“You’re sure this is what you want to do with your day off?” Jeremiah asked as he closed the door on the horse trailer. “More of the same you do for your job?”
“Says the man who spends his days off building portable offices,” she retorted. “Besides, I haven’t seen nearly enough of you in the last two weeks.”
That was probably for the best, though he didn’t say it out loud. She needed time to put emotional distance between her and her relationship with Dustin even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself.
“And it’s a gorgeous day,” she added.
“That it is.”
The late spring sun burned off the morning’s chill, so checking the Lazy H herds up here in the allotments would be a downright pleasant task. Certainly a better one than driving them up in a fine rain a week ago had been.
He stroked his hand over her horse’s golden shoulder. Good lord, the beast was tall—over sixteen hands—with the long, clean lines of his breed. “So this is your famous racehorse.”
“Yep, this is my Jinx.”
“Jinx, huh?”
“Well, his registered name is Sunfire Gentry, but he has a story a bit like Murphy’s. I bought him my senior year of college from a classmate who thought he’d be better for dressage or pleasure riding than he was at racing and tried to beat the new skills into him, so… after almost getting into a fistfight with the jackass in the middle of class, I offered to buy Jinx. Cleaned out what was left of my savings after paying for college to do it.”
“Ouch.”
“He’s worth it even without taking into account his lineage. His grandfather was a Kentucky Derby winner, so really, I got him cheap.”
“Why do I feel like the old fart chaperoning a couple of moony-eyed kids?” Austin asked, joining them. He slipped his rifle into the boot of his saddle.
“Maybe because you are?” Jeremiah replied teasingly. “Let’s get this done, shall we? Come on, Murph.”
He held his arms out and the dog obediently jumped into them so he could be lifted onto the chestnut gelding’s back. Jeremiah swung into his saddle, and Murph settled onto his thighs.
“He really does go everywhere with you,” Heather remarked. “Spoiled boy.”
“Maybe just a little.”
They’d parked the trailer in front of the tiny log cabin that came with these allotments. It sat at the tree line across the narrow dirt road from a broad, sloping meadow that gleamed emerald beneath the brilliant morning sun. The first wildflowers of the season were beginning to pop their heads above the lush grass, and above it all, the towering granite dome of Comet Mountain rose into the crystal sky.
Many of the Hammonds’ cows and calves were grazing at the southern edge of the meadow, on the opposite side from the cabin.
“Should we start with them?” Jeremiah asked, pointing.
“Might as well,” Austin replied. He climbed into his saddle.
With Murph holding tight to his legs, Jeremiah nudged his gelding down the dirt road toward the scenic byway and the gate at their intersection. The rope loop holding it closed was high enough that he could lean down and slip it off the post and nudge the gate open with his boot. Heather followed behind him with Austin bringing up the rear. After the ranch hand closed the gate, they headed across the meadow at a brisk walk, content to enjoy the stunning morning.
The cows and their calves barely noted their passing, and Jeremiah called out ear tag numbers for Austin to note on the check sheet. Nearly half this herd was in the meadow. They found another quarter in the narrow strip of meadow behind the island of pines and the rest scattered in the trees. The steers were in the allotment to the south of the meadow, and it took a bit more work to find them through the forest. When they were all accounted for, Jeremiah, Heather, and Austin broke for lunch on the small porch of the cabin.
“Have either of you stayed up here with the herds?” Heather asked.
“Just a couple times,” Jeremiah replied. “The last time was a few years ago, when we had some trouble with a big tom mountain lion—the same one that got a few of the Robinsons’ sheep.”
“That was the summer Luke and Ryan got together,” Austin said. “We ran into a pretty little mama with a couple of cubs on the fall color trail ride up to Hall and Hopkins.”
“I remember hearing about that.” Heather glanced thoughtfully at their surroundings. “I’d like staying up here. It’s so quiet.”
“As if Northstar is noisy,” Jeremiah teased.
She laughed and took another bite of her sandwich.
