by Emmy Eugene
“They are not,” he said, smiling. “Just horse blankets.”
“Oh, that’s so low class,” she said. “Listen, I called because tomorrow is the s’mores contest, and I decided to enter.”
“S’mores? Tell me more.”
She laughed again, and Seth chuckled with her. “It’s part of Octoberfest. I have a great double-decker s’mores, and I just have to have it there by ten a.m.”
Seth frowned at the artwork across the room. “Are you not going to work?”
“I took the day off,” she said, and she sounded quite proud of herself.
“Wow,” Seth said, thinking of the dozens and dozens of animals who relied on him for their health, food, exercise, and well-being. He couldn’t just take a whole day off, even when he was sick. He could, however, call on his ranch hands and get the bare minimum done.
“Do you think you could sneak away in the morning?” she asked.
“Name the time,” he said.
“Nine? I’ll drive.”
“I’ll meet you at your place at nine,” he said. “I might bring a puppy or two. They need to be handled and socialized.”
“If you bring them to my place, I’ll have kids here from four-thirty to seven-thirty. I can send an email to all my students and tell them to come play during those hours.”
“Would you?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Relief rushed through Seth. “Great. That sounds great, baby. See you tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty
Jenna hummed as she laid graham crackers on a sheet pan. Chocolate went on next, and she snipped marshmallows in half and placed them on top of the chocolate. Another layer of graham crackers went on top of that, and most people would stop there.
Not Jenna. Or rather, not her grandmother, as this was her double-decker s’mores brainchild.
She baked the s’mores for five minutes while she broke up some candy bars and unwrapped others. The timer rang through the house, and Cloudy burst to her feet. “It’s just the oven, silly,” she said. She’d never admit to Seth that she liked having a dog in the house more than her cats.
She never knew where the cats were. They didn’t hang out with her the way Cloudy did, and Jenna liked talking to the dog.
She pulled the s’mores out of the oven and stared laying on new toppings. One row got dark chocolate on the second tier. One row got peanut butter cups. She laid mint squares over another row, with cookies and cream chocolate candy on another. The last row held chocolate covered caramels, and she started cutting marshmallows again.
With the marshmallows on top, she slid the tray back into the oven and set the timer. She fed Cloudy while she waited for the chocolate to melt and the marshmallows to puff. The timer went off at the same time Seth called, “Hello?”
“In the kitchen,” she said.
“Holy cow, something smells good,” he said, entering the kitchen.
“Double-decker s’mores,” she said, gazing down at the ooey gooey goodness she hoped would win her the movie ticket package up for grabs. “And you’re right on time.”
“A cowboy is never late,” he said, his voice moving into a lower tone. “At least if you ask my father.” He bent down and kissed her, and Jenna loved the scent of him, the taste of him, the presence of him.
“Well, then let’s go,” she said against his lips. “It’s nine.”
“Mm.” He kissed her again. “You taste like peanut butter.”
She giggled and pointed to the kitchen counter, where several pieces of candy still sat. “Help yourself. That was my breakfast.”
“Your mother would be horrified,” he joked, picking up a piece of dark chocolate.
“She would, you’re right about that.” She picked up her oven mitts and then the tray of goodies. “Let’s go.” The tray of s’mores rode in the back seat on the way over to the community center where today’s cook-off was taking place. She got her submission in on time, and it felt good to have some time to do what she wanted. The school would survive without her for a day, and she turned to Seth.
“So, what should we do?”
“Do?” he asked. “I have to go read at eleven-thirty, and then I have to get back to the ranch.” He glanced at his phone. “I guess we have a couple of hours before that. Breakfast? Or was your peanut butter cup enough?”
“I could breakfast,” she said, wrapping both of her hands around one of his.
“All right,” he said, leading her outside to her car. They started the drive over to the diner, which had a giant doughnut sign over it. The place had started as a bakery, and the current owner rather liked the doughnut.
“So,” she said with a sigh. “After the dog training, you…”
Seth glanced at her, a smile toying with his lips. “I learned how to build barns,” he said. “And houses. And stables.”
“Construction,” Jenna said. “Nice. I like a man who can work with his hands.”
“That’s where I met Wendy,” he said. “Her father owns a huge construction firm and general contractor business in Hollister.”
“Ah, got it.” She pulled into the parking lot underneath the doughnut and took a space closest to the door.
“I didn’t like construction enough to have it be my career for the rest of my life.” Seth said, shrugging. “The commute to the ranch was long and on back roads. She didn’t want to move to the ranch. She didn’t want to be a rancher’s wife at all.” He looked out his window the whole time he spoke. “I grew tired of never being good enough, and we split up.”
“I’m sorry,” Jenna said, but she wasn’t really. If Seth and Wendy hadn’t split up, she wouldn’t be sitting here about to go to breakfast with him.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go eat.”
At four-thirty, Jenna had a dozen children in her house, as well as nine puppies, three dogs, and a very handsome man. The chaos that came with children and puppies was undeniable, and Jenna closed the doors on her piano studio for the first time in a long time.
