“He’s even better-looking than he was in high school,” Debbie whispered to Talulah as soon as they were in the kitchen and away from Brant and Scott, who were chatting in the living room while watching the kids.
“He’s definitely put on more muscle,” Talulah said.
Debbie took out a large tray as well as all the ingredients for the charcuterie board they planned to prepare. “He looks strong enough to lift a house. And he seems so into you.”
Talulah started arranging rows of Gouda cheese on one corner of the tray, saving the gorgonzola for a spot closer to the center. “What makes you say that?”
After washing some red and green grapes, Debbie placed the red ones next to the Gouda and the green ones on the other side of the board. “The fact that he was willing to come here, for one thing. No man offers to visit someone’s sister, not unless he’s serious about the woman he’s with.”
“He knew you in high school, Deb. He probably wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m sure that never crossed his mind,” she said with a laugh. “He ignored me in high school, didn’t even realize I was there. But the way he looks at you...”
“Oh, stop.” Talulah washed her hands before spreading out thin slices of salami and arranging them between the two cheeses. “You just want me to move back to Montana.”
“I’m not going to lie—I would love that.” She opened a jar of green olives and filled one of the ramekins. “But I’m being honest about Brant.”
“Falling for him would really screw up my life,” Talulah said.
“Still, you are falling for him, right?”
“I don’t know. How can I be certain?” She added some pine nuts and almonds while her sister filled another ramekin with raspberry jelly and spread water crackers near a block of brie. “I can’t make another mistake.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re being extra-cautious—probably overly so.”
“A woman with my reputation can never be too cautious.” She washed a handful of strawberries and placed them strategically on the board. “How’d you know you wanted to marry Scott?”
“That’s tough to say. I just...did.”
Talulah tucked raw spinach leaves around some of the ramekins and the brie to add a little green. “I wish I could be as decisive as you.”
“If you choose Brant over Averil and Paul and even the diner, you must want him pretty bad. I’d say then you’ll have your answer.” She winked as she picked up the large charcuterie board. “Are we done? What do you think?”
“It looks great. I’ll bring in another bottle of wine—and some juice for you and the kids.”
“The sacrifices I make for breastfeeding,” she grumbled and left the room.
Talulah stayed in the kitchen a few minutes longer, listening to her sister, brother-in-law and Brant talk in the other room. Brant was playing with the kids at the same time, so there were snatches of conversation she couldn’t hear above the screaming of whichever child he was tossing around or tickling. But she had to smile at how casual and comfortable he seemed—and how good he was with her nieces and nephew.
“Hey, Lu! You bringing more wine or what?” Scott called out, and she pulled herself from the well of her thoughts long enough to uncork a new bottle.
“Coming,” she told him, but her phone buzzed with a text before she could pour.
Setting the wine down, she pulled her phone from her pocket, whispering, “Please don’t let it be Paul.” If it was, she wasn’t going to answer. He had as much invested in the diner as she did. She could only hope he’d safeguard their business until she could get back. While he was in Europe, she’d have a whole month to decide what to do about their deteriorating relationship—whether or not he’d be able to settle for friendship so they could continue to make their partnership work.
Fortunately, the text wasn’t from Paul. It was from Averil.
What are you doing today?
Talulah stifled a groan. Every decision she made seemed harder than the one before. But, fortunately, she could answer Averil’s question honestly.
I’m in Billings, visiting my sister and her new baby.
Fun! You should’ve invited me to go with you. I’d love to see Debbie again. She has some kids close to Mitch’s age, right?
She does, Talulah wrote. Next time.
Okay. Send me a pic of the new baby.
Talulah had one on her phone from the day Abby was born, but she wanted to get a recent one. Newborns changed so quickly.
When she brought Scott and Brant their wine, she expected to see Debbie or Scott holding the new addition to their family. But Abby was cradled in Brant’s arms.
“Looks like she’s sound asleep,” Talulah said as he accepted his glass.
He smiled as he set it on the table beside him. “I want to see what she’s like when she’s awake, so I keep jiggling her, hoping she’ll open her eyes, but she won’t.”
Debbie laughed. “She’s too warm and comfortable.”
“Do you mind if I take a picture?” Talulah asked, and he smiled as she snapped one on her phone. This wasn’t a photograph she’d ever send to Averil, of course. But it was definitely one she wanted to keep for herself.
“You’re quiet,” Talulah said. “Are you tired? Want me to take over?”
