by Liza Kendall
Rhett grew serious again. “I don’t know. But I promise you I’ll work on it.” He’d start by getting a valuation on the building that housed Holt Saddlery. Then he’d have a better idea of how to move forward.
Jules paused, clearly thinking about his words. He added, “In any case, I’ll let you know before I mess with the saddlery.”
“Promise noted,” she said.
“What are you digging for, anyway? Lose your toes?”
“My wallet.”
Rhett began to laugh. “You keep your wallet in your boot?”
‘Yes. Why?” Jules gave a small grunt of satisfaction as she retrieved a battered little leather rectangle. It appeared to hold exactly one bank card, her driver’s license, and a few worn bills. Maybe an insurance card—he hoped. Though, come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any sign that she had health insurance through the stables. Billy, his wife, Helen, and Sue did. But not Julianna Holt. What were they thinking—that she was so young, she didn’t need it?
Horrible scenarios went through his mind. Jules could be knocked to the ground and stepped on by a horse. Get shocked by faulty wiring. Be hit with a pitchfork . . . bitten by that yellow-fanged donkey out there. The bite could get infected and spread toxins through her body.
“Why not keep your wallet in your fanny pack?”
She looked offended. “The fanny pack is for horse snacks. I’d never put my wallet in there. Anyways, I was digging for it because I’m starving. We’re going through a drive-through. Your choice: Taco Bell or Whataburger.”
“I’d be glad to take you for a decent meal somewhere,” Rhett said.
“Drive-through is very decent. Fast. Hot. Yummy. And I don’t need your charity, thanks.”
Jeez, the girl is prickly. “I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it. I just meant we could sit down at an actual table, maybe with a real tablecloth, and real vegetables.”
“Pickles and onions are vegetables. So are fries.”
He ignored this logic. “We could discuss new angles for making money at the saddlery.”
“I don’t have time for a restaurant meal. Too much to do. Thanks, though,” she said grudgingly. “So, which fast-food flavor do you want?”
Rhett sighed. “Whataburger. Best fast food in Texas.”
She grinned. “Finally, we agree on something! Onion rings?”
“Of course. With the bold barbecue sauce.”
“No way! Honey barbecue sauce.” She gulped some of the disgusting cold coffee in her console—
“Honey? You gettin’ sweet on me, Jules?” he teased.
—and blew it out her nose, sputtering. “That,” she promised darkly, “is never going to happen.”
Without even thinking about it, Rhett resented that. Even though he’d said so himself, in regards to Jules. Even though he’d deliberately engineered things so that there were no complications from their one-night stand. And even though he kept fixating on the annoying things about her: gruesome, mud-caked rubber riding boots, fanny pack, apparent lack of a comb, garbage truck on wheels. Sister of his best friend. He wasn’t used to being dismissed so readily. With such gusto and . . . and . . . amused indifference.
He was quite a catch, after all. Not the ugliest man alive. Hot car. Billionaire.
But she’d pretty much blown the very idea of him out of her nose, along with that crap advertised as coffee. And it was downright offensive—really, it was.
Never going to happen, huh?
Correct. You copy, numbskull? Grady’s. Little. Sister. Never going to happen.
He stared at the hideous, sparkling Fool Fest jesters strung along the garlands on Main Street as Jules made a beeline for the Fredericksburg Whataburger. He felt like one of them—God’s own joke, a plastic fool without a soul, only here temporarily . . . for the holiday.
He’d head back to Dallas after the Fool Fest weekend. He was needed there, and he’d have a handle on the Holt business inside of three weeks, easily.
He smelled the Whataburger before they got anywhere near the famous orange W. He had to admit, it smelled like home.
Sure, they had them in Dallas. But for some reason, he associated the place with Silverlake. Remembered all the hijinks and high school date nights. Remembered Grady and him sinking beers into the ice of the oversized, covered soda cups. Threading the plastic straws right down into the beer. Getting drunk while looking like the picture of innocence . . .
