“I won’t. I’ll be there before the end of the first quarter.”

  “See you then.”

  Wyatt grinned as he slipped his phone into his pocket. Toni was coming out for the game. For the afternoon. He really hadn’t thought there was a chance that she’d take him up on his offer, but he was intent on trying to get her to have fun.

  All work and no play made Toni a… Hell, she was still a smart sexy lady, no matter if she worked too hard or not. He simply didn’t think devoting oneself to work was a good idea. Play had always been an essential part of his creative process.

  He would rather have Toni to himself, to explore the attraction that still existed after fifteen years. However, since she was so reluctant to be alone with him, this way, at least they could be together in a group. Just like old times, in a way. Different friends, except for James. Different personal situations. But together, and that was something.

  He strode out of the kitchen into the family room. “Hey, Brody. Er, James, that is,” Wyatt added when Mr. Brody turned to look at him. “Fire up the grill! Toni’s on her way.”

  Chapter Eight

  Toni knew going out to the Brodys’ ranch was crazy, but it also sounded like a great reason to avoid doing more paperwork, which seemed to be the case more and more of the time these days. Sooner or later, she was going to have to hire some office help, or maybe even a project manager.

  She stopped by the grocery, said hello to her mother, who was working today while her father was home with Leo watching football, and got her customary generous discount on lean ground beef, buns, cheese, lettuce, tomato and onions. She figured the Brodys must have mustard and mayo. She’d done this before, picking up food for an impromptu cookout. Sometimes they’d gone to James’s house, sometimes to hers and rarely to Wyatt’s.

  His mother didn’t do well with “impromptu.” Toni used to think that it was her; she’d assumed Mrs. McCall didn’t want her dating her son. But then she’d realized that Wyatt’s mother was just like that. Nothing around Brody’s Crossing was good enough for Wyatt. His clothing, boots, school supplies and everything had come from Fort Worth or at a minimum, Weatherford. Mrs. McCall made frequent shopping trips to bigger cities, each time bringing home a carload of “stuff,” as Wyatt called it.

  Only toward the end of their senior year did Toni hear rumors of why Mrs. McCall needed an excuse to go off and shop elsewhere. “She has a problem,” was whispered around town, especially after one of Wyatt’s teachers got a slurred tongue-lashing from his mother for criticizing his behavior.

  “This isn’t about the past,” she told herself as she drove out to the Brody ranch. She was looking forward to seeing Sandy and James, Mr. and Mrs. Brody. Wyatt would surely be on his best behavior around his employees and friends. Toni could relax and have fun. For a while, at least.

  And then, there was the fact that Wyatt was probably leaving town tomorrow. There was no reason for him to stay. He’d completed his project and could report to everyone that his sentence had been served, above and beyond the official requirements.

  When she arrived at the house, she pulled around back to unload her groceries near the kitchen. Wyatt was out on the patio, firing up the grill.

  “You barely made it in time for the second quarter.”

  “Sorry. Shopping always takes longer than I think.”

  “I’ll have the grill ready at halftime.”

  “Good thinking. I’ll make the patties.”

  He turned to her and smiled. “We’re still a good team.”

  “Hah. At the grill, maybe.” He couldn’t know how much his words hurt. They’d never been a good team. Teammates didn’t run out in the middle of the game. “I’m going inside to say hello to everyone and get started on these burgers.”

  “I’ll be right in.”

  Luckily, he seemed unaware of the sting of his comment. She opened the sliding-glass door and took the bags into the kitchen, which she remembered well. She’d been to the Brody house a few times over the past fifteen years. From the family room she heard the sounds of the game and the cheering of James and his father.

  Caroline Brody, Sandy, Louisa and Cassie returned from the church Christmas bazaar as Toni was making hamburger patties. They put down their purchases, washed their hands and began slicing tomatoes and onions and tearing lettuce. The bazaar was well attended, they said, and already fairly picked over, so they hadn’t stayed long. Soon Caroline shooed Toni off to watch the rest of the second quarter.