Seth monitored the puppies and the kids, and she heard him laughing several times. She managed to make it through her lessons, and when she came out with the last student, most of the other kids were gone, as were the puppies.
Cloudy, Winner, and Thunder were still in the kitchen, so Seth had to be coming back. Jenna chatted with her piano kids for a few minutes, until they’d all been picked up, with mothers waved to.
Jenna put a frozen pizza in the oven and started singing to the dogs. Twenty minutes later, the pizza came out of the oven, but Seth hadn’t shown up.
She dialed him, surprised when he answered in a yell. “Can I call you back?”
“Sure,” she said, also yelling back at him for some reason she couldn’t name. The call ended, and the noise in the background sounded mechanical. She wondered what he was up to or dealing with. He always seemed to have something, and Jenna wondered how he just went and went and went without a break.
He did call back another fifteen minutes later, this time his environment much quieter. “Sorry, I was buying some new equipment.”
“Oh, new equipment?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice more animated now. “I’m getting a few new large tractors. Well, a round baler and a harvester, a new hay transport, and a combine. Oh, and a new tractor for a few things.”
“Wow.” Jenna picked up her plate and went around the island in her kitchen. She was hungry, but the talk about buying super expensive ranch equipment made her nervous. She put another slice of pizza on her plate and stayed silent. She didn’t know what to say.
Why did his money bother her so much?
She had some ideas, but she didn’t want to think about them.
“Hey, can you run the dogs over?” he asked. “I’m out in the equipment shed. Sorry I left them there. I didn’t realize Murphy was going to bring a few things with him tonight.”
As if Collin Murphy could fold up a combine and bring it with him in his pocket
.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll bring them now.”
“Travis and Russ are at the house with the puppies.”
“Okay.”
“Great,” Seth said. “I’ll see you Friday.” A roar filled his side of the line, and he wouldn’t have been able to hear her say good-bye even if she’d said it.
Jenna hung up, her emotions tangling. “See you Friday,” she whispered to herself. Then she jumped up and said, “Come on, guys. Let’s get you home.”
She didn’t see Seth at the homestead on Chestnut Ranch, but Russ expressed his gratitude to Jenna for bringing the dogs over. Winner ran right into the kitchen, barking at the chirping puppies.
Thunder looked over his shoulder at Jenna like, Couldn’t I just stay with you for tonight?
Travis yelled from the kitchen, and Russ spun that way. “Sorry, Jenna. Gotta go.”
“Yep,” she said, because these Johnsons sure lived busy lives for being billionaires.
At home, Jenna checked her phone as if she’d missed a call in the last five minutes. She hadn’t. Her phone rang while she was looking at it, and she actually flinched.
The number wasn’t stored in her phone, but it had a Texas area code, and Jenna swiped to open the call.
“Hello?”
“Miss Wright?”
“Yes,” she said.
“It’s Cody McAllister from the Octoberfest Cook-Off Committee.”
Jenna’s heart stalled, and she pulled in a breath to hold.
“I just wanted to let you know that you won today’s s’mores cook-off.”
“I did?”
“Yes, ma’am. You can pick up your movie tickets and gift card at the community center tomorrow after ten a.m.”
“Great,” she said, laughter bubbling through her whole body. “Thank you.”
“Any dishes, if properly marked, will be available then as well.”
“Oh, right.” Jenna seriously couldn’t stop smiling. The front door opened and closed while Collin said something else.
She agreed to it, and hung up, skipping over to Isaac when he came into the kitchen.
“Ooh, pizza,” he said.
“Guess who won the s’mores contest today?” She squealed and threw her arms around her brother.
“You did?” Isaac asked, laughing too.
“Yep.” She stood back and watched him pick up a piece of pizza and take a bite. “I took today off work, and it was so great.”
Isaac watched her as he chewed and swallowed. “Jenn, you know you don’t need to work at the school. If you don’t like it—”
“I do like it.”
“All right,” Isaac said, but Jenna actually wished he’d argue back with her a little bit. She liked feeling useful. She liked mattering to someone. She liked being important. Without her job at the school, what would she have?
Making s’mores and walking out to the duck pond? A few piano lessons?
She shook her head, her enthusiasm over winning a couple of movie tickets and a gift card for popcorn suddenly gone.
“Jenn,” Isaac said, his gentle, older brother voice employed. “I don’t think you’ve been very happy this year.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Not since January,” he said. “But since school started again, and it’s only been six weeks.”
“I just need some time to settle in again.”
“Do you?” He cocked his head at her. “Or are you just…do you really need to be doing this? Some days you work twelve hours a day. We don’t even need the money.”
“You work, and we don’t need the money.”
Isaac had no response for that, at least not one he said out loud. Jenna folded her arms, but a voice inside her told her that her brother was right. She didn’t need to work forty hours a week at the elementary school.
And if she didn’t… She thought about all the things around the house she could do. She thought about the exercise and workouts she could do. She thought about the time she’d have to read and enjoy this town she’d grown up in and loved so much.
