Dean knew he was being petty, but he made quick work of retrieving Lily. As soon as she was sitting on his lap, she not only stopped crying but grinned wide up at him. Everyone else temporarily forgotten, his heart moved for this sweet little girl. She’d been through so much already but didn’t even remember it. He would literally protect her and Liam with his life, same as Sunny would. Of course, he’d protect her with his life too.
“She seems to like you,” Ryan said, an annoying smile on his face as he nodded at Lily.
“Yeah, she’s my little buddy, aren’t you?” Dean let Lily grab his finger and babble something that sounded like “E” before she gave his finger an enthusiastic shake. He had no idea if she associated the sound with his name or it was only random babyspeak.
“If you have time while you’re here, we should go out and do something,” Ryan said, speaking to Sunny again.
“Great idea,” Jonathon said. “She works so much and now thinks she has to babysit me as well as the twins. You should go out and have some fun when you have the chance.”
“What do you think I’m doing now?” Sunny asked her dad.
“You’re hanging out with an old man, two babies and the person you wrangled into helping you tote us around.”
“Dad,” she said in a scolding voice that also sounded embarrassed. Then she looked at Dean. “Ignore him.”
“I didn’t mean to make things awkward,” Ryan said, drawing her attention away from Dean. “Especially if you’re seeing someone.”
Ryan’s gaze met Dean’s, full of curiosity.
Jonathon scoffed. “She’s free as a bird.”
Ryan was still watching Dean.
This was the moment. Sunny hadn’t known how to take the relationship to the next step and make it believable, but Dean was more interested in putting an end to any advances Ryan might make toward her. And not for the sake of their ruse. He reached over and took her hand in his.
“Actually, she’s not.”
Sunny looked at him with wide eyes, but then she must have remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be surprised by his declaration because she smiled and squeezed his hand.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to overstep,” Ryan said.
“It’s okay,” Sunny said, returning her attention to him but not letting go of Dean’s hand. “It’s all very new.”
Ryan nodded then made his departure.
“I thought something was going on with you two,” Jonathon said, then ate a piece of popcorn while looking at them as if what Dean had revealed was an interesting twist in a movie. “You are not good at hiding the truth, neither one of you.”
“Sorry, Dad. It was just so unexpected. I mean, we’ve known each other forever.”
Sunny gave Dean a shy look that didn’t really match her personality but nevertheless caused a fluttery, vibrating sensation in his chest.
“I’ve liked her for a long time but never said anything.”
He had no idea why he’d let that truth tumble from his lips, but there was no way to call it back now.
When one of Jonathon’s friends showed up and drew his attention away, Sunny gave Dean a thumbs-up. She’d obviously taken his confession as a further embellishment of their whirlwind romance story.
In the next moment, she slid her hand out of his grasp and ripped off another piece of funnel cake. He was still feeling the loss of the weight and warmth of her hand when she lifted the piece of funnel cake to his lips.
He sucked in a breath before he could think about how that might look, but then he opened his mouth and accepted the treat. And he refused to break eye contact with her as he did so. She was the first to look away, and he was glad she did because he’d begun to wonder what she’d do if he leaned forward and kissed her right there in front of half the town.
* * *
SUNNY CONTINUED TO stuff funnel cake in her mouth to try to forget the breathless, unsettled feeling that had hit her when Dean had held her gaze moments ago. She should not have those kinds of feelings when this was all an act. But, man, was Dean selling it. She’d almost believed what he said about having liked her for a long time. Never would she have imagined that he could act that well. Maybe he should move to LA too. Movie studios could cast a real cowboy in some Western projects if they had a resurgence.
Though her plan had been to convince her dad she and Dean were in a relationship, she’d never been so glad to see Frank Tillson show up and capture her dad’s attention. She needed a few minutes to pull herself together.
“You want another funnel cake?” Dean asked.
“Huh?”
He pointed at the paper plate, now empty except for some leftover powdered sugar.
“You devoured the first one.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m good. Actually, I’ll probably regret this later.”
“Regretting the consumption of junk food, a tale as old as time.”
She laughed, glad he was back to his normal self.
“Now I have that song from Beauty and the Beast in my head,” she said.
“I dare you to start singing it out loud.”
“Don’t tempt me or you’ll be known as the guy with the embarrassing girlfriend.”
Dean shrugged. “There are worse things.”
He smoothed a few strands of fine hair off Lily’s forehead as she drifted closer to sleep. The gentleness with which he did so caused that weird feeling behind her breastbone again. It oddly felt as if she was playing with an open flame.
Sunny startled when someone suddenly sat beside her.
“So, about thirty seconds ago I heard an interesting rumor,” Maya said.
“Oh? What rumor?”
“That the two of you are dating.” Maya checked to make sure Sunny’s dad was facing the other direction before she gave Sunny and Dean an exaggerated wink.
“I think you must have something in your eye,” Dean said, humor in his voice.
