“Then, there was this weird muddy hug, and a really hot cheek-kiss, but also cops, and the most delicious contraband ice cream.” Gretchen tossed her fork onto the table. “We were supposed to go out on Tuesday, and he was grumpy about the rain and all the work going on at the farm. I called him, and he said he wasn’t in the mood.” Her chest heaved, and it hurt, and she just wanted someone to make it all go away.

  Karyn blinked a couple of times, as if Gretchen had strung together a bunch of words in another language. “Let’s circle back to the cops and the contraband ice cream,” she said slowly. “But start with what happened after the call on Tuesday.”

  “I sent him an apology. He hasn’t responded until now.”

  Karyn started waggling her perfectly manicured fingers. “Give me the phone.”

  “Karyn,” Gretchen said, suddenly so protective of her device. “You can’t text him.”

  “I’m not going to text him,” she said fiercely. “I’m going to screen his texts to see if you want to read them or not.”

  Gretchen took out her phone and passed it to Karyn. “You like this man?” the older woman asked.

  She didn’t look up at Gretchen, which made it easier for her to say, “Yes,” accompanied by a long, swoony sigh.

  Karyn’s eyes flitted back and forth as she read, only getting wider and wider as she did. She met Gretchen’s gaze silently, and she handed the phone back. “You’ll want to read those.”

  “All of them?”

  “Quickly,” Karyn said, her smile growing on her face.

  Gretchen took a breath and held it as she looked down. Will had been sending a lot of texts, and Gretchen warmed with each one she read.

  I’m so sorry stuck out to her.

  I was just in such a foul mood hit her squarely between the eyes. I get grumpy sometimes.

  I want to see you. No, I need to see you.

  Please tell me I didn’t fatally mess up.

  And those were just some of the messages. She looked up and met Karyn’s eyes. “Do you think he’s sending all of these?”

  She shrugged one shoulder as her toddler started to fuss through the speaker on the baby monitor. “I don’t know, but he did win a contest once for fastest texter in Texas.”

  Gretchen sat very still, trying to absorb those words. “You’re kidding.”

  Karyn stood and wiped her dark hair back off her face. “I’m not kidding. I have to go get Lucy up, and you need to go call your cowboy.” She grinned at Gretchen, who stood too. She embraced Karyn, her heart pounding in a new way.

  She still had to get out to Daddy’s at some point today, but maybe she could make a little stop by Sweet Water Falls Farm first. Karyn detoured to go upstairs while Gretchen went out to the porch.

  She waited until she was seated behind the steering wheel before she called Will, who was still sending her messages. The line connected, but he didn’t say hello. More than one voice came through the line, and Gretchen heard, “Say hi, you dolt,” in a woman’s voice.

  “Howdy,” Will yelled into the phone. A big exhale followed, and Gretchen wasn’t sure what to say next. She blinked, seeing a Will-less future in front of her, and while a lot of their interactions hadn’t gone terribly well, she didn’t want to be Will-less.

  “Will,” she said diplomatically. “I took today off, and I was wondering if you might have a few minutes this afternoon before I drive out to my daddy’s to visit.”

  Whispering came through the line, but Gretchen had a hard time distinguishing full words or phrases. “Yes,” he finally said. “That should be fine.”

  Gretchen put her car in reverse and backed out of Karyn’s driveway. “Are you with your sister?”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “Is she going to coach you through everything to say once I get there?”

  “N-no,” he said.

  Gretchen smiled to the sky around her. The rain had moved on, but Sweet Water Falls was still wet. The farm would be, that was for sure. “Did you mean the things you texted, or were you just typing what Clarissa said?”

  “Both,” he said.

  “Are you going to talk to me in more-than-one-word sentences?” she asked. “It’s a long way for a yes or no answer.” She came to a stop at the end of the street, once again presented with a left or a right that would take her to two very different destinations.

