn’t done a very good job.
“Tell me about your father,” Melanie said.
Could this woman read my mind? After all, that was her job. Get inside my head. I still wasn’t very comfortable with that.
“What does my father have to do with any of this? He’s been dead for nearly eight years.”
“You got the sense of responsibility from someone. Your father is as good a place as any to start.”
“All right. My father was…pretty domineering. Very loving as well, don’t get me wrong. He was a good father. He taught us all from a young age about ranching, about responsibility.”
“But he taught you more about responsibility than the others.”
I nodded. “I was the oldest. Of course I was expected to be the most responsible.”
“And your father? Was he the oldest of his siblings?”
“He only had one brother, but yes, he was the older.”
“That makes a lot of sense.”
“How so?”
“He was most likely taught to be responsible as the older child, and because you were his oldest, he passed that on to you.”
Did he ever. “Yes, he did.”
“Did you ever resent being given such a large amount of responsibility at such a young age?”
“Maybe a little. But in a way I liked it as well. I was the oldest brother. I like being the oldest. I got to learn how to ride a horse first. I got to learn how to ride a bicycle first. I got to learn how to drive a tractor, a car. I got my own room, when Talon and Ryan shared one.”
“Didn’t you grow up in a large ranch house?”
“Yeah, but the two of them liked sharing a room. At least until after…” I cleared my throat. “Talon wanted his own room after that. But me, I always wanted my own. I like alone time.”
“Alone time. Why do you think that is? Why do you like being alone so much?”
“I don’t know. I always have.”
“Do you think it was because it let you escape the responsibility of being the oldest brother sometimes?”
My palms began to itch. Damn, this woman was getting inside my head, and all my defenses were yelling at me to make it stop. I clenched the arms of the recliner, getting ready to stand.
“Going somewhere?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re bracing to leave. Your body language is speaking volumes right now, Jonah.”
She was in my head all right. Well, that was what I was paying for. How was I supposed to let her into my psyche when all I could think about was getting her into my bed?
I forced myself to relax. “You must have misread me. I’m not planning to go anywhere.”
She smiled. “All right.”
She was pacifying me. I could tell. She didn’t believe for a minute that she had misread me.
And of course she was right.
“So let’s get back to you and your alone time. Do you still like your alone time now?”
I nodded.
“What you do during your alone time?”
“Sometimes nothing. Sometimes I swim. I have a lap pool at my house. I’ve always loved the water.”
“I see. What is it that you love about the water?”
“I don’t know, really. I guess I just like the way it wraps itself around me.”
“Like a shield?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It seems to…”
“What?”
“It…soothes me. Takes the weight away.”
“I see. That makes a lot of sense. What else do you do while you’re alone?”
Well, I jacked off a lot. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. It had been way too long since I’d had a woman. Even though I’d had girlfriends in the past, I’d never had what I thought was a serious relationship. Only one of us had—before Talon and Jade, that was. Ryan had been with a woman named Anna for several years, but they’d ended up calling it off.
“Sometimes I read up on ranching, agriculture.”
She laughed softly. “That’s part of your work. I’m talking about your free time. Your alone time. What do you do besides swim?”
I honestly didn’t know how to answer her. If I wasn’t swimming or sleeping, I was doing something involving the ranch, whether it was reading up on new techniques, attending a conference, or talking to my brothers or my foreman. God, had I really become so involved in my work?
“I…hang out with my brothers and sister.”
“What about friends? What about a girlfriend?”
“Talon has a group of guys he plays poker with. Ryan joins them sometimes.”
“But you don’t?”
“No. I don’t really believe in gambling.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I had no idea what she was driving at with this line of questioning. “Isn’t it better not to gamble, Melanie? I mean, it can lead to addiction, right?”
“Do you think you have an addictive personality?”
This was getting way off track. “Of course not.”