Her brows hitched up.“Well, if Tommy’s inviting me, of course I’ll go,” she said, referring to my nephew, who was practicing his cooking skills.
“I’ll see you tonight then.”
She nodded.I forgot why I was there, leaving without doing anything else.But then, Kendall had that effect on me.
I forgot everything around her most of the time.
ChapterFive
Kendall
A few weeks later
I yanked a brush through my unruly curls and twisted them into a messy ponytail.Step one of my usual day.
“Travis!”I called.
He finally came galloping back to me.He’d been running around in the snow, his favorite place to be.He did the usual husky chatter, little yips with occasional half-howls, as I finished getting ready.
“We’re going, dude,” I said.
A few minutes later, we were driving through the dark morning.
“I’m going to have to forget about what happened the other day,” I said to my dog.
He let out a sound that almost sounded like,I know.
My headlights arced through the darkness, reflecting on the icy road.
“Jude isn’t for me.He’s my friend,” I added.
When I quickly flicked my eyes toward Travis, he was staring at me intently.He knew Jude’s name because Jude was his favorite human.
“See, even though I know if some miracle happened and Jude and I ended up together, you’d be the happiest dog in the universe.I can’t ruin our friendship.”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I let out a quick sigh.“It was nothing.So Jude caught me when I fell?And, so I got an up-close and personal feel of his totally hot bod?And so… so what?”I mused aloud in my car.
Jude was my best friend, and there was no sense in ever sharing my feelings with him.Ever.
It was January, smack in the middle of winter, and still dark when I arrived at work.My breath left icy puffs in the air, and the dry snow crunched under my feet as I walked into the barn.Travis cantered along beside me as I went about the morning.He even knew how to open some of the gates and had my routine memorized.
He let the goats out, the elderly horse, and opened the gate for the pigs, although they were perfectly happy inside their stall.I loved this time of day here.It was quiet and peaceful.Just me and the animals.
I had just finished the morning routine and walked to the windows, peering outside to see glimmers of light above the mountains.The sun would eventually come up, but it wouldn’t actually be for a few hours.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I made the mistake of answering it on my watch.“Hey, hey.”
“Kendall,” my only and older brother croaked.
“Blake?”Weariness instantly slid through me.
“I need a ride.”
“Now?”I prompted, trying, and utterly failing to keep the dismay out of my voice.
My brother’s sigh was ragged.“Yeah.”
“Where are you?”
