Brant couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten himself into such a mess. That night at Talulah’s, when he’d had the concussion, was supposed to be a onetime thing. Easy. Fun. No repercussions. It might’ve ended that way. But one night had turned into two, and two had turned into three, and they’d been some of the best nights he’d ever had.
Added to that, Charlie or Averil had thrown that rock through her window, cutting her and making him mad, and he’d had to take a stand against that sort of behavior, which pulled him further into Talulah’s life. That was the reason he’d had to go to the funeral, to keep an eye on them. He knew no one else would make sure she got through it. And he’d decided to fix her door because...
He couldn’t say why he’d decided to fix her door.
Anyway, here he was, lying in bed, feeling like a fool—as if Paul had hit him in the stomach even though the confrontation hadn’t come to blows. And the crazy thing was...it bothered him much more than it should to think that Paul was the one who was with Talulah right now, sleeping...where?
“I’m turning into Charlie,” he muttered, punching his pillow.
With a sigh, Brant rolled over to check the time on his phone. Nearly three. On weekdays, he got up in two hours, but tomorrow was Saturday. He could sleep in if he needed to. At least he had that going for him. He had to do a few things around the ranch—move the cattle to another paddock for Kurt, since Kurt had taken his last turn—but he’d have most of the day off. He could finally change the oil in his truck. And after lunch, he and his brothers could take the boat to the lake and enjoy one of the last days of summer.
That should’ve sounded like fun. Boating and water-skiing were some of his favorite activities. But knowing Paul was in town, and that he couldn’t see Talulah again, had changed him in some way. Nothing seemed to have the same appeal it did before, even going to the lake.
This had to be what a crush felt like, he decided. He was miserable. Everything that’d once been important to him—everything he used to love doing—no longer seemed to matter. He’d give up the lake in a heartbeat if it meant he could go over and hang out with Talulah.
Emotions aren’t that simple, Brant. She’s a man-eater. And if you’re not careful, you might find that out the hard way.
Averil had told him that. He didn’t believe Talulah was a man-eater. She just happened to have more than her fair share of sex appeal. Thanks to that, and her beauty, and her sweetness, and the fact that she wasn’t remotely clingy or grasping, she attracted more than her fair share of men. And because he’d never run into anyone else who’d captured his attention quite like she had, he’d fallen right into the trap Averil had been warning him about. That was all. He didn’t find what Averil had said there to be too significant. But his response that day was: Trust me, I can take care of myself.
He’d been too cocky for his own good.
You’ve never had your heart broken, have you?
Not really. I guess I’ve been lucky.
Yeah, well, let’s hope your luck isn’t about to run out.
This part of the conversation weighed more heavily.
But his luck wasn’t about to run out. He’d caught himself in time, hadn’t he? All he had to do was keep his distance and let the effect she had on him slowly wear off. Eventually, it would have to. And with Paul in town, staying away from her would be easy since he couldn’t see her even if he wanted to.
You think this guy cares about you the way I do? He just wants a good fuck! You told me yourself he goes from woman to woman without ever feeling much.
Paul had said that, and Talulah hadn’t corrected him. Apparently, even she would be surprised by how he felt.
But he refused to be like Charlie. He’d take firm control of himself, yank his attention back to his regular life, where it should’ve been all along, and let her go on her way.
When Talulah woke up, the first thing that popped into her mind was the memory of arriving home last night to find Brant fixing her screen door. He’d been good to her since she’d come back—in so many ways. It made her cringe to remember Paul jumping out of the car to accost him.
Paul’s behavior had embarrassed her. And yet she could hardly blame him. She understood what he was going through—and that she was the reason. Having him in her life for such a long time, with daily contact since they’d opened the diner together, had undermined all her good intentions to avoid getting into another situation like those in the past. Somewhere along the line, he’d stopped believing what she said and started to assume she felt more than she did, simply because he wanted her to.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry about hurting Brant. He was probably relieved to have such an easy exit. They were having a good time, enjoying each other, but she imagined him shrugging her off the moment he got into his truck and was willing to bet he wouldn’t think of her again.
I’ve never left anyone standing at the altar, he’d said that day in the town diner.
Because you bail out before it even gets that far, she’d told him.
That’s what you’re supposed to do. I can teach you how, if you want me to.
He didn’t need to teach her; he was going to show her. But knowing that the brief interlude they’d enjoyed had already come to an end created such a strange sense of loss—like a breakup, really, even though they’d never been together in the first place. Whatever they’d had, it was too bad it had to end so soon. They’d been having a wonderful time, one that felt natural and spontaneous and next-level when it came to sex. Everything with him, including his touch, was more exciting.
Movement from down the hall made her tense. Paul was awake. She figured she should get up and say hello, but she wasn’t looking forward to another day spent reassuring him that nothing had really changed while fending off every attempt he made to get her to agree she’d never look at another man again.
She kicked off the covers and was just going into the bathroom when she heard a creak behind her. Paul had come out of his room and was standing in the hall, barefoot and shirtless, in a pair of basketball shorts.