Jeremiah studied her. On any given day, she was beautiful, but with the sun on her face and the peace of their home in her eyes, she was exquisite.
Austin leaned in close and whispered, “You gonna eat or what? You can stare at her after the work’s done.”
With his face heating, Jeremiah returned his attention to his food.
His companion nudged him. “It’s good to see you so smitten with her. I was beginning to think you’d end up a lonely old grump like me.”
“Weren’t you married once, Austin?” Heather asked.
“To Shane’s mother, yes. Until she walked out on us.”
“Burned by love, and yet you’re still a romantic.”
“I’ve watched plenty of love stories play out. Just because I haven’t found my happy ending doesn’t mean I don’t believe in them.” Austin draped his arm over Jeremiah’s shoulders. “And this kid here deserves one more than most.”
Jeremiah hazarded a glance at Heather and didn’t know what to make of her contemplative expression that wasn’t quite a smile but definitely wasn’t a frown. Suddenly, he wondered what her family thought of them dating. She hadn’t said much about it, but from what she’d said about her family riding her about her decision to break up with Dustin, he suspected he wasn’t their idea of a good match for her. With his past, and the mistakes he’d made….
In a community as small and tight-knit as Northstar, it was difficult to reconcile how little he knew her family. Politely aloof, he would describe them. He’d met them a few times, but they’d never had much to say to him.
He jerked his gaze from her and reached to give his dog some love.
He didn’t think Heather would care what her family thought of him, but even so, it certainly couldn’t be pleasant to have her choices questioned by them, and he didn’t like the idea of causing her that kind of frustration.
Shaking his head, he finished his sandwich after tossing a bite to Murph and picked up the remnants of their meal while he waited for Heather and Austin to finish eating. He stowed their trash in the pickup, and by the time he was finished with that, they were ready to go.
He stubbornly kept the thoughts of Heather’s family from his mind as they headed east to check on the bred heifers, starting at the eastern edge of the meadow. It was a routine and pleasant check of the herd until they turned back west toward the cabin.
They found the dead heifer less than two hundred yards east of the cabin. She hadn’t been dead too long but long enough for rigor mortis to set in. Jeremiah’s heart sank.
“Son of a bitch,” Austin muttered, riding closer to investigate.
Jeremiah followed his companion, and the cause of death was immediately evident—a single bullet to the head between the eye and ear. It was possible she was the victim of a stray bullet, perhaps from someone doing a little recreational target practice, but that wasn’t the thought that came first to his mind.
Zach.
He fought the suspicion. Aaron had talked to his cousin’s PO just this morning, and so far, Zach had been a model parolee—doing well at his job, which he’d been at yesterday evening when the cow had likely been shot. And yet, Jeremiah couldn’t ignore the coincidence of a cow dead from a gunshot and his cousin’s release from prison. Zach hadn’t built his drug running business into the empire it had been by getting his own hands dirty.
“I know what you’re thinking, boy,” Austin said. “And it can’t be him.”
“Can’t it? He gets out of prison, and a couple weeks later, a cow turns up shot.”
“His PO verified that he was at work when this girl died.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t get someone else to do it for him.”
“Why shoot a cow? Most likely she got hit by a stray bullet from some drunk jackass up here doing some target practice.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You’re just jumpy, kid. And probably with good reason. Your cousin’s a right piece of shit, and I’m sure he’d love to make you pay for taking him down. But this ain’t gonna get the job done, now, is it.”
“No, other than it hurts the Hammonds, and you can be sure Zach knows I work for them.” And probably that they’re as close as family to me. He kept that thought to himself.
“They can afford to lose one cow. Come on. Let’s take a look around and see what we can find.”
As they scouted the surrounding forest, Heather rode close beside him. She didn’t say anything, but he sensed the questions churning in her mind. Surely he sounded paranoid to her. Hell, he sounded paranoid to himself.
“It’s stupid, I know,” he said. “I’m just jumpy. Like Austin says.”
