“So, you heard him ask me out?”
“I did, and if you needed me, I would have been there, but when he said my name, and you defended me, it told me where things stood between us. You said it was always Bo. That’s all I needed to hear.” He is smiling, and so am I.
I reach over and take his hand.
His fingers fold through mine, and we walk the rest of the block like that. Past the hardware store and the flower shop and the bench out front of the insurance office where Mrs. Winslow usually sat. All the way to the end of the street, where I pick up Mom’s ring from the jeweler, and back to the truck. By now, half the town is talking, and I am ignoring it, because I have what I want: Bo Gates.
The drive back to the ranch is quiet. Rowdy breathes deeply from the back seat. Bo has the window cracked two inches, and the sun warms my face.
I watch the fence posts tick by and think about the morning.
Bo had been in that diner the whole time. He’d sat in the back booth, and he’d watched, and he hadn’t said aword. He’d let me handle it. He let me answer Kevin. I’d spent my life in Tyler’s shadow. And now that Bo was here. He’d silently shown the town. I didn’t need a rescue, and I wasn’t in the shadows; I was shining on my own.
My parents' ranch comes over the rise. Farmhouse, outbuildings, the guest house, with Bo’s truck parked at its usual slight angle.
Rowdy is already at the gate by the time we got out, nose pressed to the gap, tail wagging.
I open it.
He shoots through, and I watch him go.
For now, there is pie to deliver and a farmhouse that isn’t going to restore itself.
I pick up the box from the back seat and follow Rowdy through the gate.
Chapter 19
Small Town Cupid Turns Up the Volume
Bo
Frank greets me before dawn, and I am starting to agree with Falon. There is something seriously wrong with that bird’s alarm clock.
Looking at the time, I wince. Okay, so maybe it was my alarm clock that was off. Nine fifteen in the morning. I groan and run my hands down my face. It had been a while since I’d slept that well. Not a sliver of a nightmare or waking with sweat beading on my forehead.
I dressed in a hurry and look out toward the fields. Falon had already done the morning chores and was no doubt at the kitchen table with her coffee and the books. She’d come up with an ingenious way to meld the two ranches and still keep the profits and workload separate.
It was just one of the little things I was starting to love about her. I am a little bummed that I’d missed the morning chores. I was supposed to help her, but my head was finally quiet for the last couple of days. Falon and I had fallen asleep after Harry Potter, and she had stayed in my arms all night. Her breathing silenced the demons within, and her little moans as she adjusted made me realize that there wereworse things than falling for the one person you were not supposed to have, and that would be to live without love.
I make my way over to Falon’s, anticipating her smile and the hot cup of coffee she always had waiting for me. Of course, that would have been at seven when we were supposed to start the day, not half past the crack of too late.
Sure enough, just as I thought, Falon is at the table and gives me a teasing grin. She knows I know I am late. I take a mug down from the cupboard and take a muffin from under the glass cover.
If waking up late wasn’t a clue that there was a hiccup in the cosmos, the moment I saw Mrs. Winslow coming up the walk should have been a clue.
And it all started with a pie.
My shoulders shake as I start laughing and have to step out of view. Falon looks at me strangely, then sobers when she hears a knock at the front.
I am still pouring coffee when she knocks again, this time with a pie dish covered in a blue-checked cloth and a determined expression.
Falon gives me a worried look and walks toward the door. I lean against the counter, just in earshot, but not in view. This was going to be interesting.
Falon answers the door, and I try to keep from laughing.
"Mrs. Winslow." Falon's voice is weary but polite. With Mrs. Winslow, you never knew what was going to happen. "What a surprise. I wasn’t expecting company this morning."
"Is it?" Mrs. Winslow says in mock confusion. She doesn't sound surprised at all. I’d bet my military pension that this was premeditated. Mrs. Winslow isn’t known for subtlety.
