by Liz Isaacson
“I do,” Sawyer said slowly, trying to get the words to line up right inside his mouth. “My family is a bit…peculiar.”
“All families are,” she said. “My nearest sibling is ten years older than me. I’m the caboose baby.”
“Wow,” he said. “And how old is that?”
Their eyes caught again, and he smiled at her this time as the electricity pulsed between them.
“My older brother, Ricky, is fifty-two.”
So she was even older than him, and Sawyer wasn’t sure why, but he did like that. “I’m the middle child,” he said. “One older sister. One younger brother. Rosie’s married with a couple of kids.”
The timer on the oven interrupted them, and Sawyer seized the opportunity to walk away from Jeri, trying to center his thoughts. It certainly was easier when she wasn’t so close, perfuming the air with sawdust and something floral.
“Anyway,” he said. “My mother is…neurotic about significant others.” He pulled the pan of enchiladas out of the oven, almost dropping the tented foil lid on the floor in the process.
“Meaning?” Jeri asked, joining him in the kitchen. She opened two cupboards before she found the plates, and she pulled down two.
“Meaning we don’t go to family events without a guest. A partner. A…girlfriend.” He swallowed, and he couldn’t seem to look away from her. She pulled a couple of forks out of the drawer next to the fridge and faced him.
“Are you asking me to be your guest?” Her eyes danced with amusement. “Partner? Girlfriend?” She pealed out another wave of laughter, and Sawyer joined her.
“No, of course not.”
“Oh, who’d you ask?”
“I, uh, haven’t asked anyone. I probably won’t go.” His phone buzzed again, and Jeri glanced back to the table where he’d left it.
“That’s too bad,” Jeri said, retreating out of the kitchen, giving him room to breathe and work. “I kinda like family picnics.”
“Do you?” He stared at her. Maybe he’d messed up already. “It’s this weekend,” he said. “Like, in two days. It’s a couple hours of driving. Each way.” He wasn’t sure why he was trying to talk her out of it instead of into it.
“Well, if you can’t get anyone else to go, I’m free.” She shrugged those sexy shoulders, the purple straps of her tank top covering her bronzed skin in thin strips.
“Let’s plan on it then,” he said, his throat raw. He kept his eyes down as he served them each a couple of enchiladas. He slid a plate in front of her and sat down in his spot. “We don’t have to leave too terribly early. Maybe like nine or ten.”
Jeri smiled at him, and Sawyer couldn’t believe things had worked out so easily. He hadn’t had to make a fool of himself on her front steps, and he could pretend like he didn’t have budding feelings for her, the way he’d been doing.
Still, when their eyes met again, that charge roared to life for the third time. Without hesitating, he said, “Maybe we can go to dinner tomorrow night,” he said. “Get to know each other better before we have to hold hands in front of my family.”
Jeri dropped her fork with a clatter, her eyes widening again. “Hold hands?”
He chuckled, which relieved some of the tension. “Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had a girlfriend, I’ll admit. But I’m pretty sure the kids are holding hands still.”
She picked up her fork and cut a bite of enchilada. “I mean, I heard you say girlfriend. I guess I just wasn’t expecting….” She let her voice trail into silence, and now she wore a calculating look.
“It would just be for an afternoon,” he said, his spirits falling. She didn’t like him. The heat between them was just him. One-sided.
A dog barked outside, and he got up to let Blue in. “There you are, bud,” he said. “C’mon in.”
“Hey, Blue.” Jeri let the Australian shepherd come over to her and she scrubbed him down in hello. “Can he eat enchiladas?”
“I’m sure he can,” Sawyer said, liking the way she interacted with his dog. He wasn’t sure why everything Jeri did seemed dipped in gold, but her feeding Blue a bit of chicken and cheese seriously got Sawyer’s heart thumping in his chest.
The conversation moved to happenings around the ranch, and Jeri stayed for another hour before saying, “I’ve bothered you all night,” and getting to her feet.
