“Sure,” Trap said, as he loved the Gypsy Vanner horses that JJ had brought to Seven Sons.
“And he keeps thinking that he’s secured the stable, but the horse is out in the pasture every morning. It makes him spitting mad, and he’s wasting time trying to fix something that he doesn’t know how to fix. And I thought maybe you could justcome by one day and listen to him complain about it and offer to fix it.”
Trap grinned at her. “Why is everyone trying to make me into a liar lately?”
“It wouldn’t be lying,” Ruby said. “You come see the horses all the time anyway. Don’t think I don’t know you’re out there telling them all your secrets.”
Trap scoffed. “Secrets? What would I possibly have to tell them?”
“I don’t know,” Ruby said. “Maybe something about that woman you were holding hands with yesterday.”
Trap sat up straighter and immediately stuffed his mouth with another bite of sandwich.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ruby said, grinning with that knowing look in her eyes that Trap really didn’t like.
He shook his head, but he really had bitten off more than he could chew, and it took several long seconds for him to clear his mouth of his delicious grilled cheese sandwich. “That was nothing,” he said.
“Didn’t look like nothing,” Ruby said. “And you should see what color your face is right now. You like her.”
“Iworkfor her,” Trap said. “It’s not going to happen.”
Ruby tilted her head. “Is there a rule that says you can’t go out with someone you work for?”
“Yes,” Trap said, though there wasn’t.
“And you don’t work for her,” she said. “She’s a client.”
“It’s the same thing,” Trap said, irritated that she’d said the same thing Lila Mae had. “I have to meet with her all the time. She has to approve things. I have to work on her property. What if I take her out and it’s terrible? Then everything is just awkward.”
He kept the part to himself where she’d already threatened to fire him once, because he felt certain that if he asked Lila Mae out, then crashed and burned, hewouldlose the project entirely.
No, that wasn’t why he had gone to the orchard farm store that morning. He truly did believe the misunderstanding and hurt feelings between them had been cleared up.
So why did you go, Trap?he wondered. But he knew why. The reason sat way deep down, hidden inside himself. In the dark, quiet hour before he had to get out of bed, he could acknowledge that he’d wanted to see Lila Mae again—and not on her property, not to go over something, not to have a meeting, and not to get her approval, but just to see her.
“All right,” Ruby said. “He’s got something jury-rigged out there again today, so it’d be really great if maybe you could come by tomorrow.”
“I’ll work it in,” Trap said.
“All right.” Ruby stood up and adjusted Jade on her hip. “Come on, baby. We’re going to be late for lunch.”
She left his cabin then, and Trap finished his grilled cheese sandwich in silence. Well, sort of. The sound of him flipping his phone over and over and over as he contemplated texting Lila Mae and asking her to dinner plunked through the cabin.
In the end, the voices in his head pricked at him, telling him that she hadn’t been flirting with him that morning, and that she’d threatened to fire him less than twenty-four hours ago. She certainly didn’t want to go to dinner with him.
With lunch finished, he sighed, stood, and shoved his phone in his back pocket. “Maybe I should go on another blind date,” he muttered. Because then maybe he’d have a girlfriend and he wouldn’t be able to obsess over the client he couldn’t have.
“It sure would make going out to her place a lot easier,” he said to the sky as he stepped onto his front porch. “And don’t Ideserve something a little easier this summer, Lord? It sure is hot out here.”
With that, he went to get the rest of the day’s work done, knowing he’d end up at Lila Mae’s no matter what.
6
Elaine Walker sat on the couch at her brother’s house while Conrad and his wife, Glory Rose, unpacked the food in the kitchen. After all, she would take any opportunity she could to hold their baby boy, Chance.
Once they’d sorted out his reflux and found the right formula for him, he’d chunked right up. And if there was anything better in this world than a six-month-old baby, Elaine didn’t want to know about it. Chance sagged back into her body like a bag of sand as she pointed to the blue cartoon dog. “What does the dog say? Woof, woof.”
She loved being an aunt. The time she got to spend with Chance comforted her and reminded her that she was only twenty-seven-years-old and had plenty of time to find the just-right man for her, fall in love, and get married. Then she could have babies of her own.
