Gretchen bent down to pat him, finding his groomed schnauzer eyebrows so expressive. “Howdy, Howly,” she cooed at him. “Were you and Daddy out in the gardens? You better not have been doing anything.”

  She spoke in a baby-voice, but she meant every word. Daddy hadn’t fallen and broken his hip, but he couldn’t really cart his oxygen tank around the back yard. Momma had put in octagonal pavers, and the wheels of the tank got caught on the edges, the tufts of grass between the pavers, and everything else.

  Just now, as he came toward her, the tank jammed against one of the table legs. He yanked it free without even looking behind him. “Hello, sweetheart,” he twanged at her, and Gretchen enveloped her father into a hug. “You didn’t have to bring food.”

  “I did if I wanted to eat something besides sprouted wheat bread and mushrooms,” she joked. But she wasn’t really joking. She’d never eat half the things her father put in his mouth. She started unloading the items from the tray so she could go get the rest, saying, “I’m going to make those egg sandwiches you like. Cut up some fruit. Can we eat on the back patio?”

  “Should be able to, yes,” Daddy said about the time Aunt Patty made it inside the house.

  “Reginald,” she yelled. “Your oak out front looks like it might have a disease.”

  “She might have a disease,” Daddy grumbled, to which Gretchen could only smile. Aunt Patty and Daddy got along just fine, but she liked to tell him all the things wrong with his yard and house, and he liked to tell her to mind her own business.

  As that conversation started, Gretchen retrieved the fresh vegetables and fruit from the back of her car and got to work in the kitchen. Just as the egg patties came off the heat and she yelled, “Brunch is ready,” into the living room, her phone rang.

  It was Jon’s ringtone, and Gretchen hesitated at the same time she jerked into motion. She should answer it. She didn’t need to answer it. Not today. No one was working today. There was no emergency that must be handled before another breath was taken.

  She let the call go to voicemail as she went to help Aunt Patty to her feet. She managed that only to have to kick her father’s Army green camouflaged oxygen tank free from underneath the side table. He’d almost refused to bring the tank home with him, and Cory, Gretchen’s brother, had finally convinced him by saying they could wrap the tanks in Army green camo.

  Daddy had served proudly in the Army for several years, and that had done the trick. Gretchen moved at the speed of a snail behind her aunt and her father as they padded through the kitchen and toward the back patio.

  “I’ll grab this plate and be right behind you,” she said. Her phone rang again, and annoyance and acceptance rang through her simultaneously.

  She plucked the phone from her apron pocket and answered Jon’s call with, “This better be life-or-death.”

  “I’m with a gentleman that says it is,” he said.

  “Who?” Gretchen demanded, her eyebrows drawing down. In her opinion, there wasn’t anything worse than cold eggs, and with the sloth-like movement of her family members, that had already happened.

  “Well,” he drawled. “I was just at the shop to try out those grasshoppers. Remember you said I could come in to do that?”

  “Yes,” Gretchen said, though she had forgotten. “We’re closed today, though.”

  “William Cooper doesn’t seem to understand what that means,” Jon said, almost under his breath.

  “Wait. What? Will Cooper?” Gretchen’s face flushed again, and the man wasn’t even here.

  “Just let me talk to her,” came through the line in Will’s sexy bark. Gretchen couldn’t believe what was happening, and she checked the phone to make sure this call wasn’t a prank.

  “Gretchen?” Will’s voice came through the line. “I just dropped by to talk to you for a second, but you’re not here.”

  “We’re closed today,” she said as practically as she could. “Jon told you that.”

  “Mm, yes, he did.” Will sounded like he didn’t buy it for a second. “Listen, Gretchen, I’d love to see you face-to-face for just a second. Would you mind if I stopped by? It won’t take but a minute, I promise.”

  “Stopped by?” she repeated as if no one had ever stopped by her house before.

  “Yes,” he said. “If you just give me your address, I’ll swing by. Sixty seconds. It’s important.”