“Sweet and Spicy Bacon Burger, please,” said Jules into the speaker box. “Onion rings with honey barbecue sauce. Iced tea. And . . . ?” She turned toward Rhett. “I’m buying your lunch.”
“You’ll do no such thing. Patty melt, please!” he called. “Onion rings. Bold barbecue sauce. Iced tea. And her credit card is stolen! Don’t take it. I’ll give you cash.”
“It’s not stolen!” she yelled at the box.
The teenager inside gave them their total. “Drive up to the window, please.”
Jules glared at Rhett. “I have cash, too. And I’m buying.”
“Pull up,” was his only answer.
As she did, he slipped out of the passenger side, leaving the door hanging open. He vaulted easily over the hood and stood blocking the window while Jules cussed at him.
“Hi,” he said with a blinding smile at a dazed girl in an orange uniform. He handed her thirty bucks. “Keep the change, darlin’.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
“De nada.” Rhett stiffened as a punch landed in the vicinity of his kidneys. “Hey,” he said over his shoulder. “That’s no way to treat a man who’s buying you lunch.”
“I said it was my treat!” Jules shook her fist at him.
“Uh-huh. I saw the number that constitutes your poor excuse for a salary.”
“I live for free in the cabin,” she protested. “I don’t have any big expenses. It’s fair.”
He snorted and accepted the bag of food from the clerk, just as Jules banged on his kidneys again.
“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to teach you some manners,” he said. He walked around to the front of her wreck, and in full sight fished not the patty melt, but her burger, out of the bag and unwrapped it. With an evil grin, he chomped down on it, taking a huge bite.
“How—what—hey!” she yelled. “You can’t do that!”
“Mmmmmmm,” he said. “Needs mustard.”
“Don’t you dare put mustard on my burger, you son of a—”
Rhett took another bite, waggling his eyebrows in exaggerated bliss.
Jules gunned the engine, looking mad enough to run him down.
He swallowed, took a long draught of iced tea, and didn’t move. “Say ‘thank you,’ Jules. I know it’s foreign to you. I know it’s hard to pronounce. But repeat after me: ‘Th-th-thank you, Rhett. You are such a gentleman . . . now I see it’s no act.’”
Her rage, curiously, had faded. As he watched her expression change through the dirty windshield, he couldn’t for the life of him discern what she was thinking.
“You remembered,” she said. “That I hate mustard.”
“Of course I remember that you hate mustard,” he said. “You always did. Now—you gonna run me down?”
“Not if you stop eating my burger,” she told him. “And give me two bites of your patty melt. Fair?”
“Fair.” Rhett got back in the car, tried and failed to put on the seat belt again, set down the bag between them. He handed over his patty melt and gave her ponytail a tug.
Another fleeting, inscrutable expression crossed Jules’s face at that. Then she unwrapped the patty melt and took a bite as someone behind them honked.
Chapter 10
Rhett was still digesting the crazy from Whataburger and the situation with the Holt Saddlery while he worked through his in-box back at the hotel. Someone pounded on his hot
el door. “Hey, Fancy!” shouted a familiar voice. The pounding continued. “Fancy, are you in there? Open up.” It sounded suspiciously like Rhett’s brother Jake.
Rhett opened the door and, sure enough, Jake along with Grady and fellow firefighter Mick nearly toppled into his hotel room. “What the hell, guys?” Truth be told, seeing his old buddies all together warmed Rhett’s heart. He shook hands with Mick, feeling a twisted nostalgia for the past when the man slapped him hard enough on the back to dislodge a major organ. Rhett remembered the big guy from grade school as a skilled practical joker; he probably considered Silverlake’s Fool Fest a major holiday. Jake once mentioned Mick had developed a touch of mama hen in his time at the firehouse, but Rhett was hard pressed to reconcile how the young troublemaker in his memory could have changed that much.
Jake held his arms out from his sides. “Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?”
Rhett just started laughing. Sometimes you could see family expressions and mannerisms come through on video calls, but Jake, here, with his unruly dark hair and stubble looked more like his lost twin than ever. Mama used to say it was lucky Jake had that one dimple on his left side or he’d get lost in the Black Irish Braddock shuffle.