“You know your cousin better than any of us,” she replied gently. “And from what I’ve heard, he’s a touch crazy.”
“Not crazy. Smart. Irresistibly charming. Devious. Possibly psychotic in that he seems to lack empathy and has no regard whatsoever for the law.”
“Sounds like a real winner. How did you get mixed up with him?”
“Desperation. It was just Joe and me by then, and we were barely scraping by. Hey, Austin, take a look at that.”
He pointed to a homemade target made of scrap two-by-fours and wafer wood just on the other side of the allotment’s northern fence. It had been shot to pieces; there wasn’t anything left of its center. They checked the area for any sign of where the shooter had shot from, crossing out of the allotment through a gate to the east of the target. They fanned out, scanning the forest floor for shell casings or anything else that might provide information.
“Here we go,” Jeremiah said, nudging his gelding toward the glint of brass in a shaft of sunlight.
As they converged on the spot, he spotted about a half a dozen casings. Not nearly as many as he would’ve expected given the state of the target, and they were widely scattered as if the shooter had tried to pick up the brass but had missed a few. That in itself wasn’t inherently suspicious—there were plenty of people around here that reloaded ammunition—and if the shooter had wanted to hide his activities, he would’ve taken the target with him.
The angles were totally wrong. The target was straight behind him, and the dead heifer was almost directly to his left.
“Well,” Austin said, yanking his cowboy hat off and scrubbing his hand through his silvering blond hair. “Doesn’t look much like an accident anymore. Let’s check on the rest of the herd, then get to the Royal R, call John and Tracie, and see if Jim or Jessie or any of their hands saw or heard anything.”
It was a quick task to complete the check, and Jeremiah and Heather stayed at the cabin while Austin drove over to the Royal R to talk to the Robinsons and call the Hammonds. Jeremiah perched on the porch of the cabin where they’d eaten lunch and ran his hand through his hair. Without invitation, Murphy sat beside him with half his body draped over Jeremiah’s legs.
A cow shot intentionally….
Why wouldn’t his brain let go of the idea that Zach was somehow behind it?
There was no rhyme or reason to it. If his cousin was planning something, killing one of the Hammonds’ cows would bring unwanted attention. The logical explanation was that some jackass, likely drunk, had been up here target shooting and decided his target wasn’t challenging enough. Frowning, he stroked Murph’s head, and the dog squirmed the rest of the way onto his legs, leaning against him.
“You’re not still thinking your cousin is behind this, are you?” Heather asked quietly.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he admitted. “And I’m probably just being paranoid. But, Christ. For eleven years, I’ve wondered what he would do to me when he got out. Eleven years of building a solid life for myself and putting distance between me and the mistakes I made. And him being out of prison…. Everything’s just a little too close to the surface again.”
She slipped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. She didn’t say a word, but her silent companionship was all he needed.
They were still sitting like that when the cavalry arrived. Jim Robinson along with his foreman, Andy Epperson, and Shane had followed Austin back, and they all showed up the same time as John, Nick, and Aaron. While the others investigated the dead cow, Jeremiah and Heather unsaddled their horses and loaded them into the trailer. Then, because the others weren’t back yet, they stepped into the cabin.
It wasn’t much—a single room with a built-in wooden bunk without a mattress in the back left corner, a woodstove in the back right, a small counter with a cabinet below and above in the right front corner that served as the kitchen, and a scarred wooden table with two old chairs between that and the door. Two windows with old, wavy glass flanked the door on the south-facing wall. There was an old-school hand pump around the side that provided the only water, and an outhouse a few yards away in the woods.
“I’ve never been in here before,” Heather remarked. “It isn’t much, but it’s more than I was expecting.”
“It’s kinda fun camping out up here.”
Jeremiah poked around the cabin. There were no obvious signs that someone had stayed in here recently, but there was no dust on the bunk while there was a thin layer on everything else, and when he opened the wood stove, there were a few pieces of charred wood inside. The stove had been completely cleaned out when they’d moved the cows up to the allotments.