  Gretchen had no idea what would be so important that he’d need to stop by, but she found herself giving him her father’s address.

  “Short Tail, huh? You live out there?”

  “My dad does,” she said. “I’ll be home later today, if you want to wait.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.” The call ended without him handing the phone back to Jon, and Gretchen once again stared at her device like she’d just been the victim of a practical joke.

  Then she immediately started calculating how long it took to drive from Sweet Water Taffy to her father’s place. She knew the exact number of minutes, as she’d made the drive plenty of times after work.

  She now had twenty-two minutes to eat and enjoy brunch—and convince herself not to throw up—before Will “stopped by.”

  3

  Will followed the directions on the screen in his pickup truck, his heart beating louder than the radio played. He couldn’t believe Gretchen hadn’t been at the candy shop, nor that his nerves hadn’t given out yet.

  Short Tail sat about twenty-five minutes past her sweet shop, and he wondered how she lived this far from work.

  “She doesn’t,” he told himself as he peered out his side window. “She said her father lived out here.” She hadn’t divulged where she lived. Rightly so, as Will had gone into grump-mode and demanded her employee get Gretchen on the line.

  Even when Jon had said she was spending the morning with family after the first phone call hadn’t been picked up, Will had insisted. He wanted to sleep tonight, goldarn it, and until he apologized to the gorgeous Gretchen Bellows, he couldn’t.

  The map on his screen got replaced with Daddy’s name and picture as a phone call from his father came in. Will reached to tap the connect icon as he turned onto the street Gretchen had given him.

  “Hey, Daddy,” he said, one thousand percent distracted. She was here, on this street, at one of these houses.

  “You left in the middle of milking?” Daddy barked into the truck.

  Will blinked, focusing on the situation at hand. He shouldn’t have answered this call. “Uh, yes, sir,” he said. “Travis said he’d cover for me.”

  “Travis is currently covered from head to toe in manure,” Daddy said sourly. “Where are you? This better be somethin’ like you needin’ an epi-pen or something.”

  Will didn’t point out that Daddy had used the word “something” twice in one sentence. His mind screamed at him to say that of course he’d been stung by a wasp. The biggest, nastiest, most poisonous wasp in the whole world, so he’d jumped behind the wheel of his truck and driven to the pharmacy…alone.

  His conscience wouldn’t let him do it. “Not exactly,” he said. “Daddy, listen, I’ll be back in two shakes, okay? I just needed to do something.”

  “What?”

  Apologize to a woman ran through his mind, and Will let it come on out of his mouth.

  Daddy made a grunt or a scoff, or maybe he was just breathing out. No matter what, Will had stunned him. He’d also done something Will thought impossible. He’d calmed his father’s bark for long enough for the man to think before he spoke.

  “All right,” he said with resignation in his tone. “But make it snappy, son. We have work going on out here.”

  “I’m aware,” Will snapped back. He wanted snappy? Will could give Daddy snappy.

  “Son.”

  “I’ll be back in a half-hour,” Will said, already reaching to disconnect the call. He wasn’t sure if he did or Daddy did first, but there were no goodbyes. The GPS map roared back to life, and Will squinted at it.

  “Shoulda told Daddy I needed glasses,” he muttered to himself. “That wouldn’t’ve been a lie.” He got the truck moving again, finding the quaint and quiet farmhouse just two more down the lane.

  He turned down the driveway, easily spotting a dark minivan that must be Gretchen’s. At the same time, she totally didn’t seem like a minivan type of woman. She didn’t have kids—at least that he knew of.

  The grass grew in between the tire tracks in the driveway, and a huge oak tree stood guard in the front yard. Off to the side and on the way around to the back to Will’s left sat a willow, and he could take a moment and breathe here.

  If he didn’t get out of the truck soon, he wouldn’t, and Will unbuckled his belt and slid from the truck. Only the whispers of wind and the sound of a tractor growling in the distance met his ears, and this place reminded him so much of his family farm.

