Close your eyes? he said. I did that, and there was still all this orange light.

  That’s for the cats, she said, a sudden jolt of panic filling her. Then she remembered she’d removed the pet nightlights. But I took those out and put them in their bedroom.

  I think it’s hilarious you have a bedroom for cats.

  Here we go again, she said, but she couldn’t straighten her mouth. Me having cats isn’t an issue for you, is it?

  They’re not as good as dogs, he said. But no, not an issue.

  Not as good as dogs? Cherry scoffed, her fingers flying now. So engrossed in telling him all the finer points of felines was she that she didn’t hear anything happening in her house until he knocked on her door. Loudly.

  “Cherry?” he said, plenty of teasing in his voice.

  She looked up, her heart beat like striking lightning in her chest and throat.

  “I didn’t mean it about cats,” he said through the door. “You’re not mad, are you?”

  Cherry looked down at her perfect argument. She’d stopped in the middle of the sentence, and she decided to go with that. She sent the text, then threw her comforter off and got up. His phone dinged loudly in the hallway, and Cherry stifled her smile as she crossed her room and pulled open the door.

  “Better than cats,” she said, adding a lot of bite to her words.

  He looked up from his phone, but Cherry’s eyes had started to drift down his frame. The man…she hadn’t seen him without the jeans, the cowboy hat, the plaid shirt, and the belt buckle for a while. If ever.

  Right now, he wore a pair of dark gray sweat pants, a T-shirt that was clearly for a child with the way it strained across his chest and shoulders, and nothing else. No hat. No belt. No cowboy boots.

  She had no idea what to do with that picture of him. The person standing in front of her almost didn’t seem like Jed Forrester.

  “You’re staring,” he said, and Cherry yanked her gaze back to his.

  “You’re not wearing your cowboy hat.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, rocking back onto his heels. He stumbled, as he wasn’t wearing those boots either, and he burst out laughing as he caught himself against the wall behind her. “I don’t sleep in my cowboy hat, Cherry.”

  “Or your boots.”

  “Or any of it,” he said, cocking his head. “Did you think I did?”

  “Of course not,” she said, recovering fully. Heat filled her face. “I just haven’t seen you like this.”

  He grinned at her. “Like what?”

  “Like…normal.”

  He shook his head, but he wasn’t laughing. “Remember when I asked you if you owned sweat pants?”

  He had, at Travis’s wedding. She only nodded, sure she knew where he was going with this.

  “Guess what, sweetheart? I do too. I’m not always in cowboy boots and jeans. Just while I’m working.” He folded his arms, and Cherry reached for the doorframe to keep herself from swooning at the sight of all those muscles. “And I’m not working this week.”

  “You wore jeans today. And a cowboy hat and boots.”

  He shrugged. “I like them.”

  “Did you bring anything else?” she challenged, feeling the tide turn in her favor. She reminded herself she didn’t need to win anything, least of all a conversation with Jed.

  “Just this stuff,” he said. Their eyes hooked and met, and Cherry had the inexplicable need to throw herself into his arms and kiss him. Such an act would be dangerous, and Cherry didn’t want to walk that line tonight.

  “I’m not mad about the cats comment.”

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “What time are we getting up in the morning? I was going to ask you that next.”

  “Whenever,” she said. “I know you’ll be up early. Make coffee. Go for a walk. I don’t care.”

  “I thought you wanted to show me where you used to go for morning tea,” he said.

  Cherry smiled at him, because while he kept it hidden, his heart was made of gold. He listened to her, and he wanted to do what made her happy. “They closed a while ago,” she said, waving dismissively. She stepped into the hallway, and Jed received her into his arms. “Will you cook for us tomorrow? Then we can do the Riverwalk and get lunch there.”

  “Absolutely,” he murmured.

  “I don’t have any food,” she murmured back, her eyes on his mouth.

  “I’ll be up before you and go to the store.” He leaned down and kissed her, and Cherry could certainly get used to that. Right there in her own home, with Jed kissing her goodnight. The only thing that made this less than a fairy tale was the fact that she then retreated to her bed alone, and Jed did the same.

  Once her pulse had quieted, as had her phone, Cherry snapped off the lamp and slid down into her blankets. She stared up at the ceiling, seeing the orange streetlamp glow Jed had referenced. The moment she closed her eyes, it disappeared.

  Contentment stole through her, but like a thief in the night, the anxiety prowled right behind it. You have to tell him about why you left Sweet Water Falls, she told herself.

  She simply didn’t want to do it. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not any time this week.

  Not ever.

  Travis knew now, and with Brandon out there talking about it, Cherry figured the sooner she told her parents and Jed, the better. Rissa should probably hear it from her too, but Cherry simply didn’t know how to open the door as widely as it needed to be opened.

  She also hated that her past indiscretions had to be aired for the whole family to see and know about.

  On the nightstand, her phone buzzed, and she rolled toward it. She looked at Jed’s message, and everything disquiet inside her went silent.

  I’m falling in love with you, Cherry. I know that freaks you out, and I’m freaked out too, but I feel it and I wanted you to know it.