“Someone’s been here in the last week,” he said quietly.
“Probably our shooter.”
Nodding, he stepped out of the cabin. Voices to his left drew his attention, and he spotted the Robinsons, Hammonds, and McGuires returning. He waited for them on the porch with Heather standing beside him and Murph leaning against his leg. While the others chatted more about the dead cow, Aaron joined Jeremiah and Heather on the porch.
“What’s the consensus?” Jeremiah asked.
“I don’t see how it could’ve been an accident. That hill behind the target was all soft dirt—nothing for a bullet to ricochet off. And we didn’t find any other casings anywhere else that might’ve made me think the shooter took a few shots from the north.”
Jeremiah nodded. “I think I ought to stay up here for a while. As a precaution.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, Jere. This was likely an isolated incident.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Someone’s slept in the cabin since we moved the herds up.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No, but if I’m up here, it might deter whoever did it.”
“You have an office to finish. How are you going to do that if you’re up here with the cattle?”
“It can wait. I don’t have a buyer for it.”
“Actually, you do. Henry ran into a guy in town this morning who saw your ad for the last one in the Devynite Daily. He’ll be out this evening to take a look at it, but it sounded like he was already sold on it.”
Jeremiah scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Fine. I’ll finish it this week, and then I’ll come up here, if that’s all right with your dad and Nick.”
Aaron studied him with narrowed eyes for the better part of a minute. Finally, he said, “You aren’t thinking Zach is behind this.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” he replied. “But even I have to admit it seems implausible.”
“Good, because you realize that not one of us would allow you to stay up here if we thought for even a second that your dickhead cousin had anything to do with this.” Aaron wrapped his hand around the back of Jeremiah’s neck and pulled him close. “Because no cow is worth putting you at risk.”
Jeremiah pressed his mouth into a flat line and nodded. “So you think it’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know that I’d call it a good idea, but I’ll talk to my dad and Nick about it.” Suddenly, Aaron laughed, glancing sideways at Heather. “If I didn’t know any better, I might think you were looking for a little privacy.”
“That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, Aaron.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
“It crossed mine,” Heather remarked, grinning.
Jeremiah swore under his breath and stepped off the porch. Murph followed him, bouncing around his legs like this was some fun new game, so he indulged the dog for a few moments while the itch of embarrassment slowly receded. When he finally looked at his companions again, they regarded him with matching smiles of amusement.
“Has he always been this shy?” Heather asked Aaron.
“Yep. He seems to be laboring under the misconception that he’s not worthy of a woman like you.”
“I beg to differ.”
“So do I.”
Chuckling, Aaron trotted down the steps and sauntered over to his father and brother. Jeremiah stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched them. They were too far away for him to hear what they were saying, but when Nick, John, and Austin glanced his way, he was certain they were discussing the pros and cons of having him stay up here with the cows. At last, Nick approached him with a nod from his father.
“Dad wants to wait,” the eldest Hammond brother said. “He says—and we all agree—that you need to finish that office.”
“Fine. Shouldn’t take me more than a week.”
“I can help, too,” Heather said. “After work in the evenings. It’ll be fun.”
“Good,” Nick said. “When it’s done, we’ll reassess the situation. Hopefully there’ll be no need for you to stay up here.”
Nick glanced between them with a knowing gleam in his eyes but didn’t comment. “We’ll stay here and take care of the cow if you two wouldn’t mind taking the horses back to the ranch. Would you let Mom know we’re going to be late for dinner?”
Nodding, Jeremiah opened the driver-side door of the pickup and told Murphy to load up. With Heather belted in to the passenger seat, he drove the trailer to the turnaround at the end of the road. The space wasn’t big enough to simply drive around, but he’d been hauling trailers long enough now that he had no trouble backing this one and getting the rig turned back down the road toward the main road.
Heather laughed.