Sunny swatted him lightly to keep him from ruining the progress they’d made tonight in the mission to have all of her family together again.
“So?” Maya said softly while leaning close to Sunny and surreptitiously pointing at her dad’s back.
Sunny responded with an expression she hoped conveyed that she thought her dad had bought the revelation.
“Well, lovebirds,” Maya said a bit too loudly. “When did you first know the other was the one?”
It took everything Sunny had not to pinch Maya until she begged for mercy. Instead, she stared hard at her, trying to telepathically ask, “What in the world is the matter with you?”
For her part, Maya looked quite proud of herself.
“You know what they say about paybacks,” Sunny whispered so that only Maya could hear her.
“What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
Sunny reached back, as if preparing to slug her best friend. Maya hopped up, laughing.
“Well, I’m off to take some exciting pictures of people falling off horses.”
Frank had settled in next to her father, both of them giving their assessment of each bronc rider as they entered the dirt arena.
Dean leaned over and whispered next to her ear, “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Though as they watched the competitors in the arena, added hot dogs to the oh-so-healthy foods they’d consumed and fed the twins baby-appropriate food, she was strangely aware of him sitting next to her. Or maybe it was more that she felt the eyes of those around them, imagined she could hear the news that they were dating spreading through the crowd. By the time the bull riding was over, she’d bet the entire balance in her bank account that everyone in the stands had heard the news.
“You’re such a lovely couple,” Mrs. Winslow, the local librarian as far back as Sunny could remember, said as she stopped in front of them at the en
d of the night. “I always thought you two should get together. You’re perfect for each other. Does this mean you’re going to be moving back to Jade Valley, dear?”
Though she understood where that assumption might come from, it annoyed Sunny. Why was the first assumption never that the man would change his life to further a relationship?
“Sunny has a great job in LA,” Dean said as he settled his arm around her shoulders. “She’s worked hard to get where she is.”
Mrs. Winslow’s brows came together as if she was trying to understand nuclear physics.
“You’re going to have a long-distance relationship? Those hardly ever last.”
“Now, Sharon, you know that’s not true. You and Joe did fine when he was overseas,” Sunny’s dad said.
“That was different. He was serving his country.”
“Well, last time I looked, Vietnam was a lot farther away than Los Angeles.”
“It’s all new,” Sunny said, trying to cover up for her dad’s lack of tact. “We’re taking it a day at a time.”
“Well, I wish you all the best.” Mrs. Winslow headed after the rest of the crowd making for their vehicles parked in the field behind the grandstand.
“I don’t think she believes we’ll make it,” Dean said, watching the older woman disappear around the end of the bleachers.
“Ignore her,” her dad said. “She’s been nosy and opinionated as long as I’ve known her.”
Sunny was surprised her dad didn’t have a few questions of his own, but he seemed to take the news of them dating in stride. As if it was not a surprise at all. Though it was possible he was planning to interrogate them both separately.
By the time they all made it to the truck and everyone was safely buckled in, Sunny realized how tired she felt. As Dean drove them back toward the ranch, she felt her eyes drifting closed. She kept forcing them back open but finally gave up and leaned her head against the window. The twins were already completely out, and she was going to be joining them momentarily.
She woke with a jolt and quickly realized it was because Dean had pulled off onto the gravel road that ran along the edge of the ranch, flanked on one side by the river and the other by acres of pasture as well as first Dean’s house and then her father’s.
“I don’t want to see her hurt,” her father said. “She’s lost too much already.”
It took Sunny a foggy moment to realize he was talking about her and another moment to realize that the situation had become unexpectedly serious. She almost spoke up, though she didn’t know what to say. Would she really put an end to the plan to bring her family together when it had barely gotten underway?
“You know I’d never do anything to hurt Sunny.”
Right then Liam let out a sudden and ear-piercing cry, effectively putting an end to the conversation as well as Sunny’s eavesdropping on it.
“Hey, hey,” she said, acting as if she’d been awakened by her nephew’s unhappiness. “The world is not ending, little man.”
“That sounds like a diaper cry,” her dad said.
Indeed it was, which she discovered once they arrived at the main house. After Dean helped her get the babies into the nursery, he went back outside to make sure her dad didn’t tumble backward down the front steps.
When she had both twins freshly diapered, changed into their pajamas, fed and tucked into their bed, she expected Dean to be long gone. Instead, when she entered the living room, her dad pointed toward the front door.
“He’s still out there.”
She heard the distinct note of teasing in her dad’s voice. This was not how she’d expected him to react at all, and she wondered why he was acting so differently about it around her than he had been with Dean earlier. She’d expected a litany of questions, but maybe he only intended to grill Dean.
Poor guy.
When she went outside, Dean was sitting at the top of the steps.
“Sorry about earlier,” she said as she sat next to him, their shoulders barely an inch apart. When he looked at her as if he didn’t know what she was talking about, she nodded behind them. “With Dad. I heard him grilling you on the way back.”
