“She still has it after all these years?”
“It’s obvious you’ve never been married. We guys don’t make a big deal about what to wear to a wedding. Most of us just do what our women tell us. We rent a tux and take it back after the ceremony is over.
“But to the female of the species, a wedding dress falls into a strange category of sentimental keepsakes. Like I told you the night of the party, we’re living in a frigging construction zone while Brody Ames remodels our house, and every day some new ‘must-have’ pops up.
“Last week Heather decided that we needed two walk-in closets in the master bedroom. So, I took my life into my hands and dared to ask her why, if we weren’t going to have enough closet space with the one ginormous walk-in already on the plan, she was keeping a dress she’d never wear again. One that just happens to take up the entire back of the closet we’re currently using.”
Sawyer took a bite of the hot wings and felt his tongue burst into flames. “What did she say?” he asked after cooling it off with a long drink of beer.
“She told me it was still sentimental and important to her. Especially since she made it herself.”
“That makes sense. Remember that ground dummy practice calf I made in shop class back in high school?”
“Sure. It was as good as the store-bought ones Fred sells at the Feed and Seed.”
“Well, Dad kept it all the time I’ve been gone, and I’m bringing it over to Green Springs with me.”
“Okay.” Tom blew out a breath. “If you ever tell Heather I said this, I’ll call you a damn liar, but that calf’s a helluva lot more functional than a dress. But that’s okay, because I figured that she’d eventually decide it can go to the thrift store. Like maybe sooner rather than later and save us some remodel costs. But she says she expects her feelings to grow even stronger as the years pass.”
“Huh.”
“Well said. And now maybe you can see why I didn’t interrogate She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed on why we’re inviting you to dinner.”
Sawyer thought of the frozen Hungry Man meatloaf in that old gold fridge’s freezer and decided there was something to be said for a dinner with friends. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Great.” Tom nodded. “She’ll call you to give you a heads-up on the time and stuff.” He paused for a moment, looked inclined to say something else, but grabbed a wing instead.
There’d been more times than Sawyer could count that his life had depended on reading people. He might not possess superpowers like his brothers claimed women did, but he could tell when something was off. He lifted a brow. “What else?”
Tom held up a hand as he finished off the wing. Then he swallowed, took another long pull on the bottle, and looked as if he wished he were anywhere else.
“Nothing. Now there’s another thing that hasn’t changed,” Tom said, glancing over at the mechanical bull that had sent a lot of drunken cowboys and tourists flying onto the sawdust-covered floor. “Maggie wanted to get rid of it because she said it didn’t fit the decorating time period and could be a liability problem. Everyone revolted. When was the last time you rode a bull?”
“Probably not since the summer after my junior year of college. And as a diversionary tactic, that one’s pretty lame. What aren’t you saying?”
“Hell.” Tom rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, as if seeking divine inspiration. Which didn’t seem to come. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’m stuck between pissing off my wife and staying true to the bro code. So, I really need your word that you won’t tell Heather I told you this part.”
“We made a blood oath,” Sawyer reminded him of that time in the fourth grade when they’d taken his Buck pocket knife, made cuts in the tips of their index fingers, and mingled their blood, swearing to always be brothers. “That trumps even the bro code.”
“Austin’s going to be there.” The words came rushing out as if he wanted to put them behind him.
“At the New Chance. On Friday night.” As that idea hit home, Sawyer realized this dinner could be
his
new chance. He also knew that, once again, the timing sucked.
“Yeah. Heather already asked her and she’s okay with it.”
“Then the real reason we’re here having wings and brew is because your wife wants to play matchmaker.”
“No. The real reason is what I said. That we didn’t get time to catch up at the party. And yeah, there’s a secondary agenda.”
“Okay.”
“But here’s the deal . . . What? Did you just say okay?”
“Yeah. As long as neither of you try to marry us off between the appetizers and desserts.”
“I’ll try to rein my wife in,” Tom promised.
Sawyer laughed. Then realized he’d forgotten how something as simple as a laugh could loosen knots that had been tying up his guts for so long. “Good luck with that.”
