Chapter Nineteen
Pete
Monday
Early morning found me on the porch, waiting for Emma to arrive. Lacey got there first, which didn’t happen often. She walked over to join me on the porch, her cowboy low on her head.
“Morning,” she grumbled. She got up early in order to put in a full day’s work, but she’d never been a morning person.
“Howdy, Lace.”
She sank into her seat. “You and Emma seem to be getting along well.”
She didn’t waste time getting around to what was on her mind if she had something to tell you. It was one of the best things about her. And, one of the worst.
“I reckon we are.” I couldn’t have been happier with the way things had gone over the last two weeks. Emma and I had gone to breakfast every morning, always sitting with the old timers and playing the numbers game. We went out a few nights a week, too. She wouldn’t come inside on work nights, but that didn’t stop me from kissing her as deeply as I could before she drove off in the direction of her little house a few miles away.
“I like seeing you happy like this,” Lacey said. “Even if it does mean putting up with you grinning like a moron all day every day.”
I chuckled at that, grinning like the moron she’d just called me.
“Has Emma brought me up much?”
I looked over at her. The sun wasn’t due to come up for a good hour, but there was enough light to see how serious she was, her brown eyes fixed on my blue ones and lips pressed nearly flat. She’d taken her hat off and set it on the floor next to old Riley. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight braid to keep it out of her face.
“She mentions how easy the two of you work together, if that’s what you mean,” I said.
“It isn’t.” She narrowed her eyes the way she did when I got to acting thick. “Has she brought up how strange it is that I’m always around?”
I frowned, my eyebrows trying hard to meet each other above my nose. “What?”
“Goddamn it, Pete,” she said, exasperated. “Has she questioned why we’re so close to each other?”
“Why would she do that?”
Lacey’s face tightened, and she looked even more disappointed in me. “She will at some point. It’ll become an issue.”
“I don’t see why that has to be.”
“She’s your new girlfriend, and here I am, hanging around the ranch and just a little too close to you. I just want to make sure you’re sensitive to how much that’s going to bother Emma in the very near future.” Her face relaxed a little, but she didn’t get any less serious. “Not that I blame her. Things between us are confusing to outsiders. Shit, even people we’ve known for years.”
I shook my head as I sat back in my seat. “Emma ain’t like that. She likes you and knows you’re like a sister to me.”
“I hope that’s true, Pete. I really do.” She swung her head around to meet my eyes again. “But I doubt it.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. If Lacey said it would be a problem, I was inclined to believe her. I didn’t know shit about women, really. Mama died before I could really pay attention to how she took things, and the handful of girlfriends I had in high school and after hadn’t stuck around long enough to let me even begin to solve the puzzles they were to me.
Emma was completely different from anyone I’d ever met, man or woman. She was letting me in a little at a time, but there was still so much about her I didn’t know. I wanted her in my life — but I wanted Lacey in it, too. It hadn’t occurred to me that this might not be realistic. I didn’t like the thought of losing one of them, especially considering they were no threat to each other.
Emma’s little blue car pulled off of the main road and drove up the driveway, her lights cutting a path in the dirt ahead of her. I got up to meet her.
“Morning,” she said, smiling as she climbed out of her car. She had on her regular outfit — jeans, cotton short-sleeved shirt, and dusty old boots — but, damn, did she make it look good.
“Morning.” I was grinning like the happy fool Lacey’d just called me. “I came to escort you to the barn, Ms. Flowers.”
She swung her car door shut, and we walked side by side to the barn. I wanted to take her hand, but she’d made it clear that work was work and we needed to keep things professional between us. No kissing, hugging, puppy eyes, or hand holding during work hours. But I could do what I wanted afterward. Or at least, as much as she’d let me.
I slid open the barn door and stepped back to let her go in first. The horses stuck their heads out of their stalls, eager to get Emma’s attention. The damned things loved her more than they did me, and I’d been around some of them for years. She reached to scratch the Appaloosa behind her ears. The horse whinnied softly, pleased with the attention.