“I’m going to bed,” she said.
“It’s eight-thirty,” Isaac called after her.
“Night,” she said to her brother, so much unrest running through her she knew she wouldn’t be able to settle down to sleep for another couple of hours. Better to go to bed now so she’d fall asleep at a decent hour.
She spent the first hour tossing and turning as she tried to find a reason why Seth spending his money bothered her so much. She hadn’t told him about Marcus’s drive to always have the biggest, the best, the newest, the latest, the greatest. And Seth wasn’t like that anyway.
“Is he?” she whispered to her dark, empty bedroom. She hadn’t known he was a certified dog trainer, nor that he’d learned how to build a barn with his bare hands.
So she’d keep dating him until she learned everything about him. Then she could make an informed decision about whether or not she wanted to keep him in her life permanently or not.
With that solved in her mind, she turned to her brother’s words. Could she really quit at the elementary school? And if she did, then what?
Chapter Twenty-One
Seth had definitely spent more than a dime on the new combine. And he’d always wanted a round hay baler, and now he had one. Paid for with cash.
He’d gone on a shopping spree at the local farm equipment dealer, and he’d barely spent a drop of the money his mother had transferred into his account a month ago.
He wanted to buy something for Jenna, but she never had given him that approved list. So he settled for buying walnut trees, and muscadines, and a new hose for every resident on Victory Street.
The puppies were growing at a rapid rate now that they were eating well. They wrestled with one another, and slept in a pile, and Seth had started opening the door to the patio, which Russ had fenced in with some chicken wire from the shed.
He’d been so busy around the ranch and with the puppies, learning about and playing with his new equipment, and talking with Ruth about the Edible Neighborhood, that his conversations with Jenna had dropped off.
She canceled their Friday-night date, claiming to have had a very busy week at work and she just wanted to “stay in.” Seth had offered to come sit with her, even if she slept on the couch, but she’d never responded.
He felt like he’d done something wrong, but he wasn’t sure what. He’d told Jenna they could go slow, but this was worse than that. This felt like they were moving backward.
“We’re here,” Rex said as he walked in the door from the garage. “I brought anyone I could find to play with the puppies.”
Seth turned to find Rex and Griffin leading in several children. He grinned at them and opened the pantry to get out a bag of microwave popcorn. “Where’d you get the kids?”
“Drove by and picked them up at the park,” Griffin said. “The puppies are over there, guys. Get them out. Play with them.”
“They’re some of the kids from the youth program we do,” Rex said. “We said ‘free play time with puppies’ and their moms started bowing at our feet.” He laughed and pulled open the fridge. “Who wants a soda?”
Only one little boy came over, and Seth looked at him. “Wow, I think we’ve underestimated the power of puppies.”
“Clearly,” Rex said, popping the top on the soda can and handing it to the kid. “Only in the kitchen, bud.”
He nodded and took the can, taking one drink and setting it on the table as he went back to the puppy playground.
“That’s all he’s gonna drink of that,” Seth said. “You know that, right?”
“Yep.” Rex popped open his own can of soda and started draining it. “Where’s Jenna tonight?”
“Staying in,” he said, glad the microwave beeped and he had something to occupy his attention. He’d been busier than ever around the ranch, and he actually liked that he had some downtime that was just his.
He wasn’t sure wha
t that said about him. Maybe just that he liked his independence. That wasn’t bad. Was it?
Seth wasn’t sure what Jenna had marked on her Octoberfest schedule, but he was pretty sure they’d missed something she’d wanted to attend over the course of the last week.
She’d barely been texting him, and Seth sensed something was happening he simply didn’t know about yet.
He’d asked her to talk to him and tell him what she was thinking in the past. And she clearly hadn’t.
Seth didn’t like making assumptions about anything, because he’d been on the wrong end of that type of situation in the past. So it was that another Friday night had arrived, and he and Jenna didn’t have a date.
He pulled into her driveway, but it was impossible to tell if she was home. The garage door was closed, and it wasn’t dark enough to have lights shining out of windows in the house.
“Come on,” he said to the dogs, because he hadn’t been brave enough to come over by himself. Winner, Thunder, and Cloudy trotted up the steps ahead of him, and Winner actually put her front paws up on the door like she had to get inside urgently.
Seth followed them a little slower, realizing that he should’ve known something was afoot days and days ago when Jenna stopped asking for Cloudy to come stay with her at night. Seth had been so preoccupied with his own life, and his own extracurricular activities, and his own family, that he hadn’t really thought about it.
He rang the doorbell and waited, his heartbeat hammering in his chest like someone playing the drums off the beat. Long beats and short beats and missed beats.
A full minute passed, and Jenna finally opened the door. “Seth.”
“Hey,” he said, drinking in the sight of her in yoga pants and a T-shirt with an outline of the state of Texas, a faded, red heart in the Hill Country area.
His dogs ran into the house, and Jenna giggled and bent to give some love to Cloudy, who seemed especially excited to see her. Seth knew how the dog felt, but he hadn’t been comforted by her frosty reception of him.