8
N
ERVES TANGLING, HER
mouth as dry as sawdust, Austin knocked on the door of the cabin. Sawyer’s truck was parked outside, and she’d seen him working in Duke’s stall earlier, but when he didn’t immediately answer, she wondered if he might have gone off with one of his brothers. She was just about to leave when he opened the door, wearing only a pair of Wranglers and a towel looped around his neck.
He looked surprised to see her. But not all that disappointed, which Austin took as encouragement.
“Sorry. I was in the shower.” He ran a hand down his chest. Above the unfastened button, it was hard and dark and wet. The thought of him in the shower, one hand braced against the tile she’d helped her dad install, while hot water streamed over his naked, ripped body, had her swallowing hard.
“I can come back. After you get dressed.”
Or, hey, maybe, since you’re already nearly naked, maybe you’d like to drag me into the bedroom and have your wicked way with me.
“Why would you want to do that?” He moved aside. “Come on in. It is, after all, your place.”
She looked up at him, searching for an edge of resentment that she’d ended up his landlady. But his eyes gave nothing away.
“I thought I’d bring you a moving-in gift.” She held out the wildflowers she’d stuck in a mason jar.
“Thanks.” He took them from her and crossed into the kitchen area. Some things never changed. Sawyer Murphy still had the best Wrangler butt of any cowboy she’d ever known.
“You’re welcome.” She was feeling a little foolish about having brought them over. More so when she noticed the cabin was as empty as Jim and Janet had left it. A man who didn’t care about furniture probably didn’t have any need for posies. “Though it would be helpful if you had a table to put them on,” she said pointedly.
He shrugged, calling her attention to the raised silver scar from a past surgery for a broken clavicle running across his bare shoulder. The sight brought back the memory of him crashing into the gate as the bull exploded from the chute. It wasn’t long after that the rogue animal had been taken off the circuit. Challenging bulls were what made the sport what it was. But there was no place for ones who’d try to kill the riders.
Austin didn’t want to think about how he’d acquired those new scars marring that beautiful chest.
“Not much need for a table when I’ve got this counter,” he said. Another shrug sent a bead of water off that curve between his neck and shoulder. When it disappeared into the happy trail of dusky hair that disappeared under that unfastened waistband, sorely tempted to follow it with her fingers, she slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans to keep them out of trouble.
“And this stool beats sitting on a rock or my helmet to eat.”
“You’re not in Afghanistan anymore,” she reminded him. Without waiting for permission, she went down the short hall to the larger of the three bedrooms. “You don’t even have a bed.”
“Again, not needed.”
Which told Austin all she needed to know. If he’d intended to make a move on her, wouldn’t he at least want a mattress to tumble her on?
A silence as wide as Black Bear River during a high spring runoff stretched between them. Although it might have been a trick of the sun streaming into the window, she thought she saw his eyes darken.
Was he thinking the same thing she was? Was he remembering that impulsive kiss they’d shared? Could he, like she’d done countless times, be imagining taking it deeper, hotter, to its natural conclusion?
Which, she admitted, as heat from Sawyer’s eyes warmed her skin, wouldn’t need a proper bed.
“I was just thinking about you,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his military-short-cropped hair.
“Were you?”
When you were in the shower
?
“Yeah. I got a call from Heather earlier.”
“Oh?” Pretending that she had no idea what it might be about, Austin took her hands from her pockets and ran her thumb back and forth over a nail she’d chipped earlier on a fence gate.
“Did she call you?”
“Not today,” she hedged. Damn if this wasn’t getting more and more like high school. “But she dropped by yesterday with the kids.”
“Did she mention going to dinner with her and Tom at the New Chance?”
“It came up in passing.” It was Austin’s turn to shrug. “We pretty much left the idea up in the air.”
“Well, she said she’d like us both to come. On Friday.”
Her heart hitched. For a moment, Austin forgot how to breathe. “What did you say?”
“At first I said I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Which, from the fact that he hadn’t come over and said as much as hello since leasing the pasture, wasn’t that much of a surprise. If he’d wanted to spend time with her, it wasn’t exactly as if they were still living on different continents.