  “Rissa’s gone,” Will said. “Listen, Gretchen.” He cleared his throat. “I really am so sorry. I have these redheaded genes inside me, and sometimes they just come erupting out. My mama sat and listened to me whine all night last night, and you know what she said to me?”

  “I have no idea,” Gretchen said, making the right turn that would take her to the farm and not her father’s.

  “She said, ‘William, it sounds like you like this woman a whole lot, and you better figure out how to apologize and then tame your inner grump.’”

  “Texas Mommas,” Gretchen said with a smile. “They’re usually right. Mine used to tell me not to go kissin’ boys on top of water towers. She said nothing good comes from a kiss on top of a water tower.”

  Will let a beat of silence come through the line, and then he burst out laughing. Gretchen joined him, glad all the tension between them had shattered. “I have missed talking to you,” he said. “Did I hang up on you the other day?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “You sure did.” She twanged out the words like they didn’t sting at her, but his abrupt end to the call had needled her for over forty-eight hours.

  “I sure am sorry, sweetheart,” he said softly, and she caught a glimpse of the non-grumpy Will even though she couldn’t see him. “How far out are you?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” she said. “I think the farm is about the same distance from my house as the candy store is, and as my daddy’s place.” She had no idea how she’d be ready to face Will in only fifteen minutes. Then she reminded herself that he was the one who should be shaking in his boots.

  “I’m going to go grab the skillet cake Lee made last night, and I’ll be at my cabin, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said again.

  This time, he said, “Okay, I’ll see you soon, Gretchen,” before the call ended, and then Gretchen only had to focus on not strangling the steering wheel for fourteen more minutes.

  By the time she pulled up to the quaintest, most darling cabin in the world, her nerves had frayed all the way to the center. She didn’t have to wonder if she’d found the right place, because Will sat on the front steps with a guitar across his lap.

  He looked up as her tires crunched over the gravel in front of his cabin, and he practically threw the guitar to the side as he stood. He came jogging down the steps and the front sidewalk, and she’d barely had time to put the car in park and open the door before he arrived.

  She put her hand in his offered one, the touch of his skin against hers sizzling hot. Their eyes met, and Will said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” before he enveloped her in a hug. Gretchen wanted to be held by this man for a long time, despite his stressed-out, grumpy words from earlier in the week

  “I shouldn’t have called,” she said against his shoulder.

  He pulled back. “No,” he said, his eyes blazing with energy. “None of this is your fault, Gretchen. I just…it’s me. Trav told me he asked Shayla to tell him when he’s being this horrible person, and I guess I need that too.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “You know.”

  “Yeah.” He slung his arm around her. “I do know. I’d had the worst day ever, and I really wanted to see you, and I was so upset I had to cancel. I didn’t want to think about having to see you that night, and I didn’t want our first date to be you bringing me pizza out here.”

  She drifted closer to his side as he took her up the sidewalk. The wind gusted, and he nearly lost his cowboy hat. He saved it by pressing down quickly on his head. “Tonight? Can I take you to dinner tonight?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t, Will. My daddy has a doctor’s appointment in an hour, and we get sandwiches at this place in the mall every Thursday.” She gave him a smile, but he didn’t return it.

  He stopped walking and cupped her face in his hands. “I’m sorry I made your life harder. I won’t do that again, I promise you that.” He dropped his hands, stealing his warmth and his affection from her. “But I understand if you just want to walk away now.” His jaw jumped, and he looked over her shoulder and into the distance. “Might be best for you.”

  She let the wind tug at her hair and jacket without resisting them. “Will,” she finally whispered, and that brought his attention back to her. “You’re not like the other men I’ve dated, that’s true. I worked for a bull of a chef in Dallas, and I had to close up my candy shop in New Orleans when my business partner-slash-boyfriend stole from me.”

  She took a deep, deep breath. “When I look into the future, I don’t see either of them. I see Sweet Water Falls, and I see Sweet Water Taffy.” She gripped the front of his denim jacket, wondering how a man could make such a thing look so sexy. “I don’t know about you and me yet, because we’re just getting started, but I know I don’t want to walk away right now.”

