He drank his coffee, then the waitress delivered a paper bag to him along with the bill. Garret had just enough self-control to get through paying for his meal before he glanced toward the corner booth again.
The blonde woman was leaning forward, talking intently to Sierra, who remained out of sight, hidden by the high booth side.
He told himself it was just as well, then grabbed his meal and headed for the door.
Chapter Eleven
“Has he gone?” Sierra asked.
Eva’s gaze flicked over Sierra’s shoulder. “Yep. Leaving now. Very nice caboose, by the way.”
Sierra relaxed, ignoring Eva’s verdict on Garret’s ass. Her friend had been ogling him shamelessly ever since he’d arrived and Sierra had made Eva swap with her to avoid a potentially awkward situation.
Not that she had needed to bother, it turned out, since he’d busted her checking him out anyway and clearly hadn’t felt the need to come over just to be polite.
She told herself that was a good thing, but it was a big fat lie.
Before last night, he would have come over. They’d been well on the way to becoming friends before they’d torn each other’s clothes off.
“You can relax now,” Eva told her. “No need to wrestle with your unprofessional lust anymore.”
Sierra gave her a look.
“Hey, I completely understand where you’re coming from,” Eva said. “He’s a hottie, just like you said. I give him a solid nine.”
“Nine? Are you blind? The man is clearly a seventeen. Maybe an eighteen.” Sierra clenched her jaw but it was too late, she’d already given herself away.
“Gotcha.” Eva laughed. “You are so into him, Sierra, it’s not funny. I’ve never seen you like this around a guy. Remind me again why it would be so bad if you had your wicked way with him.”
“Because he’s my boss. That’s about one hundred reasons under one heading.” She craned her neck. “Why’s our food taking so long, anyway? The kitchen is really slow tonight.”
She could feel Eva studying her and was powerless to stop the tide of heat creeping up her chest and into her face.
“Oh my god,” Eva said. “You totally did him, didn’t you?” Delight sparkled in her blue eyes.
Sierra opened her mouth to deny it, but Eva beat her to it. “Before you say anything, you need to know that you’re a terrible, terrible liar. All Carmodys are. It’s your family’s weakness.”
Sierra stared at the woman who had started out as her brother’s girlfriend and had quickly become one of her closest friends.
“I don’t want to talk about it yet,” she said.
Eva’s face went from amused to concerned in a heartbeat. “Why? Did something bad happen?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me the sex was terrible?”
“The sex was fine. But it was awkward afterward, and I’m pissed with myself for not having enough willpower or common sense to keep my hands off him.”
“Only fine?” Eva gave an annoyed little huff. “Major disappointment, especially after seeing him in person. Talk about false advertising.”
“That’s the part you want to focus on, of all the things I just said?” Sierra asked.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not happy about the morning-after awkwardness and your guilt, but I was really hoping you were in for a wild ride with a hottie. Every woman deserves a wild ride with a hottie on a regular basis.”
Sierra toyed with the serviette dispenser and told herself it didn’t matter that Eva had the wrong end of the stick regarding the quality of her indiscretion with Garret. There was absolutely no onus on her to correct her friend. The fact that the sex had been off-the-charts good was irrelevant. Immaterial. And it wasn’t as though word was going to get back to Garret that she’d given him a C+ in the bedroom department.
“I guess you just can’t tell, can you?” Eva mused. “I mean, the flirt factor can be awesome with some dudes, and then the buzz just isn’t there when you get your clothes off. But at least you know now, though, right? You won’t be tempted to go there again when you know it’s just going to leave you yawning.”
There was a devilish glint in Eva’s eyes and Sierra’s mouth twisted into a reluctant smile.
“You are such a smart-ass.”
“I told you Carmodys are terrible liars. It was amazing, wasn’t it?” Eva asked, one elbow on the table as she rested her chin in her hand.
“He totally blew my mind,” Sierra admitted.
Eva clapped her hands together in triumph. “Yessss! That’s what I like to hear.”
“It doesn’t matter if it was good or bad,” Sierra said. “The important part is that it was freaking dumb. This is my first ever professional piloting gig and I couldn’t even last a week before jumping my boss. Jack would be so pissed with me if he found out.”
The smile faded from Eva’s lips as she scanned Sierra’s face. She reached out to take Sierra’s hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to joke around when you were hurting.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yeah, I do. I was teasing you but you’re really upset about this, aren’t you?” Her face was creased with worry and sympathy.
“I just don’t understand why I was so self-destructive,” Sierra said quietly. “I don’t normally do dumb stuff. Well, not when I know going in that it’s dumb. Usually the dumb realization doesn’t come until later. But this time, it was there in hot-pink neon and I just did it anyway.”
“There’s a reason the human species has managed to survive for centuries,” Eva said. “Men and women like sex. It feels good. And sometimes you meet someone you just know it’s going to be amazing with, for whatever reason, and the primitive monkey part of your brain takes over. Pink neon signs don’t work against monkey brain.”