I watched her murmuring to Dusty, unable to wipe the smile from my face that seemed permanently planted there since our barbecue and steamy night on the barn roof. Looking at her made it difficult to keep my hands off her. But she’d taken to sticking around after our working hours were done and having dinner with me. On some nights she went straight back to her little house after. On others, we took a little roll in the hay before she drove off for the evening.
“You like Lacey, right?” I asked, blurting the words out before I thought about how they might sound.
She looked at me, her dark eyebrows scrunched up. She’d moved on to Elroy, rubbing him gently between his black eyes. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
I wanted to just come right out with all the things Lace had said a few minutes ago, about Emma eventually getting suspicious and jealous of her. But I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to stir up trouble where there wasn’t any. If she didn’t see Lacey as a threat to our relationship, the last thing I wanted to do was give her the idea that she should be worried about how close I was to another woman.
It was weird even thinking this way. I didn’t see Lacey as another woman. She was my best friend. My sister. I knew she felt the same way about me. I wasn’t a man to her. Not really. I was a brother and a friend.
I shrugged, forcing a wider smile. “No reason. Just making sure y’all were getting along.”
“Did Lacey say we weren’t?” Now she looked concerned, the worry tightening her face. Shit.
“No, she likes you and can’t believe we ever ran the ranch without you.” All that was true. Lacey regularly praised Emma, which was why she hadn’t wanted me to get involved with her. She was sure I was going to do something to mess shit up. In her defense, I’d messed up just about every relationship I’d ever had for plenty of different reasons. But none of those girls had been integral to the running of the ranch, so Lacey hadn’t cared one way or the other.
“Is she worried about me dating you?” Emma asked. She’d moved on to the pinto we called Lucy, stroking her neck.
“Well…” I let my voice trail off. In a way, she was. But not the way Emma was thinking.
She gave me a small smile, and it took all I had not to jump over to her and press my lips onto that sexy grin. “Tell her I won’t break your heart.”
I had to grin at that. “Break away. I can take it.”
She giggled and shook her head.
“What are you doing this weekend?” I asked.
She pulled her long ponytail over her shoulder and tugged at the auburn end of it, which I was learning was her way when thinking. “Nothing, I don’t think. Why?” She grinned up at me, her green eyes glimmering with a playful light that made me want to kiss her again. Hell, just about everything made me want to kiss her.
“The rodeo’s this weekend in Austin. We go every year. Lacey competes and usually wins something or other. It’s a good way to get our horses seen and sold.” I pressed my lips together as I watched her and stuffed my hands in my pockets to keep them to myself. “Would you like to come with me?”
“Sure,” she said. “I’d love to see our horses in action. Lacey spends so much time training them. I want to see what they can do.”
A smile broke over my face, much wider than before. “We’re leaving early on Saturday morning and staying in a hotel overnight. We could go out after the rodeo and have a little fun.”
“I haven’t been out much since college.” She swallowed a bit of her smile, leaving her lips curled up at the ends in a secretive way. “I really didn’t go out much then, either, but Kasey works at a popular bar on Sixth Street. We can stop by there. I’d love for you to meet her. And, boy, is she itching to meet you.”
“That sounds like a plan,” I said.
She nodded once. “Yes, it does. Now, scoot so I can get my work done.”
“I could stand here all day just talking your ear off and staring at you.”
“That’s just what I’m afraid of!” she said, laughing as she pushed me back a little, trying to shoo me.
We were supposed to be hands off during the day, but she’d started it. So, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her in for a quick smack on the lips.
“Pete!” she whispered, green eyes wide.
“It’s just us and the horses,” I said with a shrug.
She gave me a stern look, but her lips were twitching at the corners and trying hard to smile. I took that as my cue to leave, holding back my giggles until I was well clear of the barn.