Talulah had slept with him once, only a week before she came to Coyote Canyon, but she was wearing nothing except a pair of panties and a spaghetti-strap top and instinctively wanted to shield her body from his view.
“Morning,” he said, raking his hands through his thick dark hair as it fell around his shoulders.
“Morning.” She continued into the bathroom, so she could stand behind the door and peer out at him. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
A frown indicated he’d noticed her reaction and that made her feel as bad as everything else. He had to be wondering why they couldn’t simply pick up where they’d left off. After all, it’d been easy enough for her to go to bed with Brant—someone she’d known in high school and hadn’t seen since—proving it wasn’t a long process for some guys.
But coming to Coyote Canyon and getting involved with him had removed the possibility of sleeping with Paul again, at least for the time being, and she couldn’t even explain why.
Fortunately, Paul didn’t remark on it. He seemed to be trying, once again, not to pressure her too much. “I am hungry. What about you?”
“I’m starving. Why don’t I make some buttermilk pancakes? You like my mother’s recipe, don’t you?”
“Do you have buttermilk?”
“No, but we could buy some easily enough.”
He waved that option away. “I’d rather just go out.”
Talulah wasn’t too keen on that idea. She didn’t want to be seen in town with Paul after all the rumors that’d been circulating about her and Brant. She knew that being seen with Paul would only supercharge the gossip and make it more difficult for her to stay here after he left. “It won’t take long to go to the store.”
“But I’d like to see your hometown while I’m here. Don’t you want to show me around?”
What could she say that wouldn’t make him accuse her of doing exactly what she was doing—trying to keep him out of sight as much as possible?
She cleared her throat. “Okay. Let me get cleaned up,” she said and shut the door.
Unless they went to a restaurant in a neighboring town, odds were good they’d run into someone she knew. It was a weekend, after all, and a lot of people would be eating out, picking up groceries or running errands.
Chances were much lower that they’d run into Brant. She had to acknowledge that. But even a small chance made her uneasy, because he was the one she wanted to avoid most of all.
Talulah took her time getting ready. Depending on who was out and about, she’d probably draw attention and wanted to look her best. But when they got to Urban Remedy, a farm-to-fork restaurant that was new and trendy and something she thought Paul would be more likely to appreciate than the traditional greasy spoon where she’d run into Brant shortly after she’d arrived, there was no one she recognized.
Feeling the tension coiled tightly inside her slowly begin to unravel, she ordered the mushroom toast with fresh leeks, shiitake mushrooms and lemon aioli, and Paul chose the eggs benedict with local farm-fresh eggs and hollandaise sauce. And of course they both ordered coffee.
“It was hard not to get the chorizo scramble, but I can’t pass up eggs benedict,” Paul commented as a tall young man with dreadlocks entered their order into an iPad.
Talulah glanced at the menu painted on a wooden sign behind the counter as she stuck her credit card in the reader. Paul had offered to pay, but she’d insisted it was her turn. She didn’t want him to be able to accuse her of taking advantage of him if their relationship didn’t develop as he hoped. She was now especially glad she’d always been careful about that. “I was tempted by the biscuits and gravy and fried sage,” she said as she reclaimed her card.
“You love biscuits and gravy.”
“I do, but I went with the mushroom toast because I’ve never had anything like it before.”
Food was one area where they were a natural fit. They loved trying new things—whether it was someone else’s cooking or their own. Overall, they did well as business partners, too. And Talulah liked hiking and hanging out with him. She’d even enjoyed it when they’d had sex—well enough, anyway. She’d thought that maybe she’d broken through a barrier, and that she’d be interested in getting more serious when she returned.
But then she’d slept with Brant and that had somehow demolished the small amount of desire she’d begun to feel for Paul.
She hoped she could get back to where she’d been before. If not...
She didn’t want to think about the ramifications. She’d worked so hard to establish herself in the restaurant business. And she was fairly certain she wanted a family. If she married Paul, it would be easy to maintain what they already had. They could even trade off working at the diner and taking care of the kids.
If only she could get her stubborn heart to cooperate.
They each poured some water from a carafe set out for people to help themselves and chose a two-seater table in the outdoor section near the garden.
“I’m surprised to find a cool place like this in such a small town,” Paul said.
Talulah put her water on the table. “It’s definitely more Bozeman than Coyote Canyon, but it just opened last year, so maybe Coyote Canyon will become more hip over time.”
“There’re enough people around to support it?”
“I think it pulls customers from the surrounding area, too. I saw several people on Yelp say they drove over from various places an hour or two from here.”
“Opening this kind of restaurant in such a backward town is ballsy.”
“Are you trying to be insulting?” she asked.
He looked surprised. “No. You’ve called it backward yourself, on numerous occasions.”
She supposed she had. Coyote Canyon wasn’t anything like Seattle. She’d often joked about coming from “nowhere.” But it irritated her when he belittled her hometown. “Well, from what I read online, the owners already had the farm,” she said, veering away from an argument. “The restaurant’s just an extension of that.”