“What?” he asked.
“You can even back a trailer better than Brock.”
He lifted a brow at her, not sure he wanted to be compared to her brother.
“He made a smart remark at the big family meeting a couple weeks back. I might’ve told him that you were a better rancher than he is… and you keep proving me right.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” he said slowly, “but I’m not sure using me as ammunition against your brother is the best idea.”
“Probably not. But he pisses me off so much.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Joe and I were close, so I can’t imagine fighting with him like that.”
“Then you were lucky.”
“It’s not just me and Joe, though. Nick and Aaron and Henry have their disagreements from time to time, but they don’t fight.”
“No, they don’t,” Heather murmured. She turned her gaze out the side window.
Jeremiah took the hint and let the topic drop.
As he drove down the winding pass into the Northstar Valley toward the Lazy H, he let her draw him into conversation about the portable office he now had just a week to finish. Why hadn’t he given himself more time? The only thing he’d had time to do in the last two weeks was the insulation, which left him with the paneling, painting, trim, carpet, desk, cabinets, and shelves to complete. He could get it done, but it was going to take some late nights to make it happen. It was a nice distraction—laying out everything he needed to finish and what order he needed to do things in to make the best use of his time—but even that couldn’t get the dead cow off his mind.
It made no sense, but his gut wouldn’t let go of the idea that Zach was behind it somehow.
* * *
Heather laughed as a big drip of cream-colored paint splattered the toe of her old tennis shoes.
“You’re having way too much fun with that,” Jeremiah remarked as he hopped up into the portable office to check her progress.
“I really am.”
“Thanks again for helping me with all this. Not sure I could’ve gotten all this done without you.”
“It has been my pleasure, Mr. Mackey.” She used the relatively paint-free back of her hand to brush a strand of hair from her face, wiggling her lips and nose to assuage the lingering tickle. “Seriously. I’m having a blast. It’s been a great change of pace.”
She didn’t say it out loud, but working with him every evening for the last five days had also saved her from two dinners with her family. They weren’t pleased that she’d blown them off to help Jeremiah finish his project, but when she was with him, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She rolled the last section of wall while he watched, and when she was finished, she turned to him with a broad smile. “Second coat’s all done, boss. How’d I do?”
“Fantastic. It looks great.”
She glanced around the space. The color he’d chosen was bright and cheerful without being too yellow. It seemed to change color with the light, sometimes more yellow, sometimes with more of a pink tint. For the small area, it was perfect, and it also brought out the golden tones in the blue pine desk, cabinets, shelves, and trim he’d spent the last hour coating with the third and final layer of spar urethane. The plan was to install all that and the carpet tomorrow, and after that, the office would be done and two days ahead of schedule.
The sense of accomplishment was incredible.
“This thing is going to be gorgeous when it’s all finished.”
“Not to be arrogant, but yeah, I think it will be. I learned a lot from the first one to this one, and it shows.”
“I’m not sure you know how to be arrogant.”
He met her gaze for a moment, then looked quickly away, and she couldn’t help but grin. There wasn’t an arrogant bone in him. If there was, he’d at least know how to take a compliment without blushing.
Of course, she was glad he didn’t. She liked his humility. It was endearing and set him apart from many of the men she’d dated. More than that, she liked the effect it had on her. When she was around him, she was calmer somehow, and she knew it was because he didn’t judge her. He was happy to be with her, exactly as she was.
Abruptly, she turned toward the door and dropped out of the trailer onto the concrete floor of the shop to inspect the blue pine pieces that would complete the office. There was something incredibly beautiful about the wood—all locally sourced, he’d informed her—even if that blue-gray staining was the result of the fungus carried by the destructive mountain pine beetle that had decimated forests across the Rockies. It added a unique infusion of contrasting color to the pale gold wood.