With an incredulous look on his face, Jake began to stalk the hotel room repeating his words even louder. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME? If I had a dollar for every time someone asked if I’d seen you yet, I’d be the one staying in these fancy digs.”
“Weren’t you on duty?” Rhett asked, grinning like a maniac.
“Yeah, so? You’ve seen Lila. You made a special trip out to see Deck. You’ve been hanging out with Grady, for Pete’s sake.” Jake’s finger moved accusingly between the two of them. “You two share no DNA. It’s embarrassing.”
It was only when Jake’s finger stalled in front of Grady that Rhett realized the boys were tossing his hotel room. “What the—?”
“This is a jailbreak,” Jake said. “Gotta get your stuff.”
“Get my . . . ?”
Grady elbowed him aside and went to the closet where Rhett’s suits were neatly hung. He started grabbing them off the hangers and piling them on the bed. Jake took over at the drawers. “Awww, really?” He pointed to the neat rows of socks. “Look, boys, Rhett got him some ‘life-changing magic.’ He pressed his hand to his heart and blinked doe eyes at Rhett. “Does lining up your socks like that really spark joy in your heart?”
“Shut up. Seriously. What are you guys doing? We’re not twelve,” Rhett said, trying not to smile.
Mick wrinkled his nose. “True. Grady always tells me I act like a thirteen-year-old.”
“Who put him in charge?” Rhett asked.
Grady folded his arms over his chest. “Here’s the deal. You can stay in this fancy hotel by your lonesome and pretend you’re back at boarding school where nobody talks to you, or you can come stay with us in the bunk room at the firehouse and raise a little old-fashioned hell with a bunch of boys who won’t give you a minute’s peace.”
“Donating what would have been your hotel costs to the firehouse fund, of course,” Mick suggested with a cough.
“Doesn’t seem like a difficult choice to me,” Jake said, “but then again, I’ve been around Mick’s dirty socks for so many years I can’t smell ’em anymore. Besides, Hunter’s on leave so you can have his bed and his locker.”
“So, you guys need money, do you?” Rhett asked.
“Surprisingly, no. Grandpa Nash has turned into quite the benefactor. He’s a big fan of Jake’s now,” Mick said.
“But we’re only allowed so many of those bulk-sized boxes of candy bars a month, so consider it a personal gift,” Jake said. “You can spark some joy in me.”
Rhett grinned. “Oh, I’ll spark some joy in you, all right!” he threatened, jumping on Jake and attempting to wrestle him to the ground.
“See, now, this,” Grady said, not helping at all. “This is what I’m talking about. Come on over to the firehouse and stay with the boys while you’re in town.”
Mick called a draw on the wrestling after he and Grady finished packing up all of Rhett’s things. Jake and Rhett finally stood up and backed away from each other. Clothes ripped, out of breath, both of ’em grinning ear to ear.
“So, what’s it gonna be, brother o’ mine? You coming with us?” Jake asked, pushing by and hoisting Rhett’s suitcases. They barely closed and one sleeve was sticking out the side.
“Here’s your one chance, Fancy,” Mick said. “Don’t let me down.”
“Shut up, weirdo,” Rhett said, following Jake out of the room.
Not twenty minutes later, Rhett was escorted with friendly force into the firehouse before Grady and Mick peeled off, leaving him to be greeted by a golden Labrador, who barked at him and then promptly shoved his nose into what Rhett had previously assumed were his most private parts.
“Hey!” he protested, taking a step back. The dog took two steps forward, wagged his tail manically, and kept on exploring. “This Lab is yours? Aren’t you supposed to have a dalmatian? What’s wrong with this fire station?”
“It’d take too long to explain.” Old George, the retired fire captain, came out to greet Rhett. “Been a long time, son,” he said through his bushy gray mustache. “How ya doin’?”
“Can’t complain—except for being turfed out of my comfy room at the Hotel Saint-Denis and dragged here by the scruff of my neck.”
