As it turned out once the medical examiner in Boise had done an autopsy, my father had an intracranial aneurysm that ruptured, killing him instantly. It was of little comfort that he hadn’t felt any pain, but more so that he’d gone doing something he loved—working his ranch.
In the days and weeks and months that followed, while I was physically in Eugene, on flights and football fields with my team, my mind was a million miles away, back in Dusk Valley, Idaho with my family.
Despite my obvious grief, I powered through, leading us first to a Pac-12 championship, and then aRose Bowl victory.
And the moment my season wrapped up, I hired an agent and declared for the draft, forgoing my final year of college eligibility. A lot of people thought it was because my dad would’ve wanted that, and that was part of it. But the truth of the matter was I had to take care of my family, and my rookie signing bonus and an NFL contract set us all up for life.
The rest was history.
“Owen?” someone asked softly from beside me.
Coming back to myself, I blinked to clear the cobwebs of my memories and turned to meet Delia’s eyes. My food, half eaten, had grown cold in front of me. No one else at the table seemed aware of the mental journey I’d just taken.
“Hi,” I said, giving her a small smile.
“Hi,” she said back, concern obvious in the single syllable. “Where did you just go?”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to dive into all my trauma but wanting to be truthful with her.
“I miss my family,” I told her quietly. “But this is…wonderful. Thank you for inviting me.”
Her gaze softened, some of the tension that had lingered between us all day lightening. “Anytime, QB.”
God, how desperately I hoped she meant that.
I’dmeant what I said earlier. The second she figured out what she wanted, I wanted to know.
We hadn’t even done anything beyond the most innocent touches and shared a fewalmostmoments. But it didn’t matter. Every moment I spent with her simply solidified the fact that we were friends—goodfriends. Being around her was as easy as breathing. And I’ve always thought friendship was a solidfoundation for the best, more intimate types of relationships. Look at my parents. They had been best friends, and I got that same vibe from Delia’s as well. So when she got her head on straight and decided what she wanted, I hoped that thing wasme, because I was done for. Completely and utterly gone for this woman.
The following weekend, Ifound myself back in Delia’s garage. This time, it was just the two of us, and still, nothing was resolved. She hadn’t been steering clear of me exactly, but the easy rapport we’d developed over the past few months was strained. As though she was trying to maintain that professional boundary.
And that was fine. I could wait her out. I wasn’t sure when my perception of Delia switched from simple business partner to someone I was interested in romantically. Maybe it was the way she’d stuck up for me that night at the club, or watching the way she interacted with her family.
Probably, it was seeing her pants-less and dancing around her kitchen last weekend. It was impossible to ignore that previously slumbering part of me that opened its eyes, lifted its head, and said, “Mine.”
Clearly, my entire opinion of her had been wrong from the beginning, and I was doing my damnedestto make up for it.
All I wanted was a chance. And I’d give her however long she needed to come to terms with that fact—to recognize that she wanted me too.
That evening, Delia invited me over for a little tasting session, our first batch of spirits at last ready to sample. We knew in order to get really good liquor, they’d have to sit longer than six days, but we wanted to see if we were on the right track. Surprisingly, Liam had offered to set up some at home stills in his garage and keep an eye on them for us. In the wake of that combined with the success of his and Amara’s canned wine cocktails, Delia and I had agreed to bring him on as a consultant, and we were paying him nicely for his help.
He should’ve been here too, but he’d had to bail at the last second. I wasn’t too mad about it, excited about being alone with Delia.
It was barely five p.m., the sun clinging to the horizon before sinking below it when I pulled into her driveway. The first time I’d shown up here, the night of the party, it was pitch black. And when I’d left the next morning, I had been in such a rush to get away from the new and unexpected feeling swirling in my chest that I hadn’t given my surroundings much thought. Now, though, in the pre-dusk light, I looked my fill.
Delia and the previous owners of the home had clearly gone through a lot of trouble to maintain the structures’ original facade and integrity. With its wide wrap-around porch and gambrel roof, it was easy to imagine the home sitting alone surrounded by fields, with chickens pecking at errant seed spread on the ground and cows mooing softly in the distance.
The garage had clearly been a carriage house once upon a time,with a gabled roof, the points of which someone—presumably Delia—had accented with decorative corbels. It was painted a sage green that beautifully offset the bright white of the house, and vice versa.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine the days when this entire neighborhood had been nothing but fields of crops and dirt roads.
I rapped lightly on the garage door with my knuckles, mainly to alert her of my arrival, and Delia’s voice rang out a moment later, inviting me in.
The space looked vastly different than it had last weekend, what with two vehicles parked in the bays. Half of one was occupied by a drop cloth that had two sawhorses with a half-painted hollow core door balanced between them—presumably Delia’s latest DIY project. To the left of the space, Delia waited at the top of the stairs, a soft smile on her lips.
My mouth dried out. How was it possible the woman made a simple pair of loose-fitting jeans and an oversized Apple Blossom Bay Fall Festival tee look like couture?
“Come on up,” she said.