Jeremiah had left the uneven bark edge—sanded down to remove the bark and reveal the worm tracks beneath—on the desktop, the front edge of the shelves, the outside edges of the trim pieces for the windows and door, and the inside edges of the cabinet doors. The desk would have log legs on the front side with the back mounted to the walls, and along with the bark edges, they would make the whole thing eye-pleasingly rustic and one-of-a-kind.
He was one hell of a craftsman.
“Where did you learn to do all this?” she asked.
“My grandparents owned a construction company in Devyn, remember?”
“Yeah, that explains the office itself… but what about this?”
“Dad and Grandpa were also pretty gifted at building furniture. I didn’t think I’d picked up much of that before they died, but I guess I did. At least enough that I was able to fill in the gaps.”
“How’d they die?” she asked, latching on to the comment. He talked about his family so rarely that her curiosity was morphing into a ravenous thing.
“Grandpa? Heart attack.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was hard. He was a good man.”
“If he was anything like you, I believe it.”
He glanced sharply at her, then—as usual—ducked his gaze.
“You don’t believe that?” she asked.
“That I’m a good man?”
“Yeah.”
“Good men don’t do the dumb things I did.”
“Even the best men make mistakes.”
He nodded, but she could tell he didn’t agree with her. How long would it be before he stopped letting his past mistakes be one of his defining characteristics?
“You up for dinner at the Bedspread?” she asked. She peeled off some of the paint that had dried on her hands and rubbed off some more that was still tacky, but it was going to take some hot water and a scrub brush to get the rest off. Dropping her hands, she turned her gaze on Jeremiah. “I’ll buy. Or the Ramshorn, if you’d prefer. I wouldn’t mind taking another swim. We worked our butts off today, and we can’t do anything else until the paint and the urethane is dry, anyhow.”
He frowned and didn’t immediately answer. Finally, after half a minute, he replied, “Uh, yeah. That’d be great.”
“If you don’t want to go… we don’t have to. I’m a terrible cook, but I can whip up something easy.”
“It’s not that.” He chuckled. “Sometimes I get into a gotta-get-it-done mindset and it takes me a while to stop looking for what I need to do next.”
“Understandable. Do you want to get cleaned up before we go out?” She glanced at the clock on the shop wall. “Holy crap. It’s already almost eight. I didn’t realize it was that late. I don’t think Pat and Aeli would mind if we showed up covered in paint, but maybe we oughta skip the Ramshorn tonight because getting this junk off us will eat up most of the time we have left before the pools close.”
Shaking his head, he laughed a little louder.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re cute. The Bedspread is fine, and no, I don’t think Pat and Aeli will mind. This won’t be the first time I’ve walked in to their restaurant covered in paint or sawdust or dirt.”
“And I’m sure you aren’t the only one to do it. This is a ranching community, after all.”
She helped Jeremiah put tools away and clean up their rollers and brushes, and by the time they’d finished that, it was a quarter after eight.
“Come on, Murph,” he called to his dog. “Time to go home.”
The dog crawled out from under the trailer and pranced over, stopping briefly beside his master for some pets before continuing on to Heather for more.
“He’s warming up to you faster than he warms up to most people,” Jeremiah remarked. He turned off the lights in the shop and followed Heather and his dog outside into a golden June evening. “Take that as a compliment.”
“I do,” she replied. “Is he coming or staying home with Austin?”
“I think he’ll stay home this time.”
Murphy put his ears back and lowered his head at the word stay.
“Say it isn’t so, Dad,” Heather whimpered, giving voice to the dog’s dismay.
“Oh, he’ll enjoy it. Austin spoils him rotten.”
Heather opened the door of Jeremiah’s truck. “Load up, Murph.”
The dog obeyed without question. He was warming up to her. When she’d tried to let him into the truck on Tuesday, he’d glanced at his master and waited for Jeremiah to echo the command. Heather ruffled his ears fondly.
“Yeah, we’re getting to be good friends now, aren’t we, sweet boy?”
Murphy wiggled his tails stump in agreement.