  She stood there watching the punt to the Cowboys with five minutes, forty seconds left before the half, wondering where to sit. There was the couch and a rocking chair she remembered Mrs. Brody always using.

  Wyatt didn’t have any qualms. He walked into the room, smiling, a longneck in each hand, and gave her one. She took it automatically, as if she and Wyatt did this every day, then watched him plop on the couch as if he were eighteen still. He stretched out his long legs. “Have a seat, Miss Mayor. Watch the game.”

  She looked around, but Mr. Brody was lounging in his recliner and James and Sandy were draped across the two huge pillows on the floor. Toni sighed as she looked at the couch, and then sat down on the far cushion from Wyatt. While a Coors commercial played on TV during the change from the Cowboys special team to offense, he turned and looked at her, looked at the cushion between them, as if he knew she didn’t want to sit close.

  Too much like old times. Way too many memories…except back then they didn’t drink beer. At least not in front of family. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

  Her heart began to race and she felt flushed. Yes, this was a very bad idea. What had she been thinking?

  WYATT LEANED FORWARD—and sideways, toward Toni—to put his longneck on the coffee table. “I don’t have cooties,” he taunted softly. “You don’t have to hug the arm of the sofa.”

  “Grow up,” she snapped under her breath.

  “Where’s your adventurous spirit?” he whispered.

  She glared at him and turned her attention back to the screen. Adventurous spirit, indeed. He’d been the one set on danger. She’d just gone along sometimes for the ride.

  Even back then, he could get her to do things that she knew weren’t right. He hadn’t changed, but now she had more willpower. Still, how could he upset her with just a look? A glance? He didn’t have to get her in trouble to make her feel as if he had.

  The five minutes of game time lasted over ten with penalties and time-outs. Toni felt as if she’d been sitting there forever. All she wanted Wyatt to do was get up and go grill the burgers, but the Cowboys had to settle for a field goal attempt and he wasn’t leaving until he found out if they scored.

  As they put three points on the board and time expired in the first half, everyone cheered. Mr. Brody and James got up. “We’d better put those burgers on,” James said.

  “I’ll help,” his father offered.

  “I’ve been a slug. I’m going to see if I can help Caroline, Cassie and Louisa in the kitchen,” Sandy said, stretching her petite body after sitting cross-legged on the floor cushion.

  That left Toni and Wyatt alone.

  She told herself to settle down and took a long drink of beer. The stuff didn’t even taste good to her, but it gave her something to do. Her short nails drummed against the cold glass.

  “You’re supposed to be relaxing,” Wyatt chided before she could jump up to go into the kitchen with the rest of the women. “Sundays are a day of rest, especially during football season.”

  “I’m trying to relax, but you—Oh, never mind. You always look at me as if you already know what I’m going to say. What I’m thinking. How can I relax around a know-it-all?”

  “First, I’m not a know-it-all. I’m a know-a-lot. Second, you have a very expressive face. I know what you’re thinking because you’re showing your feelings.”

  She felt indignant. “I’m very good at hiding my feelings. I’ve worked damned hard to be peaceful and serene, even when there’s high drama on the job site or in the council chamber.” She took another drink of beer.

  “Well, it’s not working on me. You’re like an open book.”

  Toni felt tears well up for no reason. No reason at all. “You mean a well-read book. An old book. A book you already know, but you read it anyway. The plot and characters aren’t exciting anymore, but they’re still there to read. I’m that kind of book to you, aren’t I, Wyatt?”

  He sat there staring at her as if she had lost her mind.

  And then she did the absolute unthinkable. She ran out of the room, out of the front door, tears filling her eyes.

  By the time she turned the corner of the house, she realized she didn’t have her keys. They were in the kitchen, next to the grocery bags she’d brought inside. She kept on going at a fast walk, skirting the patio and grill, where James and Mr. Brody were dealing with burgers and cheese slices, and headed toward the barn.

