A sense of pure exhaustion moved through him just thinking about the next couple of months, especially when Cherry didn’t answer and simply held him in return.

  She did straighten after another few seconds and she pushed her hair out of her face. She hadn’t braided or tied it back that day, and just like last night, Jed loved the way it flowed over her shoulders like cool, slow-moving lava.

  “I went to Hanna’s,” she said. “I got you that chorizo tornado burrito you like.” She lifted the silver foiled package with the green stripe around it.”

  Jed grinned at her and took it. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  “I’m going to stay until next Sunday,” she said, giving him a glance.

  Surprise burst through him. “Really? You took off the whole week?”

  “The whole week.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” He unwrapped his burrito and added, “I might not have run if I’d known that.”

  She giggled, but he moved around the island and sat at the bar. “Seriously, I’m out of shape.”

  “Yeah, your huge muscles could really use some extra time in the gym.” She rolled her eyes and turned back to the assortment of items she’d brought. She lifted a whole handful of them and put them on the island. “I got too much food.”

  “You usually do.” He bit into his burrito and moaned, the salty, spicy flavor of chorizo one of his favorite things in the world.

  “Hey,” she protested, but she didn’t really have a leg to stand on. Cherry liked to be the perfect hostess. He’d seen her bustle around at two weddings now, making sure everyone had what they needed. He’d been to the Cooper’s farm for the Fourth of July barbecue and fireworks show. She’d barely looked at him once her brother had come storming over, choosing instead to put out more cookies and refill lemonade cups.

  She sat beside him and unwrapped her own burrito, hers with an orange stripe.

  “The ham and cheese?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She sounded defensive, but Jed didn’t know why. “I don’t like the spice.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said, then took another bite of his. He ate, trying to figure out why she had to defend what she ate. He had poked some fun at some of the things she ate—the pho place they’d eaten at last night a good example of that. “It’s good, but you don’t have to like what I like.”

  Their eyes met, and Cherry wore mild surprise in her expression. “Thank you,” she said quietly, and Jed didn’t know what to make of this version of her. He knew the fiery one. The passionate one. The headstrong one. Even the quiet one.

  This contemplative, almost soft side of her? She hadn’t shown that to him very often, and Jed’s world tilted off-balance a little. “What are you going to do today?” he asked. “What’s tonight like? When will Rissa bring her baby home?”

  “That’s a lot of questions,” she said.

  Cherry hated questions, but Jed couldn’t help himself. He took another bite—this one far bigger than necessary—to give himself time to calm the heck down. He didn’t need to burst out of the gate like an overeager bull, trying to prove something. All he’d do is get whipped after he fell flat on his face.

  Praise the heavens above, his phone chimed, and it was the sound Jed had assigned to Easton. His older brother didn’t like waiting for a response, and Jed chewed while he read his brother’s text.

  Mandatory meeting at two o’clock, he’d said. Confirm that you’ll be in the office on time.

  No please. No thank you. No explanation. Easton wasn’t gruff, per se, but he certainly didn’t mince words. He didn’t say more than necessary, and he also didn’t like questions.

  Jed had a tractor to check that day, as well as a pigpen to repair, but he could be at the office where Easton managed a lot of the administrative tasks for Forrester Farms at two. He took another bite, glad he hadn’t had to explain himself to Cherry quite yet, and tapped out a single word.

  Confirmed.

  You’ll be late, Easton texted just as Chris also confirmed, with the exact same message.

  Jed saw an opportunity here, and he hurried to type. Who will? he sent. Me or Chris?

  I won’t be late, Chris said, and Jed started to chuckle. Besides, Easton, no one will die if I am.

  Seriously, Jed said, piling on Easton now. You don’t even know what I’m doing today. I might have a meeting in town at two.

  You will, Easton said, as he wasn’t the fastest texter in the world. He wasn’t even close, and Jed laughed out loud that he’d gotten off full sentences while Easton typed seven letters.