“That was to be expected, don’t you think? You’re his only daughter, after all.”
“But you’re not some random guy he’s never met. He knows you every bit as well as he does me.”
“Maybe that’s even more concerning for him.”
She started to ask him why but then remembered a thought that had occurred to her right before Liam’s “I went poo in my diaper” wail.
“He’s probably thinking that if this doesn’t work out, not only will you be hurt but he’ll have to find a new foreman,” Dean said.
She really hadn’t thought all this through, but now it was too late to back out of the story they’d put in motion. The whole county probably knew they were dating by now. She wouldn’t put it past Maya to literally make it front-page news. Everything had to work out how she’d planned now, not only for her family’s sake. She refused to be the reason Dean lost his job and his spot on this land he loved.
“I won’t let that happen,” she said. “No matter how our plan turns out, I won’t let him blame you. I dragged you into this without taking the time to think through all the possibilities. I’m sorry about that.”
Dean reached over and patted her hand but didn’t remove his after doing so. Instead, he left it lying atop hers, the warmth of his palm soaking into her skin.
“There’s nothing to apologize for, okay?”
She nodded though she still felt like a terrible friend for roping him into her scheme, even if the success of that plan would also get him what he wanted.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DEAN COULDN’T TAKE back anything he’d done or said the night before, but the situation with Sunny had taken a serious turn when he’d let his jealousy get the better of him. After leaving her the night before, he’d sat on his own front porch for a long while, long enough that his eyes adjusted fully to the dark. The sound of the river would have lulled him to sleep if his mind hadn’t been so full of questions about how to best proceed. He had to strike a balance between being believable and not falling so far into the ruse that he let his true feelings tumble out again.
He’d finally settled on simply having fun with the whole situation. If he didn’t think about its eventual end and kept things light and easy, he’d make it through. After all, he and Sunny had been friends before he’d one day looked at her and realized his feelings had changed.
He reined in at the top of a rise overlooking the river, noting the dark clouds gathering over the mountains to the west. The weather forecasters were calling for a wetter-than-normal July into August. He’d take it after the fires the summer before had filled the valley with thick smoke on more than one occasion, making it hard to breathe when outside. And with his job, he was always outside. It had been so bad that his parents had gone to visit his aunt Ginny in Nebraska for a couple of weeks so the smoke didn’t trigger his mom’s asthma.
His horse’s ears flicked at the faint rumble of thunder.
“I agree, time to head back.” He used the reins to turn Pecan around, keeping his eye out for any sign of the mountain lion that had cost Junior Blackwell a calf on his ranch a few days before.
Dean wasn’t of the mindset that all predators should be eradicated. After all, they’d been in this part of the world before any of his ancestors had been. He just wanted them to stick to the mountains and avoid any unwanted interactions with humans that would lead to either’s demise. His wasn’t a popular opinion in some circles, but he wasn’t going to abandon it to fit in more comfortably. Some of the old-timers thought he’d been infected by newfangled ideas.
Wait until they saw how he planned to diversify a ranch that had only run cattle and a few horses during its entire century-long existence.
When he reached the barn, he didn’t expect to see Sunny coming out. But there she was looking more beautiful in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt than any runway model could ever hope to be. Models probably paid small fortunes to get the kind of wavy blond hair with a hint of red that Sunny had naturally.
“How’s the herd?” she asked, shading her eyes as she looked up at him before he dismounted.
“All seemed well. Maybe the lion decided domesticated dinner was too much of a risk.”
He slid from the saddle and led Pecan toward the barn door. While loosening the cinch so the horse could breathe more easily, he noticed the front of Sunny’s T-shirt had a print of some historical looking building. He pointed at it.
“Where’s that?”
“Gyeongbokgung.”
“Afraid I still have no idea.”
“Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, South Korea. It’s where the kings of the Joseon Dynasty lived for hundreds of years.”
“Well, now you’re just showing off.”
Sunny laughed. “You know I always liked history.”
“And every other subject in school.”
“I did not like trigonometry.”
“You got not only straight A’s but an A+ in every class.” He started removing the saddle and the rest of the tack.
“That doesn’t mean I liked it, only that I worked hard for those grades.”
Dean gave Pecan some water and set about feeling the horse’s legs and checking his hooves for any trapped stones.
“You’ve been to some interesting places.” No wonder she wouldn’t want to give up her job if it allowed her to travel all around the world on someone else’s dime.
“I have. Not all of them so grand or important to history, but every place has its charms and beauty. I mean, if I were to ask someone on the streets of Seoul where Jade Valley, Wyoming, was, they likely wouldn’t know either. But it doesn’t lessen the beauty here.”
He nodded at the truth of her words.
“So, did your dad hit you with a barrage of questions after I left last night?”
“Oddly, no. He seems to be taking this all very much in stride, which was not what I expected.”
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