by Erin Wright
Troy’s belly laugh only grew in volume when Jennifer’s voice chimed in behind them. She’d apparently come through the front door and had overheard their topic of discussion. “I’d take offense to that,” Jenn said dryly, shifting Flint from one hip to the other without missing a beat, “except truth be told, I think Stets would divorce me within a week if he had to eat my cooking day in and day out. Not after he’s been spoiled all these years by Carma. And anyway, between Flint and then the accounting firm I’m running with Bonnie, I just don’t have time to cook three square meals a day.”
“See?” Carma said dismissively. “Someone else will have to open a Mexican restaurant in town someday. This gives me the time to spend with my darling grandson.” She held her arms out for Flint, who immediately lunged for his adopted grandmother, grubby fist waving in the air as he squealed with delight. Even though he only appeared to be a year old or so, Flint already knew which side his homemade bread was buttered on.
“Are you sure?” Jenn asked, eyebrows wrinkled with concern even as she handed the baby over. “It’s a lot of work to put on a spread for so many people…”
“I am sure,” Carma said firmly. “My boy and I will work together to make mole con pollo that will set everyone’s taste buds dancing with delight.” Troy bit back the smile that threatened to break out at that thought. The only thing Flint looked capable of helping with was producing more drool, but the matter was already settled. Carma had spoken, and so it’d be done.
“Now, you boys go and get the tables from the back of Stetson’s truck and set them up in rows out back,” Carma ordered them. “Jennifer, you can go help Abby with whatever she needs. We will be in here, getting things ready.”
Troy and Stetson headed back out into the bright June sunshine, Jennifer trailing along behind them. “I noticed you didn’t volunteer to learn how to cook,” Jennifer said with a nudge to her husband’s side. “You could cook dinner just as well as I could, you know.”
Stetson turned back to his gorgeous wife with a snort of laughter. “You know I’ve never cooked a thing in my life. Carma always said that she would take care of it all, and you know how territorial she is about her kitchen. I’m not even sure I could boil water without burning the house down. Besides…” And then he was murmuring something in Jenn’s ear and she was blushing and pushing at him even as she was raising her face to him to be kissed.
Rolling his eyes at the two of them, Troy hurried to the back of Stetson’s truck to begin unloading the tables. He didn’t need to watch the two of them mack on each other. Hell, at the rate they were going, there was gonna be a Flint Jr in nine months if they didn’t knock it off.
Just then, a car pulled up, Declan piling out and hurrying around to help his wife out of the passenger seat. Iris had been in a car wreck a while back and her mobility issues meant she preferred to get in and out of cars instead of trucks. It still struck Troy a little weird to see a farmer get in and out of a car instead of a truck, but it also spoke to Declan’s love for Iris. Troy knew he couldn’t imagine driving around town in a four-door sedan, for hell’s sakes. At the intersections, he’d feel like a midget next to everyone else, sitting that low to the ground, not to mention that if he needed to get pert near anything done, he’d have to switch vehicles to do it.
Honestly, all three Miller boys…when they fell, they fell hard.
Iris straightened up, her hand on the hood of the car, and smiled up at Declan. “Thanks, dear,” she said softly, lifting her mouth up for a kiss, a kiss that quickly became almost as involved as the kiss that Stetson had just been laying on his wife.
Huh. Watching the two of them, Troy immediately revised his stance on vehicle choices. Maybe if the reward was a kiss like that, it wouldn’t be so bad to drive a little car around after all, at least part of the time.
After what seemed like forever, the two broke apart, and Declan began escorting his bride into the house, treating her as delicately as a piece of blown glass. They’d just gotten married last month, and based on the way they acted around each other, the honeymoon wasn’t anywhere close to being over.
“I can walk on my own, you know,” Iris said scoldingly, but there was no heat to her words.
“But then what excuse would I have to leave my worthless younger brother and Troy to unload all of the tables and chairs without me?” Declan protested. He winked at Troy as they went past, and Troy grinned back. “It’s about time Stetson shared Carma with the rest of us. I haven’t had one of her handmade tortillas in so long, I’ve almost forgotten what they tasted like.”
“I’ve been trying to talk Carmelita into starting a restaurant in town,” Stetson said, holding the front door open for the pair to pass through. “That way, I’d be sharing her with the whole town. That’s the kind of sweet guy I am. But Carmelita keeps giving me some line of bull…puckey,” he stumbled over the words, barely saving himself from swearing just in time, “about her being too old to run a restaurant.”
Troy raised an eyebrow at that. Was “bull-puckey” for Iris’ sake? His wife’s sake? Carmelita’s sake?
He didn’t have long to wonder.
“I heard that, Stetson.” Carma’s voice drifted out on the still summer air. “You must not use such language around ladies. Now, Iris, you come in here and I will have you peel some apples for me.”
Iris and Declan disappeared into the cool of the house, and Stetson closed the door behind them with a guilty grimace on his face. “She has some scary-ass hearing skills,” he muttered under his breath and then quickly glanced back at the closed front door, as if expecting to get scolded by Carma for saying that. Apparently, her hearing was only so good, though, because the closed door stayed silent.