  He did love working the family operation. Of course he did. He’d never wanted for anything different, the way Clarissa had. She’d gone off to culinary school, and then she’d tried to get a job in the city at a fancy restaurant.

  Cherry had done the same, graduating in educational counseling, and she worked at a college in San Antonio now. Will knew the most about that, and while no one in the family had asked in a long while, being on the cruise together had brought up some renewed questions about how Cherry could stay away when Mama was so sick.

  Will kept his mouth shut. He’d learned that was the best way to survive in the Cooper family. At least when it came to personal things, he didn’t say much. If there was a problem with a cowboy or cowgirl, he could yell with the best of them. But matters of the heart? He shut right down.

  Which was probably why his pulse banged against his ribs, begging him to get back in the truck and get on home. No one came out onto the porch or down the front steps to greet him, and the house had no sidewalk leading up to it. It had to be about a hundred years old, but it seemed to be smiling at him as he made his way across the lawn. Someone obviously took care of the yard, as the lawn wasn’t overgrown, and the trees had neat and clean beds around their trunks. The house had been painted recently, in Will’s estimation, and he could appreciate someone taking care of their property.

  He’d just put his foot on the first step to go knock on the door when he heard a voice. “…fine, Daddy,” the woman said.

  Will froze. Gretchen.

  “I don’t mind doing the yard work. I’ll just check out the front and then come do those weeds in the back.” She came bustling around the corner, her eyes sweeping the street and then the driveway. She froze, her hands halfway into a pair of gardening gloves.

  Will swept his cowboy hat from his head, because he was a right fool. The motion caught Gretchen’s attention, and her eyes locked onto his. He expected his nerves to riot, but for some unknown reason, they…calmed.

  “Howdy,” he said, taking a slow step toward her.

  The heat of the day thawed her—or maybe his voice, though Will told himself not to be arrogant and not to assume that this woman felt anything for him. Just because he couldn’t stop thinking about her didn’t mean she felt anything for him. Anything but loathing.

  She came toward him too, finishing the job of putting on her gloves. “Good morning,” she said professionally. She stopped a good distance from him too, her eyebrows up in a silent question of Well? Your sixty seconds starts…now!

  “Listen,” he said, clearing his throat afterward. “I just wanted to apologize about last night.” He wrung the brim of his hat like it was full of water and he needed every drop to come out. “Of course it’s not your fault I put that stu—apple in my truck and then sat in it.”

  Gretchen’s features softened. She held out a pair of gardening gloves. “Want to help me with the weeds in the back?”

  “Oh, uh, sure.” Will said nothing about his promise to be back at Sweet Water Falls Farm in a half-hour. He took the gloves and put them on, finding them too small and snug but saying nothing.

  “Good, because my daddy is driving me crazy,” Gretchen said. “Maybe if you’re here, he’ll behave.” She started back toward the corner of the house she’d hurried around a moment ago. “You didn’t have to drive all the way out here to apologize.”

  “I did,” Will said. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I was a real—I was mean. I was just frustrated at myself for not remembering I’d put the apple on the seat.”

  “I get it.”

  “And that I couldn’t eat it later,” he said.

  Gretchen glanced at him as he finally caught up to her. They walked side-by-side for a moment. “Is that right?”

  “Which part?”

  “That you would’ve eaten it later?”

  “Of course,” he said, glad she hadn’t asked him why he couldn’t sleep. Since he was going with all honesty today, he might have told her she’d been plaguing his dreams—night and day—for weeks now. Months maybe, except there was no maybe about it.

  “Why do you find that hard to believe?” he asked.

  “You don’t seem to like sweets,” she said. “That’s all.”

  “I do,” he said, focusing forward as they reached the back yard. Pure paradise opened up before him, right along with a bubbling stream. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “My mother loved to garden.”

  Will glanced at her, the sadness pouring from her so obvious to him. “How long has she been gone?”