“It wasn’t a bother,” Sawyer said, walking her to the front door. He opened it for her and stepped back, grinning at her in what he hoped was a friendly, next-door-neighborly way.
“So dinner tomorrow.” She looked up at him, hope shining in her eyes. And she hadn’t asked. “I love that bistro on Clover Street. Have you been there?”
“No, ma’am.”
She swatted at his bicep, a laugh following. “I may be old, Mister, but I’m not a ma’am.”
“You’re not old,” he said, hoping he still knew how to flirt.
“Older than you, I’m sure.”
“A few years,” he said, shrugging. “I’m thirty-eight.”
She nodded, her smile revealing her pretty white teeth. “What time tomorrow? I tend to get lost on a project and I don’t remember to look at a clock.”
“Seven?” It had been a really long time since he’d been out with someone. Longer than he wanted to admit.
“Sure, seven.” She shuffled forward and stepped back. “All right. See you then.” She committed to leaving then, and stepped fully out onto the porch.
“Bye,” he said as she went down the steps and across the lawn to her house. He sighed and picked up his guitar from its spot just inside the door. For the first time in a very long time, he didn’t feel like the evening hours were too long.
His fingers plucked a tune out of the strings without him thinking about it, and he hummed a love song in the back of his throat, his thoughts centered firmly on the beautiful Jeri Bell.
Chapter 3
Jeri pressed her back into the cabin door, her mind spinning. She’d walked into the wrong house. An innocent mistake. At least he’d been dressed, and a small giggled escaped her lips.
“What a great night,” she murmured to herself as she wandered down the short hallway to her bedroom. Such a better night that making her own freezer food and passing out on the couch. Not only that, she felt like God had given her another chance when she thought she was plumb out.
“Could he give me his last name?” she wondered aloud as she changed into her pajamas. It wasn’t nearly time for bed yet, but Jeri was exhausted. She went back into the kitchen and opened the freezer, taking out the container of chocolate peanut butter ice cream that was still half-full.
The soft sound of strumming drifted through the air, and she went out onto the back steps as she’d done before.
Before, though, she’d simply day-dreamed about holding Sawyer’s hand and having him sing to her in that stunning voice. But now, she couldn’t stop thinking about asking him to marry her.
Just for a couple of months. She didn’t want to be married for good ever again. The thought of telling Sawyer about her first marriage made her muscles seize up. She shook her head. No, she didn’t want the marriage to be real or long-lasting.
She just needed proof of a new name so she could apply for her contractor’s license again. She was doing him a favor, albeit a much smaller one. Perhaps he could do the same. He didn’t seem to get off the ranch much, but she’d only been there a few weeks.
Still, they’d already had a Fourth of July picnic here on the ranch, and he seemed to fit into the group easily. Why he felt like he needed to attend his family’s shindig was still a mystery to her.
She was just glad she’d walked into the wrong house at the right time.
After several bites of ice cream, her mind caught up to the last couple of hours. She had a date with the man tomorrow night. A date—she hadn’t been on one of those is a very long time. She jumped to her feet and put the ice cream away, because she had much more pressing things to do—figure out what to
wear when dining with a sexy cowboy.
Foolishness raced through her as she started leafing through her closet. She certainly didn’t have anything worthy of a date with anyone, let alone Sawyer. Secondly, she couldn’t allow her tiny crush to manifest itself.
Picking out a clean pair of jeans and a sleeveless blouse in peach with large, splashy flowers on it, she sat down heavily on the bed.
This wasn’t going to be real. They were getting off the ranch to learn about each other so they could fake out his family.
“It’s not real,” she told herself. She didn’t want it to be real anyway. She liked her solitary life, and while she missed the camaraderie she’d once had with her crew, she was starting to make new friends here on this ranch.
That was all Sawyer could ever be. A friend.
But maybe the kind of friend who’d marry her so she could get something precious to her—and necessary for the ranch.