Jennifer, Stetson, and Troy headed to the bed of Stetson’s truck for another round of hauling. “Carmelita lets Iris help in the kitchen,” Jennifer said, just a touch of disgruntlement in her voice as she tugged two folding chairs out to carry.
“That’s because Iris can’t help otherwise,” Stetson said softly, “and Carmelita knows it. She is letting Iris into her domain so she has something she can do.”
“Yeah,” Jennifer said, the frustration in her voice melting away, “you’re right. I’d rather never step foot inside of a kitchen again, than be forced to walk with a cane or with the help of another for the rest of my life. I really need to stop my whining.”
Declan came back out just then. “What, still a whole bed full of tables and chairs to unload?” he asked, heckling his younger brother. “First I arrived late and then I took my sweet time escorting Iris inside, and there’s still work to be done? Hell, why do I even keep you around?”
“Because of my charming good looks, of course,” Stetson said with a huge grin. “Plus, I come equipped with a beautiful wife, an adorable son, and the world’s most amazing housekeeper. You can’t keep them without keeping me, too.”
“Dammit, I hate it when you talk sense like that,” Declan said, popping a kiss of hello onto Jenn’s cheek. “Now, are you ready to actually get some work done?”
As they all went back to work, carrying the tables and chairs around to the backyard, Troy listened to the two younger Miller brothers flip shit at each other incessantly. Like every male under the age of 102, they were big believers in the, “If I tease you, then I like you – you should only start to worry if I’m nice to you,” school of thought.
Based on the amount of ribbing they were doing, Troy was pretty sure they’d lay down their lives for each other.
Troy couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face as he listened to Stetson heckle Declan about the spare tire he was starting to carry around the middle – total bullshit, of course, since Declan’s stomach was just as flat as Stetson’s. The Miller boys worked as hard as they loved, and fat just didn’t dare settle onto them. Declan dished it right back, pretending to squeeze a love handle on Stetson’s side and telling him that Carma must be fattening him up for the coming winter.
As much as Stetson and Declan teased each other, though – with Jennifer throwing the occasional jab in because, as she put it, she was the woman in the room and had to keep the two knuckleheads in line – they were content to work with Troy in a companionable silence. There was no pressure to talk; no questions; no “I’m just teasing” mean-spirited jabs because he wasn’t chatting up a storm like the rest of them.
He couldn’t help but wonder where else he’d find such a great group of friends; people who accepted him as he was. If he moved somewhere else, he’d have to start all over again, and who was to say he’d be as lucky the second time?
No doubt about it – he belonged in Sawyer. He’d known that for years, of course, but today was a hell of a good reminder of that reality.
But all of this just made him think of the one person he knew who didn’t feel like Long Valley was their home – Penny. Not only did she feel like Long Valley wasn’t her home, she wanted nothing more in life than to get the hell out of there. But she didn’t know the Miller boys and by extension, the McLain sisters; Abby and her dad; or the adopted members of the family like Juan and Carmelita.
Troy stopped and quietly observed this branch of the Miller clan for a moment.
First, there was tiny Jennifer – Carmelita and baby Flint were the only ones in the whole group who were shorter than her, and that included Juan – kissing Stetson on his cheek by raising up on her tippy toes while telling him in a syrupy, gushing voice that he was such a “big, strong man” for doing all of this work today. Happily showing off for his petite wife, the cowboy poised for her in the typical bodybuilder style, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he curled his biceps.
Declan, not to be outdone, was pretending to feel Stetson’s biceps to test his muscle power and then shaking his head in mock disappointment at their puny size…even though Stetson looked like he could bench-press a steer just for fun.
Yeah, they’re definitely brothers.
And then he mentally dropped Penny in among the middle of them, and knew she’d be laughing and chatting as she gave as good as she got. If Penny had been here today, she would’ve enjoyed the hell out of this, and not just because of the excellent Mexican food they were all about to eat, but because she’d fit in here. He was sure of it. She just had to realize that she could be happy here.
Welp, tonight was the night where he tried to prove that to her. He’d arranged it all already – after he finished helping with this move, he’d go home, clean up, head to Penny’s, and do his best to sweep her off her feet. He was gonna follow a suggestion of Declan’s, actually, who’d said that this particular date idea had worked wonders on Iris.
Just then, he felt the cold, wet nose of Sparky nudging the palm of his hand and startled, he looked down. She’d been waiting ever-so-patiently for all of the hubbub to die down before coming off the front porch, where she’d been quietly hanging out. She must’ve taken him just standing there as her cue that they were done, and now it was time to feed her some of that chicken she could smell drifting on the breeze. Even as he shook his head at her looking so forlornly up at him, her brown eyes liquid with desire for some of that Mexican food, he knew it was his fault for turning her into a beggar. She did eat her dog food, but only after eating all of the human food she could lay her paws on. Why eat dry dog food when there was meat to be eaten instead? She was no dummy.
He scratched her behind the ears and she happily wagged her tail, her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth. She looked as happy and well-adjusted as any dog; the truth only came out when someone tried to push her boundaries by being too close to her when she hadn’t given them permission to do so.