“I can’t afford to let my monkey brain take over. And neither can Garret. His whole life just imploded. I can’t even begin to tell you how much he’s got on his shoulders right now. So much pressure, and it’s only going to get worse.”
“Worse how?” Eva asked, head tilted.
Sierra shook her head. “It’s business stuff.” And potentially legal stuff, but she was hardly going to say that. Everything Garret had shared with her about Tate Transport was in the vault, under lock and key. “He’s working around the clock, juggling a million things. I need to be the easy part of his life right now, not another problem.”
“What about your feelings? What about what you want?” Eva asked.
Their food arrived then and Sierra busied herself squirting ketchup on her fries and sucking the froth off her milkshake, hoping Eva would take the hint and drop the subject because she honestly had no idea what she wanted right now.
Once the waitress had moved off, Eva gave her a sympathetic look.
“I won’t keep pushing, but I’m just going to point out—again—that you sound very concerned about the feelings of this guy you just happened to have crazy-good sex with. And that’s okay, sweetie. You’re allowed to have feelings for the sex god hottie that you really like. That’s kind of the way it’s supposed to work.”
Sierra sighed. There was no way of explaining how not-on-the-market Garret was for anything romantic without explaining everything.
“Trust me, there is no future with this man. Not right now, anyway.”
Eva fell silent, and Sierra guessed her friend was biting her tongue, trying to honor her promise not to push. Sierra racked her brain for a change of subject then gasped as she remembered the very juicy news she had to report. “I keep forgetting to tell you. You know how I’m always trying to get Jed to let me set him up with one of my friends?”
“Yeah.”
“He finally said yes.”
Eva’s eyes widened. Then she put down her hamburger, a sure sign she was shook—generally speaking, no one got between Eva and food.
“Shut the front door,” Eva said. “Are you dicking with me?”
“No dicks were harm
ed during the making of this news item.”
“Were you holding a gun to his head?”
“Nope. In fact, he kind of asked me to do it,” Sierra said.
“Oh my god. This is because this Mae woman he used to see is getting married, isn’t it?” Eva said.
Sierra nodded. Even though it made her sad to have confirmation that Jed had been pining after his first love all these years.
“She’s finally out of reach. I think maybe it’s really hit home for him now.”
They were both silent for a beat. Then Eva sat up straighter, a determined light coming into her eyes.
“So our mission is clear, then,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Operation Hookup is officially launched. We need to find Jed a woman who can make him fall in love again.”
“No, we need to find a woman who can make him fall out of love with Mae, and in love with her,” Sierra corrected.
“So, what are our options? Who is on the table?” Eva asked, all business.
“I’ve narrowed it down to Carrie Hunter, my friend Ashley, and Jane Bianco.”
Eva frowned. “Jane is the short one with the dark hair, right? Kind of serious and quiet?”
Sierra nodded. “She’s really sweet and super smart.”
“Hmm. I don’t know. Jed’s on the quiet side. Until he gets comfortable, anyway.”
“Sure, but he can handle himself. He doesn’t clam up like Casey can sometimes.”
“I just think he might need someone who will make a real impact, to give him a kind of cosmic jolt. You know?” Eva said.
Sierra understood where she was coming from. She ate a couple of fries, pondering. “Okay. So Ashley, then?”
“She’s the one who dances on the bar sometimes when the Shots have gigs at Grey’s, yeah?” Eva asked, her tone doubtful.
“Too much impact?” Sierra asked.
“Didn’t she also have a huge crush on Casey?”
Sierra pulled a face. “That was mostly just a running-joke type thing. I think.”
“Let’s come at this from a different angle. What was Mae like?” Eva asked.
Sierra frowned, casting her mind back. Jed and Mae had fallen for each other in high school and had gone off to college together, living off-campus in an apartment. Through those years Mae had become a mainstay at the Carmody house, practically a member of the family.
“She’s really smart. I think she was even valedictorian for their year, but don’t quote me on that. She was a bit goofy and nerdy. Loved Star Trek and Star Wars, and I remember she was obsessed with the Lord of the Rings movies and Jed used to tease her by calling them ‘Bored of the Rings.’ But he went with her to see all of them, because he knew she loved them. I think he even read the books for her.”
Eva’s gaze softened. “Aww. They sound so cute.”
“They were. She grew up on a ranch, too, so she knew how to work hard. She and Jed had all these plans to start up their own place and specialize in niche horse and cattle breeds. Kind of a boutique operation, I guess. Jed was studying animal husbandry and she was studying business, and they used to joke that together they were undefeatable. It was true too. They filled in each other’s gaps. She was smart and analytical, and he was practical and down to earth. And they were awesome at making each other laugh, even if the rest of us sometimes didn’t get the joke.”
Sierra fell silent as sadness washed over her. Jed had cut Mae loose when their parents died, refusing to let her give up her dreams and ambitions just because his life had gone up in flames.
“She sounds awesome,” Eva said solemnly.
“She was. We were so messed up after the accident, I don’t think it really registered that we’d lost her too. Not until later, when I realized how much Jed had changed, how much he’d given up.”
“Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but he feels . . . lighter lately,” Eva said.