She was sitting next to Brant in the middle of the bench seat, her hand on his thigh as he drove them home. He liked having her there, so close. It felt like she was his in a way no other woman had been. But he couldn’t get his mind off what might or might not happen in the future. He’d told her she could leave him at any time without blame or anger, but he had to admit that every minute he spent with her made the prospect of losing her harder. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking.”
“About...”
Should he tell her? He’d promised himself he wouldn’t pressure her. But they were running out of time. He could easily imagine her getting swept up in her old life and forgetting about him after she went back to Seattle, so coming up with a plan seemed important. “Today, I guess.”
“What about it?”
“It was nice.”
“I enjoyed it, too,” she said. “But I’m surprised you did. The kids wouldn’t leave you alone.”
“That was my fault. I kept riling them up. I love kids. I’d like to have a couple of my own.” He glanced over at her. “What about you?”
“I’d like to have kids, too—someday.”
“We’re in our thirties,” he pointed out.
“Meaning what? We’re getting old, and it’ll soon be too late?”
He could tell she was joking—sort of. She seemed reluctant to have too serious a conversation, and he could understand why. He was the one who’d said they’d just have fun today. But after holding Abby and feeling the peach fuzz on her head and smelling that sweet, baby-powdery smell on her skin and clothes, he realized just how ready he was for something beyond work, hanging out with his brothers and drinking with his friends. It felt like he’d been stuck in one place for the past few years, waiting for something he needed before he could move on, and now he’d found it.
“I’ve been giving the prospect of a family some thought, too,” she told him.
He passed a slow-moving semi. “And?”
“I get where you’re coming from. If I’m going to do it, it should probably happen in the next five or six years.”
“Is that why you were thinking of settling down with Paul?”
“I guess. Partly. Then I wouldn’t have to try to meet someone else. I could give him what he wanted. And it would be easy, or at least comfortable, to share our responsibilities—taking care of both the diner and the children.”
“Paul would be the most convenient choice.” Brant couldn’t argue with that.
“So it’s a good thing I came home,” she said. “Or I might’ve gone through with it. I wouldn’t have let myself back out again. And now I know for sure that I don’t want to marry him or have his baby.”
Brant turned down the radio. “What about mine?”
She looked shocked. He was kind of shocked himself. He was saying things to her he’d never said to any other woman. “We don’t even know how our lives would fit together, Brant. I mean... I don’t see you moving to Seattle...”
“No,” he admitted. “What would I do there? My brothers and I own the ranch. It’s not just my livelihood, it’s the only thing I’m good at, the only thing I’ve been trained to do.”
She loosened her seat belt so she could turn slightly toward him. “Exactly.”
“I’d hate to ask you to give up the diner. But if it came down to that, I’d be able to take care of you.” He knew how much she loved her business, but he had to at least try to convince her to fight for what they could have together.
“As kind as it is that you’d be willing to do that, I doubt I’d be satisfied letting anyone take care of me,” she said.
“What if I helped you open another diner—in Coyote Canyon? Or I guess I could sell my part of the ranch to my brothers, and we could go somewhere else, like Billings or Bozeman, where we could buy more land. The only problem with that is success in ranching is a matter of scale. We’d have to work extra-hard just to get to where I’m at now. It would be much more of a struggle if we went out on our own.”
“If we moved to Bozeman or Billings, I’d still have to leave the diner,” she said.
“True, but you wouldn’t have to be around Charlie or Averil.”
“They don’t seem like a good enough reason to make you sell your interest in the ranch.”
He was impressed with how reasonable she was being. But he almost wished she’d said, “Okay, let’s go to Bozeman.” At least then they’d be making plans to stay together. As it was, he felt as though she was standing on one side of a wide canyon, and he was standing on the other. “So...would you ever consider coming back to Coyote Canyon?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “If I could open a dessert diner in Coyote Canyon, I might. But it doesn’t have nearly the population of Seattle. Who knows if it’d take off the way the first one did? Or if I’d have the money to get it going to begin with?”
“Wouldn’t Paul have to buy you out?”
“He doesn’t have the cash to pay me what it’s worth.”
“I have some money saved. I could help with the start-up costs and he could pay you monthly.”
She slipped a hand around the arm he had slung over the steering wheel and kissed his biceps. “That’s very generous of you, but I couldn’t let you take that risk. And Paul could just as easily get spiteful and make it so difficult to separate our interests that we’d end up destroying what we’ve created. Then he and I would both have nothing.”
Brant frowned as he watched the dashes in the middle of the road rush toward them. “You really think he’d do that? Even though it’s not in his best interest, either?”