Oh.
Oh.
He could almost feel the light bulb pop on overhead.
As he stared sightlessly down at her, his fingers petting her even as his mind went a million miles an hour, he realized why it was that Sparky had accepted him from moment one of meeting him. Michelle, the local dog catcher, had even said it that day in the fire station – statistically, it was much more likely that an animal abuser was a male, not a female, so Sparky’s instant acceptance of him had shocked everyone, even him. He was no dog whisperer. It was only Sparky that’d had this instant connection with him; this sure didn’t happen with every dog he met.
But in that moment, staring down at her in the bright sunshine, pink tongue hanging out as she waited for him to lead them on to their next adventure, he saw himself in her. She was skittish around people, not sure who she could trust. She chose her companions carefully. Once she accepted someone, she loved them for life, but she trusted few at the outset. She’d been hurt – deeply hurt. To most, she was scarred, unusual, not like every other dog out there, but to Troy, that’s what made her perfect. Her life experiences made her wary, but she’d known from the get-go that Troy knew what it was like to be hurt. She’d known from the get-go that Troy could be trusted.
Just like he’d felt around Penny. That night in the fire station, when Penny came over to interview Moose and Georgia but ended up interviewing him instead, he’d felt like a 2x4 had walloped him upside the head, sure. He’d felt a bolt of lust straight to his dick like he’d never felt before, sure. But there was something else – something deeper. It was ridiculous for him to feel this way – they’d only gone on one date. They’d only kissed one time. He knew almost nothing about her – was she a morning person? Or a night owl? Was she allergic to cottonwood trees? What were her thoughts on the politics of today’s world?
But on another level, he knew her. He knew she’d be happy here…if she just let herself be.
It was up to him to show her how.
Chapter 12
Penny
Penny slid onto the cool, soft leather seat as Troy closed the truck door behind her and hurried around to the driver’s side. He looked damn handsome tonight in his button-up shirt – no tie – and freshly washed dark blue Wranglers that did amazing things to his ass. Not that his ass needed any help looking amazing, but it apparently took the help when it was offered anyway.
He slid into the driver’s seat and flashed her…a nervous grin? Was the stoic, quiet, unflappable Troy Horvath actually nervous?
That’s it, I’m officially seeing things.
He put the truck into reverse and slung his right arm over the back of her seat as he backed the truck out onto the street. She cast around for something to say, and then remembered her line of questioning from the other night that she hadn’t been able to pursue.
“This is a really nice truck,” she said admiringly, and she meant it. She wasn’t normally one for large trucks – she liked the gas mileage and maneuverability of her Civic – but this was a vehicle that fit Troy. She tried to imagine Troy cramming himself in behind the wheel of her car and almost snorted with laughter at the image. There was just no way his lanky, long, lean body would fit. “What brand is it?”
Troy shot her a laughing look. It was obvious he was surprised she hadn’t been able to tell by the emblem in the grille. She mentally shrugged. All big trucks were just, well, big trucks. “Chevy,” he told her. “A Silverado 3500 HD. 2017.”
She nodded seriously, as if that all meant something to her. 2017…she was fairly sure that was what year the truck was made. And Silverado was the model? Maybe?
But…3500? 3500 of what? 3500 volts of electricity? 3500 pounds of strength? 3500 tiny squirrels running under the hood? 3500 people had a hand in making it? And what did HD stand for?
“You have no idea what that means, do you,” he said dryly.
“Not a clue,” she admitted easily. “I’m guessing Silverado is the model type, right?” He nodded, and emboldened, she continued. “I’m guessing it was built in 2017.”
He laughed for just a second at that and then nodded again. “That’s correct,” he said, with only a small smidgen of sarcasm in his voice.
I guess I deserved that…
“I’m lost on the 3500, though,” she admitted. “
3500 what? 3500 running tigers, pulling your truck down the road?”
He laughed much, much harder at that one. “City girl,” he finally said teasingly after he wiped the tears away. “No, 3500 is the size. They simply picked that number.” He shrugged.
“So it isn’t even 3500 horsepower?” she asked. That was kinda what she thought it stood for, if she was going to be serious for a moment.
“Good Lord, no,” he said, and laughed again. “That’s the kind of horsepower a train engine would have. No truck can pull like that.”
“Does it weigh 3500 pounds?” she asked. There seriously had to be some sort of reason for this number.
“Nope, it’s a one-ton truck, so two thousand pounds. There’s really no meaning to the 3500, I promise.”
She screwed up her mouth at that one. She hated it when things didn’t make logical sense. “All right,” she said with a sigh, her voice clearly showing how put-upon she was.
But, Chevy’s insane naming scheme aside, she noted that he was no longer stiff beside her, looking as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
She would count that as a win.
“Thank you for the chocolates and flowers, by the way,” she said, wanting to keep the conversation going before he could get nervous and clam up again. If she got him talking, maybe he’d forget that he hated it. “The chocolates were divine, and the flowers…I can’t stop smiling, every time I look at them. Do you know the turquoise lady?” she asked.