  Another message popped up while she tried to figure out if she should answer or not.

  Feathers wanted to sleep with me, he said, a picture following. With both of their eyes reflecting the flash on his phone, they looked like aliens—one human and one feline. She burst out laughing as he sent, Hope that’s okay. She likes me.

  Feathers liked everyone, but Cherry didn’t tell him that. She had hid while Clarissa was here last year, so maybe the cat didn’t like everyone.

  It’s okay, she sent, and she was speaking to everything he’d sent, including that he was falling in love with her. After all, she was falling in love with him too. While she hadn’t pictured her prince actually riding up on a horse, she should’ve known a country cowboy would be the one to rescue her from her city life.

  Perhaps it was time to stop fighting with herself and admit that she wanted a quaint farmhouse, a handsome husband who came home in dirty jeans and boots, and a family in the wilds of Texas.

  But if she did, Cherry couldn’t quite get past the feeling that she’d waited too long to have anything in the new fantasy blooming through her mind.

  “This is it,” she said.

  “This is it?” Jed asked, peering across the street.

  “There’s more to it than there looks,” she said, but she was only telling half the truth.

  “I thought the Alamo was going to be this huge thing,” he said.

  “It’s what it represents that’s so big, Jed,” she drawled. “Come on. Let’s get one of those audio guides.” He wouldn’t like that either, and sure enough, the salty cowboy grumbled about having to wear earbuds someone else had already worn.

  They went inside the fort, which had been large for its day. Cherry had been here countless times over the past dozen years, but Jed acted like he’d never seen a brick before.

  “I think you have a secret to tell me,” she said.

  He swiped his headphones off and asked, “What?”

  “A secret,” she said, grinning. She only wore one earbud, because she didn’t need to get immersed in the sights and sounds of the Texas Revolution.

  “And what would that be?” He cocked his hip and nearly took out a child. She laughed and dragged him out of the way so others could get by him. Schools brought students to the Alamo on a daily basis, and this Thursday was no exception.

  “You love history,” she said, almost like it was an accusation.

  Jed opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes simply searched her face. He snapped his mouth closed.

  “You do,” she insisted.

  “Maybe I do,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s irritating,” she said, sticking her second earbud in her ear.

  “Now you know exactly how I feel,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

  She mimed that she couldn’t hear him, and he tipped his head back and laughed. She could one-hundred percent hear that, and so could everyone else within a mile radius. She rolled her eyes and put some distance between them.

  Jed followed her, and they continued their self-guided tour with the audiotape. She’d heard it all before, and she couldn’t help thinking how Jed not coming right out and saying he liked history had annoyed her.

  He’d felt like that often with her, she knew. She just hadn’t known how it really felt until now. Something with tiny teeth sliced through her lungs, shredding them more and more until they finally finished at the Alamo and went back out onto the streets of San Antonio.

  “Jed,” she said, and since she didn’t say his name a whole lot, he looked at her with some measure of seriousness. “I’m really sorry for not just telling you stuff.” She thought of all the things she still had to divulge, and her mouth turned dry.

  “Like what?”

  She couldn’t even think of an example now. Then one sprang into her mind. “Well, like when you were trying to talk about how you coming to stay with me in the city was a big deal, and I couldn’t admit it.”

  “Is this about the history thing?” He took her hand in his. “Yeah, I like history. I always have. My mama has these old photo albums with all this genealogy in them. I loved looking at those when I was a boy. I still do.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I think a person’s history makes them who they are, you know? Where they come from, and who they come from. It’s interesting to me.”

  A person’s history, Cherry thought, suddenly more keen than ever not to tell him about hers. “Did you ever have the chance to get married?” she asked. They hadn’t talked much about their previous relationships, and perhaps she could ease into telling him about her past.

  He laughed as they crossed the street to the parking lot. “Heavens, no,” he said. “I think ours is the longest relationship I’ve ever had. You might find this hard to believe, but I’m kind of a jerk sometimes.”

  “I had no idea,” she said dryly.

  “I think it works for us,” he said. “Because you’re not Miss Sunshine either.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not,” she said.

  “I just mean,” he said, but then he didn’t say what he’d just meant. Cherry glanced at him to find an expression on his face that told her he was thinking hard.

  “What do you ‘just mean’?” she prompted.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “It’s something.”

  “I’m already digging my own grave,” he said with a smile. “Holdin’ the shovel and everything.” He shook his head. “No, it’s nothing. I didn’t mean anything by it.” They reached her car, and he opened her door for her. She’d been driving them around the city, because she knew it well and he didn’t.

  Cherry didn’t get behind the wheel. She looked up at Jed, and said, “I know I’m not like other women. I look like them, but I’m not rainbows and sunshine all the time. I know that.”

  “I don’t mind it,” he said. “At all.” He held something passionate and earnest in his eyes that called to Cherry. “I just think…me and you, maybe it’s okay that you’re helping me be nicer and I’m helping you be sunnier. That’s all.”

  “You’re not a beast who needs to be tamed,” she said.

  “But if I was, you’d be the princess to do it.” He smiled at her, a gesture so warm and wonderful that Cherry could only bask in the beauty of it. “All right?”