Old George chuckled. “Welcome. I think the only member of the squad you don’t know yet is Rafael, and he’s out on a call. Oh, and this here’s Not-Spot. Tommy brought him home, and we didn’t have the heart to replace him. The only dalmation in town belongs to Sophia at the jewelry shop. She dresses to match it.”
“O-kaaaay.” Rhett dislodged Not-Spot’s nose from his crotch and scratched him behind the ears. “So where am I sleeping?” he asked Jake. “Not in the dog’s bed, I hope?”
“On pool noodles in the shower,” Jake told him with a grin. But this turned out to be false. Soon Rhett’s luggage was installed in the bunk room at the firehouse.
He followed it, taking in the seven neatly made bunks. “Which one’s mine?” he asked Jake.
Jake pointed to a bed with a big, unapologetic cowboy hat on it. A Stetson. With a laugh, Rhett stuck it on the toe of his shoe when he flopped down on his extra-long single and tucked his hands behind his head. “I gave up nine-hundred-thread-count sheets for this?”
Jake grinned and threw a pillow at his head.
“Is that even clean?” Rhett asked.
“No. Not-Spot likes to sleep there. I’m pretty sure he’s drooled on it.”
“Butthead.”
“I thought you were the one with the fancy vocabulary. Didn’t we all send you away to that snotty school to learn some better insults?”
“Thou art . . . the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril,” Rhett intoned.
“What the—?” Jake said incredulously.
“Shakespeare,” Rhett said in an English accent. “And I still don’t know why you all sent me away to that snotty school. It sucked.”
He didn’t mean to kill the mood, but Jake stared at him in awkward silence. He sat down on the bed across from Rhett’s and looked at the floor.
“Yeah, well.” Rhett left it at that.
“Declan always said you were doing fine. He bragged about all your awards, your GPA, all the colleges you got into.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that Declan was so proud. Maybe if he’d listened a little better to his eldest brother he would’ve heard that pride coming through. Still, Jake couldn’t understand. He didn’t know. “Declan either lied or was in denial. I told him I wasn’t doing fine.”
Jake stared at him, his brow furrowed.
Yeah. Maybe saintly Declan Braddock lied. Chew on that, bro!
“Bu
t look at you . . . it seems that you’re doing better than fine now.”
Rhett picked up the cowboy hat and turned it in his hands. “I do okay,” he admitted. “How are you getting along with Deck these days?”
“Better than ever.” Jake’s smile was a mile wide. “I really missed having an older brother,” he said quietly. “I had two, and then I had none. Besides, I’ve come to feel that Declan did the best he could with us. He had some tough choices and some promises to keep to Mama and Pop. And we weren’t perfect, either.”
Rhett gritted his teeth together, surprised by the wave of emotion sweeping through him. “I was darn near perfect, Jake,” he said, to lighten the mood and keep himself from acting the fool in front of his brother.
It got the laugh he expected. “Did you ever ask him if you could come home?” Jake asked after a moment. “Maybe if you’d told him—”
Rhett sat bolt upright, the cowboy hat falling to the floor. “Are you serious? Only every other Sunday! Didn’t he pass on anything I ever said?”
Jake looked stricken. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”
Rhett ruffled his hair, exasperated. “It’s fine. Let’s forget about it.”
“I’m glad you’re here, now,” Jake said. “We need to get everybody together. Lila’s been harping on it since she saw you at Schweitz’s, and things are serious with Charlie—”
“Charlie Nash, huh? I really wasn’t sure how that’d all pan out.”
“Long story. Point is, it would be nice to all sit down, do a family dinner before you leave. I’d love to see you and Deck start to patch things up.”
“I think that ship has sailed,” Rhett said tightly.
“I thought the same thing about Charlie and me. Don’t waste any more time, Rhett. Don’t have regrets. Don’t leave Silverlake without making up with Declan.”
Rhett’s stomach dropped a couple of feet. What the—? “Is something wrong with Declan?”
“No,” Jake said quickly. “Just . . . what if. But whatever you were just feeling a second ago, imagine feeling that for the rest of your life.”