Austin was sitting outside on the porch of the bunkhouse when they pulled up, and he tipped his imaginary hat to her in greeting, none too discreet when he glanced between her and Jeremiah with a twinkle in his eyes. She couldn’t help but smile.
It was nice to be around people who approved of her relationship with Jeremiah.
Plus, she valued Austin’s opinion. She’d gotten to know him well back in high school when she’d gone out with Shane, and the fact that he felt as he did about Jeremiah—like the man was his second son—made it even easier than it already was to trust him.
Why couldn’t her family see it?
“Nope,” she muttered. “Not going to think like that tonight.”
Because she didn’t want to be alone in the truck with her thoughts for even the few minutes it would take Jeremiah to get his dog in the house and fed, she followed him into the bunkhouse.
“You two look like you got a fair amount of work done on the office this evening,” Austin remarked, eyeing her paint-spattered clothes.
“We did,” she replied. “Should be done tomorrow. I know it’s ridiculous because I am exhausted enough to sleep for a week, but I’ve really had fun helping Jeremiah.”
“He’s good company. Easy to be around.”
“Yes, he is. I was just thinking that myself a little while ago.”
“Gossiping about me again, Austin?” Jeremiah asked when he’d finished dishing Murphy’s kibble.
“Only good things,” Heather said. “We ready?”
“Yep. Stay, Murph, and be good.”
The dog gave him a pitiful look, but it lasted all of two seconds before he was distracted by his food bowl. Chuckling, Jeremiah opened the door for Heather and promised Austin he wouldn’t be out too late.
“What the hell do I care when you come home?” the older man asked. “You’re a grown man. Have some fun.”
“I don’t think I have the energy left for any more fun,” Jeremiah replied before closing the door behind them.
Heather climbed in his truck, amused that they seemed to take it more places together than her newer Silverado. The old Ford was a reliable vehicle, and there was something classic and timeless about riding shotgun in it.
Was it the truck… or her date?
Both, but mostly her date. He was always so laid back with her and never tried to show off or prove his masculine prowess, and the stubborn independence that would usually have her demanding she drive was silent. She was content to surf her hand on the wind and watch the familiar landscape roll past as the balmy early June air wafted through the cab.
“Are you going to keep going on the restoration of this old girl?” she asked.
“That’s the plan. If I can sell a couple more offices, I’ll finish the bodywork and have it painted. That and the trim is all I have left. The mechanics are all done.”
“What color would you paint it?”
“A nice, rich metallic root beer—a nod to that brown and cream color scheme she was originally.”
“That’d look great on her.”
How much fun would it be to take a road trip with Jeremiah in this old girl all freshly painted? Just him and her and Murphy cruising down some two-lane highway with the windows down and the music blasting…. Her lips curved at the thought.
“That was a smile I’ve never seen,” Jeremiah remarked as he turned into the Bedspread Inn’s U-shaped driveway. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”
“A road trip,” she replied. “Don’t know when we’ll ever be able to take one, though. Ty keeps me pretty busy, and I know there’s always work to be done on the Lazy H, and if you make a go of it with your portable offices…. And you should, by the way. They’re adorable.”
“I don’t think there’s enough of a market for it to be anything more than a hobby.”
“Pssh. You’ve already sold a couple, right? And this one already has a buyer. Plus, didn’t Henry say he talked to a guy who might be interested in one?”
His lips quirked upward. “Yeah, I guess so. But that doesn’t mean it’ll last. Devyn isn’t exactly a deep market.”
“No,” she agreed. “But by the time you run out of buyers here, you could have the means to expand your radius.”
She liked the way he let out a huff of laughter as if he didn’t believe her but wanted to. Grinning, she turned her gaze out the windshield and barely held back the groan when she spotted Curtis’s truck parked by the steps up to the deck of the Bedspread’s restaurant. By the time Jeremiah parked his old Ford a couple cars over from it, her brother and his wife and their two young children were walking out the door.
“Let’s just hang out here for a minute,” she said quietly as if her brother might hear her.