  He nodded, those blue-green eyes like hot fire in her soul. “How long can you stay?”

  “Only a few more minutes,” she said, thinking of the drive to get her dad and then get to the doctor.

  Will looked up into the sky. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go inside, because it looks like it might rain again.”

  Gretchen went with him, because she liked being at his side. She liked the sound of his voice in her ears, and she liked being able to share her day with someone with human DNA and who hadn’t served in the Army fifty years ago. She could take a little bark from Will Cooper, and as he served her a piece of gooey chocolate cake, her world got a whole lot brighter.

  “One of my goals this year,” he said as he slid onto the barstool next to hers. “Is to take more time off. I need a break. I work too much.” He took off his cowboy hat and tossed it on the counter. “Then I’m grumpy as can be, and I don’t like being like that.”

  She took a bite of her cake, everything sugary and rich exactly what she needed. “Me too, Will. I work too much at the candy shop. We can work on working less together.” She grinned at him, and this time, he did smile back.

  He leaned toward her and swept his lips across her cheek again. Gretchen leaned into his touch this time, his kiss a brand against her skin. “Tomorrow night,” he whispered in her ear. “Can we go out together tomorrow night?”

  He pulled back, and Gretchen caught the desire and hope swimming in his eyes. She wondered what he’d looked like when she’d called on Tuesday, and what color his eyes would be when he finally kissed her.

  She nodded and forked up another bite of cake. “Yeah,” she said. “We can go out tomorrow night.”

  9

  Will threw the tie on his bed in complete irritation. “I don’t have time for this.”

  “You don’t need a tie,” Trav said from the doorway. “Shay’ll be here any second, and she could tie it for you though.”

  “No.” Will glared at his brother in the mirror. “I should’ve left fifteen minutes ago.” Someone had stopped by the office to talk to him right as he was getting up to leave. Of course. That was the story of William Cooper’s life.

  He turned toward Travis, feeling naked from head to toe. He hated it and reminded himself one more time that he wanted to go out with Gretchen. He liked her. He liked spending time with her and holding her hand, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about kissing her tonight after dinner. He had mints in his pocket and everything.

  “Are you sure I don’t need a tie?”

  “You don’t need a tie,” Trav said, a smile touching his face. “I haven’t seen you like this since—” Thankfully, he stopped talking, but the name hung in the air.

  Tara.

  “Yeah,” Will said. “I just feel like a fool.” He looked down at his shirt, which bore a collar and the color of lemon juice. “This shirt isn’t right.” He started undoing the buttons and flung it on the bed too. “It needs a tie.”

  “I’m coming in,” Shayla Nelson called, and Will lost Trav’s attention to his fiancée.

  “In Will’s bedroom,” he yelled. “Come help him get dressed.”

  “Don’t ask her to do that,” Will grumbled, pulling a couple of polos out of his closet. These wouldn’t require ties, and he wondered if he should change back into jeans too. He turned toward the door as Shay filled the doorway. Trav beamed at her and slid his arm around her waist.

  She smiled up at him, kissed him, and then the pair of them focused on Will. “I like the blue one,” she said. “With your hair color and that white hat.”

  “Great,” Will said, already discarding the red and black one. “These pants? Or can I go back to jeans?”

  “Those are great,” Shay said. “They say I-thought-about-what-I’d-wear-tonight, and they look like you didn’t just come in off the ranch.”

  “It’s a farm, baby,” Travis said, and somehow, that got Will to smile.

  “Farm, ranch, whatever,” Shay said, rolling her eyes. “Are we going to dinner or what? You made it sound like you might feed me at the farmhouse.”

  “Will’s skipping out on his night,” Travis said.

  “I’m not skipping out,” Will said. “We switched.”

  “So I’m cooking tonight,” Travis said. “He’s taking tomorrow.” He left the room with Shay, the two of them still chatting, and Will took a moment he didn’t have to look at himself in the mirror.