“I couldn’t tell you. You never truly know people until you try to break up with them—even if it’s only a business partnership.”
Brant pictured the man who’d come storming toward him when he’d been trying to fix the screen door. Talulah could be right. Sometimes jealousy caused people to do terrible things, and there was no question that Paul was jealous. The way he’d acted this morning when he called Talulah served as further proof. “That doesn’t give me a lot to offer you,” he said and knew in that moment he needed to prepare himself for goodbye.
“Oh boy.”
Talulah had fallen asleep before they could get back to Coyote Canyon, but hearing Brant say that woke her up. “What is it?”
His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “I’m pretty sure Charlie’s behind us.”
A shot of adrenaline chased her grogginess away, and she ducked down in her seat. “We’re back in Coyote Canyon?”
“Just rolled in.”
“And he’s following us?”
“He was stopped at the light on Main when I came through. I think he saw my truck and turned to come after me.”
“You’re kidding...”
“No. Hard to tell from headlights alone, but...that’s got to be him. I know he saw me. And he’ll see you if you don’t stay down.”
Being careful not to let her head pop up above the seat, she unsnapped her seat belt and slid into the passenger-side foot well of Brant’s truck. “What’s he doing now?”
“Coming up alongside,” he said as they stopped at the only other light in town. “Be quiet. He’s motioning for me to roll down my window.”
She burrowed even lower. Brant’s truck was higher than Charlie’s SUV, and it was dark out, but she had no idea if Charlie had already caught a glimpse of another person inside the truck.
“Hey,” Charlie said.
Talulah couldn’t see him, just as he couldn’t see her, but she recognized his voice.
“What’s up?” Brant asked.
“Been looking all over for you.”
“What for?”
“I feel bad about how I’ve acted lately. I’m sorry. I guess I let Talulah get the best of me again. But it’s stupid to allow any woman come between us, especially one who doesn’t even live here.”
“It’s fine,” Brant said. “Everything’s fine.”
“You’re still pissed. I can tell.”
Brant gestured at the light. “There’re people behind us. We gotta go.”
“Want to head over to Hank’s?” Charlie called as Brant gave the truck some gas.
“Not tonight,” Brant called back and rolled up his window.
“Is he still following you?” Talulah whispered a few seconds later.
“For now.” Brant kept watching his mirrors, but as they left town, and the businesses and buildings gave way to rolling countryside, he relaxed. “He’s turning back.”
“You know, if you and I get together, you’ll lose Charlie for good,” she pointed out as she climbed back into the seat—this time on the passenger side so anyone coming up from behind wouldn’t wonder who was sitting so close to Brant.
“I know,” he said.
She fastened her seat belt. “Won’t that be hard?”
He slowed, driving under the arch in front of his home and around the barn to her car. “Of course it will be.”
“But...”
He shut off the engine. “I’d choose you over anyone else, Lu.”
She was so stunned she almost couldn’t find the words to respond. “How can you sound so sure? I’ve only been in town a couple of weeks.”
“I’ve dated a lot of women through the years. I feel like I’ve done enough market research to know when I’ve found what I’ve been looking for,” he quipped.
“It doesn’t frighten you that you could be making a mistake? You’ve never even been in a committed relationship.”
“Not because I can’t commit. Because I hadn’t found the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
She pointed to herself. “You’re saying that’s me?”
“You know it is. I may be oversimplifying, but if you want someone badly enough, you put that person first, make whatever sacrifices are necessary.”
She gaped at him. “Are you asking me to give up the diner and my life in Seattle?”
He looked troubled as he considered his answer. “I hate that being with me would cost you so much,” he replied. “So I’d never ask that of you. It would have to be your decision and yours alone. Otherwise, you’d resent me for it later.” He lowered his voice. “But if you made that choice, I’d do whatever I could do to make you happy.”
She started to point out all the things he had to worry about. That she hadn’t proven to be the most reliable love interest. That with more time, he might change his mind. That he might be blowing up his relationships with Averil and Charlie for nothing. But he waved her words away.
“You seem to think I’m not truly capable of love,” he said. “That you can’t rely on me or what I feel because I don’t have a history of long relationships. But if being with you means I need to sell my interest in the ranch, I’ll do it. If it means I lose my relationship with Charlie, I’ll make that sacrifice, too. Aside from my brothers, those are the things I loved most before you got here. If that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is.”
He climbed out and came around the truck to open her door, but she didn’t move. She felt frozen to the seat.
Had Brant Elway—hard-to-get Brant Elway—just offered her forever?