Yes, that was how she needed to spin it. If she couldn’t provide her license, the ranch would lose funding.
Time seemed to march steadily forward, and before Jeri knew it, she’d finished another day’s work on the dog enclosure. She stood in her kitchen probably an hour before she would’ve normally quit for the day, dressed in that blouse and feeling like someone had dug a pit right through the bottom of her stomach.
She was going to have to tell him things she hadn’t told anyone. At least anyone in a long, long time.
It’s fine, she thought. She needed a good friend out here, and it might as well be Sawyer. She’d always gotten along better with men than women, though she did like Scarlett, Adele, and Sissy, the new accountant.
But Sissy didn’t live on-site and Scarlett and Adele were already thick as thieves.
Jeri’s thoughts turned to her past, and she knew she could probably still text Evelyn, the woman who’d ran Jeri’s office for her. Everyone had lost their jobs after the accident, but Evelyn, at least, hadn’t blamed her.
In fact, out of everyone involved, only Evelyn had testified that Jeri would’ve never allowed that—
A loud knock on her front door had her gasping and spinning toward the sound. “He’s here.” Of course he was there. They were going to dinner. She wondered what the other people on the ranch would think when they saw the two of them traipsing off together.
“You’re consenting adults,” she told herself as she strode across the cabin. She wished she could command her heartbeat to stop sprinting as easily, but it continued to race beneath her breastbone as if it had somewhere to go.
“Hey,” she said with a smile, concealing her inner turmoil. “Let me grab my purse and I’ll be ready.”
Sawyer stood with his head bent, the brim of his cowboy hat concealing his face. He looked up at her, a smile sitting in his eyes and adorning his mouth. He was so good-looking it made her breath catch, and she didn’t move to get her purse.
“Evenin’, Jeri,” he said in a slow, easy voice. “You look great.”
She actually looked down at herself to make sure she’d gotten dressed. Of course she had. The peach-colored blouse concealed some of her bulk, and she’d loved the shirt since the moment she’d seen it online.
“Thank you,” she murmured, still drinking him in. He’d shaved, and not just his face. His hair had been freshly cut close to his head, and the neat trim extended up under his hat where she couldn’t see. So he probably wouldn’t have those wet curls around his ears if he removed that delicious hat.
“You need a minute?” he asked, taking a step forward as if he’d come in.
“Yeah,” she said, falling back a step. He wore jeans too, and those cowboy boots, and a button-up shirt in lavender.
Lavender.
He was downright dangerous to her health, and as he moved past her, she almost swooned at the scent of his cologne. “Your place is just like mine,” he said, grinning at her.
“Well, not quite,” she said, coming to her senses. “I’ve got a birthday cake candle burning pretty much non-stop.”
He chuckled, the sound tickling her eardrums and making her smile. She swiped her purse from the side table near the couch and pronounced herself ready.
He gestured for her to go first out the front door, and she glanced left and right as if she wanted to make a clean getaway. Directly across from her cabin in the U-shaped community was Cache Bryant’s cabin. He was brand new to the ranch, as was David Merrill, who’d moved in a few days ago.
“How are the new guys settling in?” she asked as she went around to the passenger side of Sawyer’s truck.
“Just fine,” he said, darting in front of her to open the door. She glanced at him, that explosive heat between them manifesting itself. She had no idea if he felt any of the same things she did, but in that moment, time slowed.
She stared into his eyes, and she saw the desire radiating within him.
Time rushed forward again, and she climbed into the cab of the truck, fear taking a tight grip of her heart.
Sawyer liked her.
Of course he likes me, Jeri thought in a stern voice. I’m very likeable. That was one thing her mother had always told her. She didn’t need siblings close to her age, because she could make friends so easily.
She watched the cowboy she’d been crushing on circle the front of the vehicle and climb in beside her. The atmosphere in the truck felt like it had been plugged into to a high-voltage source, and Jeri’s voice stayed dormant beneath her thoughts.