  He’d shaved this morning, and only a little growth now covered his face. He’d showered, brushed his teeth, and used a couple of precious pumps of his grandfather’s cologne. The polo was almost the same color as his eyes, with darker stripes of blue and navy running down it, and he could switch out his white cowboy hat for a ball cap of the same color and change his look entirely.

  He didn’t want to. He wanted to be a cowboy tonight, and he grabbed his wallet and shoved it in his back pocket as he turned to leave the bedroom. “I’m goin’,” he said as he went into the living room. He shrugged into his leather jacket while Travis laughed about something with Shay.

  Neither of them even seemed to notice that Will was there, and he paused again. The entire world froze, and he saw Travis and Shay living right here in this cabin together. As the heavens opened and told Will he’d be the one to move out and into the cabin next door to Spencer and Clarissa, he smiled.

  That somehow drew their attention, and Shay scanned him from head to boot. “Gretchen is going to have to hold onto something when she sees you.” She grinned at him, and Will reached up to tip his hat.

  “Call me if you need me,” Trav said. “I might have to call you to get out of the farmhouse tonight.”

  “If you do, I’ll pour water in your bed.” Will wasn’t kidding either. He wasn’t going to interrupt his first date with Gretchen to save his brother from an uncomfortable conversation with their dad. Every conversation they had was mildly uncomfortable, and Travis could deal with it.

  Travis burst out laughing, and even Will smiled. He left the house and hurried to his truck. Twenty minutes later, he pulled up to the house at the address Gretchen had given him.

  The little white brick house possessed charm, and Will felt life pulsing from it. The light green door bore a wreath, though Christmas had come and gone a few weeks ago. Bright bluebells and snowballs made up the circle, and the whole thing made Will smile. It screamed Gretchen, and he couldn’t wait to see what the inside of her house looked like.

  He got out of the truck and went up the walk, then the steps. She lived on a street with a few other people, but there was a lot of land here. Plenty of space for horses or cows, sheep and chickens. It didn’t seem like she had any of those things, but a big, square patch of grass surrounded her place.

  Her doorbell broke through the stillness out here in this more rural part of Sweet Water Falls, and Will wondered if she was in the town proper or not. “You drove to a Sweet Water Falls address,” he muttered, quickly silencing as scratching happened on the other side of the door.

  He squinted at the floor, and in the next moment, the door opened. Gretchen stood there, and it was Will who had to find something to hold onto to keep himself upright. He already found her gorgeous while wearing a T-shirt with an apron over it and a pair of shorts.

  Tonight, she wore a black dress that swelled in the chest and hips and went all the way to the floor in layers of fabric. Wide straps went over her shoulders, and as he stood there staring and mute, she said, “Good evening, Will,” and reached for her jacket.

  He sprung into gear then, helping her into the denim coat with plenty of silver buttons down the front. “You smell nice,” he said, unable to censor himself. Horrified, his tongue swelled and rendered him mute again. Probably for the best, he thought.

  Gretchen grinned at him. “Thank you. It’s a perfume I bought out in this tiny town in Louisiana. It’s supposed to be—no, wait. You guess what it is.”

  Will took the opportunity to lean closer to her again, a gray tabby weaving between their four feet. He didn’t mind the feline, as he hadn’t come here to see it. He took Gretchen right into his arms, and she came real willingly too. He lowered his head to get his nose closer to her neck, and he took a long breath in.

  “Smells like oranges and honey,” he said. “Maybe some lemon. Vanilla.” He reminded himself the date hadn’t started yet, and he didn’t need to be kissin’ her yet. He put proper distance between then and looked down at the cat.

  “You’re right,” she said. “It’s an English tea party—the perfume. Orange scones and butter and honey.”

  He met her eyes again. “I like it.”

  Her blue eyes danced with merriment. “I like your shirt.” Her gaze moved up to his hat. “And your hat.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he drawled out, reaching up to take off his hat and put it right back on. “What’s the cat’s name?”