  “What’s so funny?” Cherry asked, peering at his phone. He didn’t care if she saw it, and he pushed it closer to her.

  You have a meeting in town? Chris asked, and Jed shook his head and took another big bite of breakfast.

  He doesn’t have a meeting in town, Easton said. He’s being cheeky.

  Jed pulled his phone back and sent, You said I’d be late. That’s rude.

  “You are late a lot,” Cherry said.

  “I’m busy,” he clarified. “It’s not like I was out in the barn going, ‘oh, I think I’ll make Cherry wait for me while I eat this ice cream.’” He shook his head, because he knew he ran late. He didn’t need Easton—or Cherry—pointing it out.

  It’s not rude if it’s true, Easton said.

  Yes, it is, Jed sent, and only half a second later, Chris said the exact same words. That made Jed smile too, and he tucked his phone away, done with the conversation with his brothers. If he had to put up with them at two o’clock, they weren’t getting another moment of his time this morning. Especially not with Cherry here.

  Cherry slid him a look out of the corner of her eye. “What flavor do you have out there?”

  “What?” Jed searched her face. “Out where? Flavor?”

  The corners of her mouth quirked up, a knowing glint in her eyes. “Jed Forrester, you love ice cream with your whole soul. So I’ll ask you just once more—what flavor or flavors do you have out in the barn?”

  Caught, Jed didn’t know how to answer that wouldn’t get him in trouble. “First,” he said. “I don’t eat ice cream before noon. It’s a personal rule of mine.”

  Cherry started to giggle, and that sound drove right into Jed’s heart. He could picture this woman in his life so easily, and he wondered what she saw in her future when it came to him.

  Too far ahead, he told himself, and he re-centered on the moment at hand.

  “Secondly,” he said. “There’s no freezer in the barn. Only a fridge. So technically, there are no flavors of ice cream in the barn.”

  “Technicalities,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “Details. Important details.”

  She half-rolled her eyes as she shook her head, and he caught a glimmer of that deep emerald he’d only seen once. His pulse picked up speed, and he slid his hand along her thigh to her knee.

  “Third,” he said, moving his mouth closer to her ear and speaking in a lower voice. “There’s double chocolate peanut butter and coconut chocolate delight in the stable. The freezer down on the end by the wash stall, not the one by the main entrance.”

  His two favorite flavors paired with chocolate—coconut and peanut butter—and Jed may rotate in other flavors—the banana cream pie was divine—but he always had those two. “And I know exactly how much of each, so don’t be takin’ your pretty self out there to sneak a bite.”

  Cherry laughed then, the magical sound of it filling the cabin with joy. He hoped his walls could catch it all and hold it for a long time. Perhaps they could replay it for him that evening, when he lay in bed and tried to fall asleep, Cherry on his mind.

  “You’re still going to Mandel’s,” she said, no question mark in sight.

  “Is there a better place to get ice cream?” He straightened and removed his hand from her leg.

  “Not for you.” She gave him a smile and added, “Rissa won’t come home until tomorrow afternoon, most likely. I’m headed back to Mama’s after this to help her with a few things. Tonight…tonight is open.”

  “Open,” Jed repeated. “I like the sound of that.”

  “It’s actually Saturday night,” she said. “Travis and Shay are cooking dinner at the farmhouse, and my nosy brother has already asked me if I’ll be there. At all or with a plus-one.” She balled up her foil package without looking at him.

  Jed’s heart banged against his ribs, as if he’d locked it behind bars and it wanted out. He cleared his throat. “I might be able to make that work.”

  “Yeah?” She turned toward him then, her eyebrows up and hope filling her gaze. “I’m not sure I can endure the big family dinner alone.” He heard the words she didn’t say—not when I’m the only single one.

  Except she wasn’t single now. She was with him. “If you’re gonna be here for eight more days, I’m surprised your family hasn’t assigned you a night to cook.”

  “Oh, they have,” she said dryly, lifting up onto her feet to snag a slim package with no colored band. “Want a churro?”