  She could find some quiet there. Solitude. That’s what she needed to regain her composure. She opened the door and slipped into the dark, quiet, sweet-smelling haven of hay and grain and horses. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim interior. There was a wide center section and stalls on one side, pens and a tack room on the other.

  She’d been an absolute ninny, as her grandmother used to say, nearly crying in front of Wyatt. Bursting out about old books. Boring books. She rubbed her burning eyes and paced the length of the barn. Where had that analogy come from? She wasn’t boring and she wasn’t old.

  She’d be boring to him, though. Wyatt McCall, one of the world’s most eligible bachelors and most beautiful people. What was she thinking, accepting an invitation to watch football, grill burgers and drink beer with him? She didn’t know how to relate to him now any more than she’d known how to keep him fifteen years ago. He’d dropped her fast and hard when he had the chance to leave town for the excitement of Stanford, never looking back. Probably not even remembering her amid the novelty of his new life.

  And yet, he seemed to know her so well…

  He definitely knew how to push her buttons. All of them. Her anger, her passion, her more vulnerable emotions. She sank down on a bale of hay outside one of the stalls. She wished she could blame the beer, but she’d drunk less than a full bottle. She wasn’t that much of a lightweight, even though she didn’t often drink anything stronger than white wine.

  Politics and drinking didn’t mix. She’d never been tempted to imbibe too much. She’d never been tempted to kiss men in her office, either, or lie with them in fake snow on the lawn of the community center. “Snow angels,” she muttered. It was a wonder the security guard had believed Wyatt. Or maybe he hadn’t and was simply too polite to say anything. At least he was a hired guard and not an off-duty Brody’s Crossing officer.

  She wasn’t sure if she would run for mayor again, but she darn well wasn’t going to disgrace the office by getting caught in a compromising situation with her ex-boyfriend. She was the figurehead for the town she loved, the town she worked so hard to improve, and she was going to do a fine job. Wild Wyatt McCall would be gone tomorrow, probably, and she wouldn’t be tempted again.

  He would leave and she would go back to her normal life. Why did that leave her with such an empty feeling inside? She should be happy that he was leaving her alone.

  Alone.

  “Toni?”

  She heard the uncharacteristic hesitancy in his voice. She wasn’t going to help him find her, but she wasn’t going to run anymore. She should have controlled herself, laughed off his comments and focused on getting away from the Brody ranch as quickly and politely as possible.

  “There you are,” he said. She watched him walk toward her, backlit by the door, puffs of dust rising from his footsteps.

  Without an invitation, he sat down on the hay bale, his momentum pushing her sideways. He looped his arm around her shoulders, keeping her from going anywhere. “What’s wrong, babe?”

  “I asked you not to call me that.”

  “Sorry. Old habits and all that.”

  “You can’t have a habit that you haven’t used in fifteen years.”

  “Sure you can, when it’s something that seems so natural.”

  “You have a warped sense of what’s natural, then. To me, it sounds degrading and way too familiar.”

  “You felt pretty familiar to me when I had my hand up your sweater and my tongue in you—”

  “Stop it. You’re just bored and it’s easy to use me as your temporary amusement. Well, I’m not amused!”

  She felt him tense. “That’s cold, Toni, and it’s not true that you’re a temporary amusement.” His tone was no longer playful. “I’m not some male chauvinist pig. I know you’re a real person. I also know you’re a beautiful woman.”

  She ignored his compliment and stuck to the facts. “I’m definitely temporary to you. Don’t tell me you’re staying longer than tomorrow. There’s nothing to keep you here. You’re finished with the project you didn’t want to take on to begin with. You can get back to your real life. The beautiful house—yes, I saw it in a magazine—and the beautiful people and all the excitement.”

  “My life is more than a magazine spread.”