“I hope they can make it work.”
At the moment, Talulah was more worried about their own restaurant. “How many days have you been away from the diner? Four? Five? Isn’t that kind of long?”
“I was there Tuesday and Wednesday,” he told her. “I didn’t leave until early Thursday morning, after I finished the baking.”
She felt her eyebrows pull together. “But I called...”
He looked away. “I told everyone that if you called to say they hadn’t seen me.”
He had? And what reason had he given them? Had he also told everyone at the diner that she’d slept with someone else? At the very least, Selma, Beth and the others had to be aware that there was now a problem between them, something she’d purposely avoided making apparent herself. Not only was it unprofessional to drag them into the middle of an argument, she hated to think of the people they’d hired speculating on her personal life, or choosing sides.
What Paul had done bothered her for another reason, too. “You wanted me to worry about the diner when you knew there was nothing I could do, other than head home, if our employees had a problem?”
He toyed with the condensation on his glass. “Not really. I just wasn’t ready to talk to you.”
No, he’d tried to make her worry; she could tell. He knew how much she cared about the diner. It wasn’t the worst revenge anyone could devise, but turning their employees against her, having them lie for him and making her fear for the diner was revenge all the same. “You could’ve told me you needed time. I would’ve respected a request like that. Then we wouldn’t have had to involve our employees.”
“They actually helped talk me through it,” he said as if that made it okay.
“You told them about Brant?”
“Was I supposed to keep it a secret? I was shocked and hurt, Lu. I thought it was over between us.”
But did their employees also know that she didn’t owe him her fidelity? That he was expecting more than she’d ever promised? Talulah doubted he’d shared that part, because it would make him so much less sympathetic.
She could’ve called him out, but it was possible he’d taken the night they’d been together to mean more than it did—although she remembered at least two conversations afterward in which she’d said she still wasn’t sure and wanted to take things slow before making any sort of commitment.
She couldn’t help being annoyed, even angry, but she decided to let it go. “How long do you plan on staying here in Coyote Canyon?”
He stiffened. She hadn’t chosen the best time to ask that question, but she’d been wondering since he arrived. “Why? Are you in a hurry to get rid of me?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she replied, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “It’s just...someone should be at the diner. Weekends are our busiest days.”
“You’re underestimating our employees.”
She’d picked up her water glass, but at this, she put it back down. “I am? Because I thought you agreed with me. When I said I had to come to Coyote Canyon to take care of my great aunt’s funeral and belongings, I suggested you join me for a few days—at least for the funeral so I wouldn’t have to face everyone from my past alone—and you said the funeral would only last a couple of hours and it wouldn’t be worth having you come out for that. We agreed it would be smarter for you to be there while I’m gone, and I’d be there while you’re gone.”
“The diner’s fine, Talulah.”
He sounded exasperated that she kept pushing the issue, but he hadn’t addressed her argument. What she was trying to make him see was that he hadn’t been willing to come to Coyote Canyon because of what she’d been worried about, but he’d certainly been willing to come for something he was worried about.
Once again, Talulah told herself it wasn’t a huge deal, she was being sensitive, but it bugged her, especially when she thought of Brant showing up at Phoebe’s funeral and sitting right in the front row, just to give her some support—all the while knowing it would risk several of his relationships here in town.
“Can I ask you a question?” Paul said.
She knew by his tone of voice that it would require patience, but she made the attempt to be courteous. “Sure.”
“What attracted you to that hayseed in the first place?”
Talulah felt her nails curve into her palms. Everything Paul did and said seemed to get on her nerves today. Was it him? Or was it her? “I thought you said we wouldn’t talk about Brant again.”
“That was before I found him on your porch last night, and then you acted so weird after.”
“I didn’t act weird,” she said. “I was tired and went to bed.”
“I’m just curious. He has a powerful build. I’ll give him that. But I’d never expect you to be attracted to someone like him.”
“Someone like him?” she echoed. “He might live a different lifestyle than we do, but he’s quite successful at what he does.”
Paul didn’t seem impressed. “Maybe he is. But admit it—you’d be bored living out here. You two have nothing in common. What would you even talk about?”
So far, the conversation between her and Brant had been easy, natural and as enjoyable as everything else they’d shared. She wanted to tell Paul that, but she knew it wouldn’t help. “Let’s drop it, okay? But I will tell you this. If we happen to run into him again, I wouldn’t try to start another fight.”
Talulah heard her name and stood up to get their food, but Paul caught her by the wrist. “Why? You don’t think I can take him?”
“Ranching is hard work—much more physical than anything we do. And he’s been competing with his three equally rugged brothers for most of his life.”
“Which means...”
“He’s used to wrestling and pitting his strength against other men.”
“I’m not scared of him,” Paul scoffed.
But Talulah knew he’d be a fool to start trouble with Brant. Hopefully, he’d listen to her.