  Gretchen yanked her attention away from the bushes and flowers and trees and blinked as she stared at Will. “How did you know she was gone?”

  He shrugged, his heart shredding along the edges. “My own mama isn’t well,” he said. “I think I could just hear it in your voice.” He surveyed the land again. “Is all of this yours? All the way back to that fence?” A white fence sat in the distance, with a great pasture beyond that. Will could see horses back there, and he’d dreamt of a place like this for himself.

  He had the small house out in the country, but no room for horses of his own, and the landscaping around the farm was for function, not beauty. Her mother had created this to be enjoyed and Will took a few seconds to do just that.

  “Beyond,” Gretchen said. “My parents had horses in the past.”

  “But no more,” he said, not asking.

  “My dad is on oxygen all the time now,” she said quietly. “Come on. You might as well meet him while you’re here.”

  “If I’m going to be doing the man’s yard work, I suppose I should.” Will grinned at her, and to his great surprise, she smiled back.

  “You owe me, Mister Cooper,” she said, and Will hadn’t been out with anyone in a while, but even he recognized when he was being flirted with. He stared after Gretchen as she started walking again, and he didn’t get going fast enough before she noticed.

  She turned back to him. “You comin’?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, jogging to catch her. She ducked her head and smiled, waited for him to catch her, and they shared something when he did. Will wasn’t entirely sure what it was, and he didn’t have someone at the farm to ask.

  He did have a long drive home, and maybe Cherry wouldn’t be working today. Of course she wouldn’t, because it was New Year’s Day, and she had a normal job with normal vacation days.

  It was only cowboys who worked every day of the year. And nurses and doctors, Will told himself. Pilots, truck drivers, Mother Nature, and the Good Lord Himself.

  They walked along a fence with flowers spilling from baskets along the top, and Will’s stomach clenched as an idea formed in his mind. “Gretchen,” he said as they reached the corner of the fence and even more of the yard opened up before them.

  She looked at him expectantly.

  He just had to say it. Ask her. The words foamed in his gut, rolling upward and out of his mouth. “Would you go out with me?”

  Pure shock covered her expression, and her eyes widened. “Like, on a date?”

  “That’s usually what a man means when he asks a woman out,” a woman said, and Will whipped around and backed up at the same time, as if he might need to protect Gretchen from the hag who’d appeared out of nowhere.

  An older woman leaned against what wasn’t a fence, but a railing, a smile made of pure glee on her face.

  Gretchen moved out from behind his weak protective stance and to his side. “My aunt Patty,” she said. “Aunt Patty, this is William Cooper.”

  “William Cooper?” a man practically yelled, and Will thought he’d fit in real nicely at the farm. A thumping, rolling sound came across the deck, and an older gentleman appeared at Aunt Patty’s side. He was obviously Gretchen’s father, though he wore a line of disapproval between his eyebrows right now.

  “Ain’t no daughter of mine goin’ out with a man with a name like that.”

  4

  “Daddy,” Gretchen said, exasperation exploding through her. It seemed to multiply with every half-second that passed. “My daddy,” she said, throwing a look in Will’s direction. She couldn’t look at him, so she looked past him. “Reginald Bellows.”

  “Pleasure to meet you both,” Will said diplomatically.

  “I knew a guy named Will once,” Daddy shouted, and Gretchen pressed her eyes closed in a long blink. She could say the next part. Served with him in Korea.

  “Served with him in Korea,” Daddy said, mimicking her thoughts. “He had a fake leg, that one. He’d hide things in it. Up to no good.” He slid his eyes down to Will’s legs, and Gretchen wanted the ground to swallow them both right into a hole that went all the way to Korea. “Do you have a fake leg, son?”

  “No, sir,” Will said, a smile in his voice. Gretchen dared to peek at him, and sure enough, he wore a smile on his face. That so wasn’t fair, because he was already stunningly good-looking while growling about his sticky shirt or griping about sitting in chocolate and caramel. Why did he have to be blessed with perfectly straight, white teeth too?