“Why?” Following her gaze, Jeremiah asked, “Isn’t that your brother and his family?”
“Yes, it is, and I’m having a great evening. I’d rather not ruin it by talking to him.”
“Why would talking to him ruin it?”
Instead of answering, she glared in her brother’s direction with her lips pressed into a flat line.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess your family doesn’t approve of you dating me.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” she muttered.
“Come on.”
Before she could beg him to stop, he’d shut the engine down and jumped out of his truck. This time, she let the groan out and followed him outside. They passed her brother and his family on the steps, and to his credit, Jeremiah smiled brightly and commented on what a lovely evening it was. Curtis looked him up and down, glanced between him and Heather, and then forced a smile.
“Yes, it is.”
“Christina, right?” Jeremiah inquired, turning to Curtis’s wife with his hand extended. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure.”
Christina glanced uncertainly between her husband and Heather but shook Jeremiah’s hand. “Jerry Mackey, right?”
“Jeremiah. And who are these two cuties?”
“Our son Sebastian and our daughter Rosalie.”
Heather now found herself holding back a laugh as Jeremiah made goofy faces at nearly-two-year-old Rosalie until she was giggling uncontrollably and then flipped a switch and greeted four-year-old Sebastian as if he were a man of great importance. As entertaining as her boyfriend was, his antics were not nearly as hilarious as her brother’s discomfort. Curtis had a constipated look on his face—the expression of someone desperately wanting to escape an unpleasant situation but unable to do so without being incredibly rude.
“Well, gorgeous,” Jeremiah said, turning to Heather as he straightened and conspicuously took her hand, “we’d better get inside.”
“Excellent idea. I’m starving.”
“You four have a wonderful evening.”
Without waiting for Curtis or Christina to respond, Jeremiah gave Heather’s hand a tug and they left her brother and his family standing on the stairs with matching frowns of confusion and consternation. The doors had barely closed behind them before Heather lost the war against her laughter. It spilled out of her, and her tired body soon slackened with it. She hung on Jeremiah’s arm as he guided her toward a booth on the left side of the dining room.
“That… was… incredible!” she said breathlessly with laughter still tumbling out of her. “The look on his face was priceless.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t try to give me the big-brother threat. ‘Stay away from my sister, scumbag.’ Or something like that.”
“Nah. That’s not Curtis’s MO. Brock’s maybe. But they’d have to care enough about my wellbeing to bother threatening you, so don’t worry.”
He tilted his head and studied her with his brows furrowed. “You think they don’t care about your wellbeing?”
She squirmed in her seat. This was not what she wanted to talk about tonight. She’d had fun with Jeremiah this evening, and she wanted to hold on to that and savor it. “I wish I could say they do, but most of the time, it sure doesn’t feel like it. Let’s not talk about this tonight, okay? It’s depressing, and I want to have fun with you. Austin did say he didn’t expect you home too soon….”
He didn’t complain when she sidled around the table and slid into the booth beside him, nor did he stop her when she slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. There weren’t any other diners in the restaurant, or she was certain he would’ve put the brakes on. As it was, she suspected he didn’t because he sensed she needed the distraction. The concern in his eyes after she touched her lips to his again before pulling away confirmed it. He wasn’t going to forget this conversation, and desperately, she hoped they’d get to a place that she felt comfortable enough to answer his questions about her relationship with her family.
The potential was there.
Just being with him soothed her jittery heart, and the way he’d boldly headed off what could’ve been a very awkward encounter with her brother gave her a sense of security she hadn’t never realized she needed. Without her asking him to, he’d protected her from her own brother, and he’d done so despite the fact that he was the target of Curtis’s scorn.
No one had ever done that for her before.
Pinching her eyes closed, she curled her hands around his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. When he draped an arm around her, she let out a breath and let herself be vulnerable for once in her life.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She thought she’d said it too quietly for him to hear, but he whispered back, “You’re welcome.”