  “Is that a real question?”

  She grinned and passed him two, then settled onto her barstool again. “Rissa usually cooks on Tuesdays, and I’m taking her spot this week.” She cocked her right eyebrow and added, “You’ll come, right?”

  “I will clear all of Tuesday and Wednesday,” Jed said with a wide grin, and Cherry laughed again. He liked that he could get such a response from her, and he reached over and threaded his fingers through hers.

  Words piled into his mouth, but he didn’t say them. The gesture alone was enough for her to know that he’d hold onto her no matter what she chose to do. This time, he wouldn’t give up on them because of distance. He’d stand by her side, and be there when she needed him, and hopefully, they could rescue one another from their lonely lives in separate houses.

  Maybe, he cautioned himself. Again, don’t go too fast.

  And for Jed, pressing on the brake was really hard. But in this case, also really necessary.

  Jed walked into the office in the mobile home—that operated as their home base—at precisely two o’clock. He still had to move through the front of the trailer, where Amanda, their office administrator, worked. She’d already set up a Christmas tree, and she could be counted on to have any number of holiday signs with cute sayings on them.

  Today, she didn’t sit at her desk, and Jed walked past it, past the tree, past the sign that read GATHER above the kitchenette at the back of the room, and down the hall to the left. Easton’s office took up the front two-thirds of the building, with supplies for their various activities in the commercial corn field in the back part of it.

  “Howdy,” he said as he walked in. Chris had already sat down, leaving the chair on the right for Jed. He took it as Easton fiddled with something on his computer. The clock ticked, and Jed raised his eyebrows and looked at Chris.

  His younger brother rolled his eyes, which made Jed smile. Easton definitely had more arrogance than both him and Chris.

  “How was breakfast?” Chris asked.

  “Great,” Jed said. “Yours?”

  “Deb made chocolate chip pancakes,” he said with a smile. “So also great.”

  “Your shirt looks really clean,” Jed said, sliding his eyes down his brother’s blue-plaid-clad chest and torso. He grinned, because he’d just said that Chris hadn’t been out working yet that day.

  “Yours is really dirty.” Chris grinned on back at him. “How’s the sty coming?”

  “It’s giving me fits,” Jed said, his smile sliding back into a straight face. “It never was square, and I think I’m going to rip the whole thing down and start from the ground up.”

  “Wow,” Chris said at the same time Easton said, “Don’t do that. I need you to finish it this week so we can get you over to the hay loft before the winter rains come.”

  Jed turned his gaze on his older brother, everything in the room cooling while they looked at one another. Easton had left Sweet Water Falls for a time, thinking he’d like to do something besides run and manage the family farm. He’d come back after only a few years, and their daddy had welcomed him like he was the Prodigal Son.

  Jed didn’t have hard feelings, not really. Sometimes he got annoyed by Easton’s superiority complex, and now was one of those times. “If I don’t build it right, it’ll just collapse again,” he said. “The hay loft is fine for another couple of weeks.”

  “He can probably do both,” Chris said.

  “Not if I have to be out in the fields for calving,” Jed said. Someone had to check them every hour. While Forrester Farms wasn’t large enough to be termed a cattle ranch, they did have a fair few head on their land. Enough to keep three men busy—and they employed four others, as well as the part-time staff to work the corn maze.

  Easton held up his hand, not that Chris or Jed had anything more to say. “We’ve got problems,” he said.

  “We do?” Chris asked, leaning forward. “What kind of problems?”

  Jed leaned backward and steepled his fingers, listening and watching. Easton gave away so much just in his body language, and Jed knew someone had quit—someone who carried a huge weight around the farm—before Easton sighed.

  “Amanda gave her two weeks’ notice today,” he said, his eyes now glued to something on his desk.

  Jed gasped, though that might have been a bit overdramatic. It was better than Chris’s shout of, “What?”