“Yeah. Hashing things out with Jesse took a weight off, I think. And letting us all take on some of the management burden of the ranch. There’s no reason in the world for Jed to carry it all on his own, and I think he’s starting to see that now.”
Eva demolished what was left of her hamburger, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I have a feeling this isn’t going to be as easy as it first sounded,” she finally said.
Sierra sighed. “I know. I was so excited when he said yes, but then I started thinking about who I should set him up with and freaked out.”
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
“Did you just quote Spider-Man to me?” Sierra raised her eyebrows.
“I did. You got a problem with that?” Eva asked with a grin.
“Yeah. Next time make it Wonder Woman.”
Eva laughed. Then she reached out to catch Sierra’s hand. “That was some high-level distraction bait you just threw me with the whole Jed-dating situation, but I want you to know that if you need or want to talk about Garret, I’m your girl. Okay?”
“Okay,” Sierra said, returning Eva’s hand-squeeze.
She didn’t bother saying that she really hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. She figured she’d made that plenty clear enough already.
Now she just had to make it reality.
*
Garret spent the weekend trawling through Ron’s and his father’s email archives, looking for any emails that rang alarm bells. There was nothing overtly shady—kudos to his father and Ron for not being that obvious—but by Sunday evening he’d flagged a series of opaquely worded exchanges that needed a closer look. The next step was to create a spreadsheet detailing client names and dates so he could pass the information on to Mae, but that was a task that was going to have to wait for tomorrow because he was heartily sick of thinking about Tate Transport.
Because it had worked so well last time, he took the Ducati for a spin to clear his mind. It did the trick, except that the moment he stopped thinking about work, Sierra slipped into his thoughts to take its place.
He was going to see her again tomorrow and he needed to put some strategies in place so he could do better where she was concerned, like avoiding overnighters in Helena unless they were absolutely necessary.
The less time the two of them spent under one roof, the better, because willpower alone was clearly not enough to keep him in check. A galling and humbling admission.
To think he’d once judged his father for not having any self-control when it came to women. Obviously, Garret’s situation was different, in that he didn’t have a wife and child at home, but that didn’t mean he had a free pass.
Having a plan in place helped him feel more relaxed as he left the house at seven the next morning. As usual, Sierra was busy preparing the Bell for takeoff when he arrived at the helipad. She had her sunglasses hanging by an arm in the open neck of her polo shirt, and while she offered him a friendly smile as he approached, he detected a certain measure of wariness too.
Not surprising, given how douchey he’d been last time they’d spoken.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning.”
She looked good—bright-eyed, shiny dark hair pulled up in her usual high ponytail, legs going on forever in her neatly pressed chinos. When she turned to open the door to the passenger cabin for him he remembered the way she’d locked her ankles behind his back as he’d carried her to his bedroom that first time.
Not helpful, thanks.
He batted the memory away and climbed into the helicopter. Minutes later they were rising into the sky, the now-familiar whop-whop of the rotor blades made bearable by his headset.
He spent the flight compiling the data from his email trawl into a spreadsheet for Mae. There were more than twenty entries, referencing ten companies. Three of those were from what he considered their core client base—the big hitters who kept the lights on at Tate Transport.
He really, really hoped that most of the emails he’d flagged were innocuous. Because if they weren’t . . .
But there was no po
int borrowing trouble. Not when it was headed his way, anyway.
The wind came up when they were twenty minutes out of Helena, and his headset came to life as Sierra checked to make sure he was still buckled in before warning him there would be some turbulence. She sounded so calm and matter-of-fact that it didn’t occur to him to be worried until they’d battled their way through nausea-inducing winds to land at the airport.
Some instinct made him glance at the mirror as the sound of the rotors died and he saw the relief on Sierra’s face that they were safely down. By the time she’d exited the cockpit to come let him out, however, her professional mask was back in place.
“Hope that wasn’t too rough for you,” she said as he climbed out of the Bell.
“Let’s just say it made me appreciate the smooth runs we’ve been having.”
“Should be okay this evening. I checked the forecast this morning, and they’re predicting these winds will die down after midday,” she said.
“Something to look forward to. I’ll see you this afternoon,” he said.
She nodded, and he had to fight the deeply inappropriate urge to rest a hand on her shoulder, just to touch her and convey his faith in her.
Instead, he headed for his father’s Lincoln.
He sent his spreadsheet off to Mae the moment he hit the office, then got lost in the myriad moving parts that made up Tate Transport. It was midafternoon when it hit him that if it hadn’t been for the background buzz of anxiety over what Mae might find, he might be in danger of actually enjoying the breakneck pace of it all. He wasn’t sure if that made him a glutton for punishment or an adrenaline junkie.
Maybe a bit of both.
It was nearly six when he left the building and made the short run out to the airport. Sierra was exiting the hangar as he pulled into his parking spot, pulling her ball cap down over her forehead. Safely hidden in the privacy of the car, he allowed himself a small moment of indulgence as he watched her walk to the Bell.
More Than a Cowboy (The Carmody Brothers Book 3) Page 14