She liked him too. Could he see it? Feel it?
Maybe it’ll make things easier, she thought, almost scoffing along with it. She wasn’t an expert in relationships, heaven knew that. Her first marriage had been a complete disaster, and her ex-husband had taken their son and cut Jeri out of everything.
No matter what, she knew emotions and having feelings for someone made everything a whole lot harder.
“So you said your nearest brother was a decade older than you,” Sawyer said. “Other siblings?”
“Yeah,” Jeri said, her voice creaky. She cleared her throat. “My oldest sister is sixty. Molly lives near our mother in Glendale. She moved there after my dad died a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah,” Jeri said again, though she didn’t miss her father all that much. She’d loved him, of course. But she’d lived her whole life feeling like the Bell family had been complete before she’d arrived. She pushed the thoughts away, because she didn’t like the way they poisoned her outlook on life.
Her parents had taken good care of her growing up. They loved her, she knew that.
“Wilma is fifty-five. She’s living in Temecula right now.”
“Oh, Southern California,” he said.
“I don’t get why you’d live in California if you weren’t near the beach,” Jeri said. “But she seems to like it there.”
“It’s a nice area,” he said.
“And your family is from Newport Beach?” she asked, though her memory from last night was perfect.
“Yep,” he said, taking them past the robot mailbox—Prime—that stood guard at the entrance to the ranch. “Both of my siblings live in the area still.”
“So you’re the loner,” she said with a smile.
He threw one at her too. “I suppose so.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I am too.”
He gave her a curious look then, and Jeri felt like worlds had started colliding. She saw herself sharing a lot with this man, and that scared her, scared her, scared her.
“So family stuff is out of the way,” he said. “Brother Ricky. Sisters Wilma and Molly.”
“Right.” She reminded herself this was for show. He needed to know the basics so they could survive the picnic. Nothing more.
Nothing more, she commanded herself. Except maybe marriage.
She smiled at the extra thought—but not because she actually wanted to marry Sawyer. Oh, no. That wasn’t why.
She needed her license. The ranc
h needed funding. And maybe, just maybe, she needed a friend too.
A friend.
Nothing more.
Chapter 4
They’d seen nobody in the Cabin Community and didn’t pass anyone on the short five-minute drive down to town.
“What are your brother’s and sister’s names again?” Jeri asked, and Sawyer wondered if he’d told her last night or not. Honestly, since she’d walked in his cabin like she owned it, his thoughts had been scattered at best.
“James and Rosie.”
“James and Rosie,” she repeated. “That’s right. Rosie’s married with a couple of kids.”
“Right,” he said. “Both boys. “Ambrose and Oliver.” He cut a glance at her to see how she felt about the names. “She has a bit of a fetish with all things England.”
“Hey,” Jeri said with a shrug. “To each her own.”
“What do you like?” he asked, hoping it really was okay to get to know her tonight. His mother wouldn’t ask too many embarrassing questions, but he at least had to know something about her. He couldn’t just show up and say, “This is my next-door neighbor, Jeri…what was your last name again?”
That would definitely open the floodgates for questions—questions he didn’t want to deal with. Questions he’d answered before, but obviously not to anyone’s satisfaction but his own. Which was fine. He didn’t have to justify to anyone why he’d left horseracing.
“Oh, boy,” Jeri said, blowing her breath out. “What do I like? That’s a really broad question.”
“Let’s start with food,” he said.
“Mashed potatoes,” she said instantly. “And chocolate muffins. My mother had a killer chocolate muffin recipe.”
“Sounds good,” he said, his stomach pinching. He did not normally eat this late at night, but he knew Jeri did. She worked past seven most nights, and Sawyer admired her drive.
“And you?” she asked. “Besides boxed enchiladas, of course.”
“Let’s see,” he said, turning and keeping his attention on the road. “My favorite food would have to be roast beef sandwiches.”