  A legit shout, and Jed startled, his eyes flying to Chris’s and then back to Easton. He wore a look of disapproval now, as if he had any right to be upset about Chris’s reaction.

  “Her daughter is leaving for school in January,” he said. “She’s relocating to be near her.”

  Jed frowned, though he knew Amanda’s daughter had some special needs. She’d raised her alone for the past ten years or so, and she’d graduated in the spring. She hadn’t started college right away, but she was now, apparently.

  He couldn’t help thinking that yet another blasted college had thrown a wrench into his life. Still, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, that’s good for her, but bad for us.”

  “We need a new office administrator,” Easton said with another overdramatic, overemphasized sigh. He finally looked up from the nonsense on his desk. “Do you guys have any idea of who we could hire?”

  “How would we know?” Chris asked. “This is something you advertise for, East.”

  “I don’t want to do that.” His brother went back to studying folders, and Jed exchanged a glance with Chris. Chris nodded toward the desk, like Jed should say something.

  His big mouth always got him in trouble, and he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. He didn’t know what to say here.

  Easton had fallen in love with their last office administrator—the one before Amanda. Then Bethany had skipped town with a man Forrester Farms had employed for three weeks, and the last Jed had heard, they were married with three or four kids.

  His older brother had never really recovered. He dated here and there. He’d gone back to Jenni-Lynn Dennis a couple of times now, the most recent time only a few months ago at the Fourth of July picnic next door. But there was something between the two of them Jed didn’t know about, and they’d never really gotten very serious.

  “Jed,” Chris muttered, and Jed took a deep breath. He had a very real feeling he was about to set off a bomb with himself still in the room.

  “Cherry Cooper,” he blurted out. “She might be lookin’ for a new job, and she’d be real great here, East.”

  His brother looked at him, his hands frozen over something non-important. “Cherry Cooper?” he repeated, the words coated in disbelief. When he started laughing, embarrassment crept up Jed’s spine and settled in his face in the form of heat.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Easton said. “We’re not hiring your out-of-town girlfriend.” He looked at Chris, that conversation obviously over. “Who else?”

  7

  Cherry opened Rissa’s front door for her, saying, “Okay, got it,” as her sister and Spencer came up the steps to the porch behind her. Sunday afternoon sunshine lit the whole world, and with baby Bronson in the carrier, everything in the whole state of Texas was right.

  The whole world, actually, and Cherry hadn’t experienced a glow like this in a long, long time.

  Jed had had to cancel dinner with her last night, but she’d still gone. Everyone had been on their best behavior for some reason, and Cherry had escaped without having to answer too many questions. She’d texted Will and Lee about Jed anyway, and her oldest brother had come by the house while Cherry had been helping Mama wash and set her wigs.

  She’d cleaned up the back porch and covered all the furniture, put down the shades in the sun porch, and completed that task and other minor ones for Mama and Daddy. Jed had been silent most of the night, and when she’d finally asked him why, he’d said his two o’clock meeting had bled into the whole afternoon, evening, and night.

  He’d tell her more today, if she could swing by the farm later.

  As Rissa walked into her charming country home with her perfect husband, who carried their darling baby boy, Cherry wasn’t sure if she could get away. She wanted to hold Bronson for a good long while so her sister could shower.

  She’d make dinner too and do anything else Rissa and Spence needed. “I’ll take him,” she said, reaching for the carrier the moment Spencer entered the house. “I’ll feed him and get dinner going. You guys go take a nap.”

  They both looked a little shell-shocked and one-hundred percent exhausted. Rissa sighed, her eyes filled with appreciative tears when she faced Cherry. “Thank you,” she said. “I would like to shower.”

  “I’ll nap while you do that,” Spencer said to his wife. He turned back to Cherry from the mouth of the hallway as Rissa disappeared down it. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Totally okay,” Cherry said, almost anxious to be alone with the baby. Then, perhaps she could pretend that he was hers. Having a child of her own was one of the things Cherry had given up six or seven years ago. Maybe even before that.