“I suppose you have a lot to do,” she said helpfully. “Getting back into the swing of civilian life.”
“I’m adjusting okay.” The firm set of his chin suggested that the statement through tight teeth wasn’t the whole truth, but Austin wasn’t going to challenge him on it. “But it was the idea of crashing their anniversary that seemed weird.”
“That’s what I thought,” Austin admitted.
“Then she said how she’d been wanting time to talk to me at the party, but she’d been too busy helping dish up the food, then cleaning up, for us to have any time alone.”
“You said it was quite a crowd.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t had that light beard when he’d kissed her, and now, watching the absent gesture had her wondering what it would feel like. Against her face. Her breasts. And, dear heaven, lower still. “Hanging out with the two of them again could seem like old times, I guess.”
“I always have fun with them. And, of course, their kids.” Although she was still nervous, worried that he might sense that he’d been set up, Austin felt her lips smiling. As they always did when she thought of Jack and Sophie.
“They’ve grown up a lot,” Sawyer said. “And changed. Sophie’s nearly a young lady, and Jack, well, he’s a firecracker.”
Austin laughed at the spot-on description. “He is. He reminds me of you at that age.”
He lifted a brow. “I may have presented a challenge to my folks, but I never had to be rescued from a tree.”
“A tree?”
“Yeah. He climbed a big old apple tree in the orchard at the party while no one was looking and got himself so far out on a limb he couldn’t figure out how to turn around and get back down again.”
“Oh, dear.” And so Jack. “Did someone go up and get him?”
“We debated that and worried that too much could go wrong. So Coop drove over to the county maintenance lot and brought back the cherry picker the linemen use.”
“I’ll bet he was in seventh heaven getting to ride in that.”
Sawyer’s answering laugh sounded rough and rusty. As if he hadn’t used it a lot lately. “The trick will be to keep him from climbing up more high places just to get rescued again. Both Tom and Cooper gave him a stern lecture once his feet were back on the ground.”
“Maybe it’ll actually take.” Austin wasn’t holding out a lot of hope.
“So, you want to go?”
“To dinner?”
“Yeah. Friday night. At the New Chance.”
Yes!
“It sounds nice,” she said mildly. “You haven’t eaten there since Rachel took it over, have you?”
“No. But I had some of her food at the party. It was really good and Cooper tells me she’s turned the place around.”
“She’s beyond fabulous. I could see her as one of those TV Iron Chefs. People were afraid she was going to serve fancy New York City food. Not that they don’t have steak in New York, but you know.”
“Yeah. Which would’ve gone over about as well as a vegan sprouts place,” he said.
“True. But she somehow manages to take the western food people around here expect and are used to and elevate it. She even got Jake Buchanan to eat juniper-berry-encrusted venison with a red wine and crimini mushroom sauce.”
“That sounds pretty damn good.”
“It’s amazing. But you’re talking about a guy who’s always eaten his steak charred to the texture of a burnt boot.”
“A cowboy mortal sin.”
“Isn’t it? I’ve always found that strange since he’s a lifelong cattleman. Anyway, Rachel actually has him up to ordering medium well.”
“By the time he’s a centenarian, he might have worked his way up to eating beef like it’s supposed to be eaten.”
Austin laughed, feeling the knot in her stomach begin to loosen. This was more like old times, just two friends having an easy conversation. “I said she’s amazing. Not a miracle worker.”
Sawyer seemed to be relaxing, as well. Those wide shoulders weren’t squared away as if he were standing at attention, and his smile appeared more genuine. More the way she remembered it. It was a half-smile that had always seemed to say, “You know that I know you want me.”
Austin had seen it work its charm on baby girls in strollers to teenage girls to elderly ladies, like Edna Graham, who’d retired from her job as River’s Bend’s librarian back when they’d been in high school but still showed up a few hours a week to ensure that things continued to run properly.
“So,” he said, breaking into a memory of Edna getting into tussles with a few of the less open-minded locals over her prominent display of banned books every year, “since we wouldn’t want to cause them to head out of town on their way to Ashland too late, I figured I could pick you up around five.”