  He was probably right, but she didn’t want to hear about how he’d arranged everything so that he could retire at thirty-three. She wasn’t jealous or resentful, exactly. She just wasn’t a part of his world and she darn well knew it. “You have the life you wanted, don’t you? I’m not saying that you didn’t work for it, but don’t pretend that it isn’t darn near perfect.”

  “I live in that beautiful house, which was decorated by and is maintained by other people, with a scruffy cat who barely tolerates me and a housekeeper I rarely see. It’s true that my life is all about me, but that’s not always a good thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever think about how overindulged I was as a kid?”

  “Well…yes. Your mother thought you hung the moon and the stars. You were always her golden boy.”

  “That’s not good for anyone, especially a kid who already had a big ego and a low threshold for boredom.”

  “You grew up okay. You survived your parents and none of your misadventures really hurt you or anyone else, thank heavens.”

  “True, I survived. I’m lucky.”

  “And talented. And smart. You were the boy who had everything.”

  “And yet I’m living alone with a cat. How pathetic is that?”

  “Oh, please. Like I’m going to feel sorry for you.”

  “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I want you to explain what I said to make you run out of the room. What happened, Toni?”

  She sighed and looked at the beams, crisscrossing above their heads. “That was stupid of me. A temporary aberration. Let’s just blame it on me being female.”

  “Oh, sure. You used to cut me to the quick if I made that kind of sexist remark. Besides, I don’t believe you. You were genuinely upset and I’m trying to understand why.”

  “I’ve mellowed over the years. Besides, it’s not sexist if I make the remark.” She sighed and risked a glance at Wyatt. “Please, just go back to California. You made a wonderful display at the community center, attended your mother’s dinner party and the chili supper in your honor, and now everyone loves you. You’re finished here.”

  “You seem to want me gone awfully bad, babe. Why is that?”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m the mayor, not your ‘babe,’ as you so conveniently forget. I have a position to maintain in this town now, and you don’t respect that. You don’t care that part of my job is to inspire confidence in the office from the people whom I serve. Ever since you came to town, you’ve been trying to get me to compromise my position in town.”

  “That wasn’t the reason I did…anything.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you about your intentions. I don’t think you’re trying to ruin my career. But, Wyatt, if you stay around here, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

  He removed his arm from her shoulder, then leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. The barn fell quiet, with only the scratching of some chickens and the snuffling of a horse in one of the stalls to break the silence.

  “I’ll make arrangements to get out of town tomorrow.”

  She took another deep breath. Okay, then. He was leaving. This was good. So why did she feel the sting of tears again?

  “Just answer one question, now that I’ve agreed to leave you alone.”

  Alone. That word again. “All right. Which question?”

  “Why were you so upset when halftime started?”

  She didn’t want to answer, but she owed him for granting her wish. He was leaving soon and things would go back to normal.

  “Okay, I’ll answer that one question.” She jumped up from the bale of hay. She couldn’t talk to him about her feelings while they sat so close together. She walked across the aisle and leaned against the tack-room wall.

  “Most days, I don’t think about you at all,” she admitted. “As a matter of fact, I just about had myself convinced that I was over your sudden departure fifteen years ago.” She took a deep breath. “And then I made that stupid remark to the reporter, which led to you coming back to town, and I had to see you all the time.”

  He looked as if he wanted to argue, but instead he said, “Go ahead.”

  “I guess I wasn’t over your leaving so abruptly for college. I had to admit to myself—and now to you—that you hurt me. A lot. I’ve grown up and have my own life now, but there’s obviously a part of me that is still eighteen years old.”

  “I’m sorry, Toni. I did what I thought was best at the time, in my own eighteen-year-old brain. I guess I didn’t handle leaving very well.”

  “No, you didn’t. But I think it also made the hurt worse because you deliberately didn’t return. It was as if the first eighteen years of your life didn’t exist. Or if they existed, they didn’t matter.” She took another deep breath. “That meant that I didn’t matter. That I’d never mattered to you.”