  She nodded, because she couldn’t speak. He leaned down and kissed her, a chaste, quick kiss that ended almost as soon as it began. He left her to get in the car as he went around, and she managed to do that before he did.

  They’d planned to go to dinner after their afternoon at the Alamo, and Cherry made the turns to get them to one of her favorite restaurants in the city—The Shack—without having to dedicate too many brain cells to the activity.

  She’d never really believed that there was just one person for her. For anyone. But as Jed looked at her in the parking lot, a hint of worry in those gorgeous eyes, she couldn’t help buying into that fairy tale a little bit.

  Maybe he was her beast, and she was his princess, and they’d both been waiting for the other for a long time.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Jed said.

  Cherry couldn’t put it into words. She wanted to, but she didn’t say stuff the way Jed did. She could quip, sure. She had a quick mind and wit, yes.

  But with real feelings of the heart, she’d much rather kiss Jed to tell him what she was thinking. She leaned toward him, and he did the same to her. Right before their lips touched, she whispered, “I’m thinking that maybe I’m falling in love with you too.”

  The kiss that followed generated enough heat for the astronauts from space to see it on their fancy machines, if such a thing existed.

  Jed kissed her and kissed her, keeping them solidly within their own seats and the realm of control Cherry appreciated. He pulled away after a few minutes and asked, “Was that a secret, Cherry Cooper?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “Now, don’t make me regret telling you.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, replacing his cowboy hat. “We don’t want to miss our reservation. I think you had to call in a favor to even get this one.”

  “You’re right,” she said, centering herself after such an amazing kiss. “Let’s go.” As they walked into the restaurant, Cherry had a feeling she was glimpsing her happily-ever-after.

  14

  Jed lifted one end of Cherry’s couch while Lee hefted the other. “Got it?”

  “Yep,” her brother said. He glanced over his shoulder as Will and Travis came inside, and they got out of the way quick.

  “I’ll guide you down the steps,” Will said, and Jed moved at Lee’s pace. The last thing he wanted was to hurt himself or anyone else. He and Lee were the same age, and Jed knew what forty-four felt like. It ached, that was how it felt.

  He’d had one of the best weeks of his life here in San Antonio with Cherry. They’d eaten at some great restaurants. She’d introduced him to her neighbors and friends. They’d seen some historical sites. He’d kissed her every chance he got.

  She’d definitely opened the door a little wider for him, and Jed was trying hard not to shove it all the way open and leap inside. He’d confessed some big things to her on his first night here, but she hadn’t shut down, freaked out, or gone into some part of herself he hadn’t met yet.

  “Gretchen,” someone said, and Lee slowed while she moved.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “It’s fine,” Jed said.

  “For him,” Lee puffed. “I’m the one walkin’ backward.”

  Jed grinned at him, and Lee went up the ramp and into the moving truck. He’d helped Cherry pack plenty of boxes this week too, and he had some serious doubts about this truck holding all of her possessions.

  He’d told her he should’ve brought his truck, and she’d said, “Yeah, I guess. But then who would’ve driven it home?” She’d batted those eyelashes at him, and he realized she’d set him up to drive her moving truck for her. She had her sedan, of course, and someone had to drive the truck, she’d said.

  In reality, Jed was happy to do it. He liked it when Cherry leaned on him or asked him to do something for her.

  He and Lee put down the couch, and he’d barely straightened before Travis said, “Get out, guys.”

  “We just got in,” Jed said, but Travis and Will were already coming up the ramp with the love seat.

  “I’m trapped in the corner,” Lee said.

  Travis and Will kept on coming, and Jed barely got out of the way. “Let’s turn it over,” Travis said, and he and Will flipped the loveseat and stacked it on the couch.

  “I’m back here,” Lee said, his voice disgruntled. “Don’t put that there. I need to move it to get out. Then we have to slide it back.”

  “Why didn’t y’all do that already?” Will asked.

  “Because you came in right on top of us,” Jed said, not really sure why he’d joined this brotherly spat.

  Lee’s poisoned, “Who told you to come out so dang fast with that?” would’ve done the job just fine.

  Will looked at Jed and then Travis. “Pick it up, I guess.”

  “You guess?” Lee roared from the back of the truck. Jed wisely decided that was his cue to leave, and he jumped down so he didn’t get squashed by a still-bickering Travis and Will. Lee slid the couch forward and got free, then pushed it into place himself. He threw a few more pointed words at his brothers before getting out of the truck too, and he looked at everyone standing in the driveway.

  “Don’t we have stuff to move?” he barked.

  That got everyone scurrying about, including Jed. Cherry met him in the front doorway, wiping her hands on a towel, and she asked, “What is goin’ on?”

  “Your brothers got into a little tiff,” he said.

  “Travis and Will are acting like we’re tryin’ to set some Guinness World Record for moving a three-bedroom house,” Lee grumbled, coming up the steps behind Jed. “We just started. We don’t need to be on top of each other.”

  “We didn’t realize,” Will said.

  “Obviously,” Lee shot back.