Alyssa carried dishes to the sink to rinse before putting them in the dishwasher. Chase and Cade were covering the leftover food to put in the fridge. She finished loading what she had and turned to go get more, only to find a wall of twins between her and the table. They both had identical smirks on their faces.

“What are you doing?”

“You can’t hide it from us,” Cade said.

“We’ve got you figured out,” Chase said at the same time.

“What do you two smarty pants think you have figured out?”

Cade pointed at her. “You had sex with our brother.”

Chase nodded. “Yeah, it’s written all over your face. And his.”

“You guys have extremely vivid imaginations,” she said primly.

“Nope, not really. But we do have eyes in our heads and you two were making mushy faces at each other most of the meal.” Chase gave her the sappiest smile she’d ever seen.

She laughed. “I think not. We did not have that stupid expression on our faces.”

Cade elbowed Chase. “Maybe not, he looks like an idiot. But you’re not getting off the hook that easily. Admit it, you had sex with Beau.”

“I admit nothing. Now, let’s get this dinner cleaned up. I’ve got things to do.”

“Like play kissy face with Beau?” Cade chided.

She rolled her eyes at them. “No. Like emailing my family so they don’t panic when they can’t get in touch with me.”

Their humor dropped immediately. Chase nodded. “Oh, yeah, we don’t want your father sending out an all-points bulletin.”

“No, we don’t.”

“But, we still aren’t buying your Little Miss Innocent act one bit.” Cade pointed at her.

She raised an eyebrow. “I never once said I was innocent.”

They barked out a laugh and she gave them a sly smile.

They quickly finished the cleanup and Alyssa went to her room to fire up her laptop—because if she didn’t let her dad know soon about her broken phone, he would panic, no doubt. As she booted it up she wondered how long Beau was going to be in the barn and if he would come to her after, or if she could sneak down to his room. She wished her phone wasn’t broken so she could send him a provocative text or two.

But first, she had to reassure the parental unit and while she was at it she might as well include the whole family and Rachel. She typed up a breezy email about how a heifer had head butted her for helping with a birth and her phone had gone flying. She conveniently did not mention that she was alone in a blizzard at the time. Although she did tell them about a sudden storm sweeping in that had not been on the radar at all. She told them she was going into town tomorrow to get a new phone and she would text them when she was up and running again.

She heard back from all of them with cute notes and news about their day. Except from her step-mother, Ellen, and her best friend Rachel—they both knew her too well. They promised not to tell anyone else, but asked what had happened in the blizzard. She gave them a bit more information, but still not the whole story. Each one said they would let it go for now, but she was spilling when she next saw them. She laughed and warmed at the thought of people loving her and knowing her well enough to notice when she was hedging. She guessed her father might also not quite believe her, but he knew he could get it out of Ellen if he was worried. And Alyssa was okay with that.

* * *

Beau checked all the cattle and calves. They were doing fine. There were hired hands in the barn to make sure nothing was needed in the night. He went into Dolly’s stall and realized her leg was pretty much completely healed and she could go out into the pasture with no problems. But she seemed perfectly happy in her stall and was glad to see him, so he decided she could stay inside until it got a little warmer out, or they needed the stall for another animal. He spent some time with her giving her a rubdown and some extra attention. He knew it was kind of silly for a cattle rancher to have a cow as a pet, but he didn’t really care. He’d raised her, nursed her, and tended to her wounds. She liked his company and he liked hers.

After spending some time with Dolly, he worked on the birthing records for a bit and got those up to date. They would still need to go out and find the transposed calf and get his tag fixed up—but that was a job for daylight hours. He didn’t have anything else to do and finally realized he was stalling, so he didn’t have to go to the house. Because where he wanted to go was Alyssa’s room, but where he should go was his own.

He didn’t know if Alyssa would want him to come to her room, or if she was glad to be rid of him. But what if she did want him to come and he didn’t? Would that hurt her feelings? Maybe this is what Adam meant about knowing what he was doing. Well, he didn’t know, thank-you-very-much. He wished she had her phone, so he could text her and hint at joining her.

“Well, hell.”

“So, are you just going to sit out here all night, cowboy?” Alyssa said softly. And still, it had startled him so bad, he thought he might fall out of the chair.

“I was trying to determine where to go next,” he admitted.

“My room would work just fine since I stole some of your condoms—or yours would, too. I’m not adverse to walking down the hall.”

His heart, mind and body relaxed. “So, you aren’t sick of me? You want me to join you?”

“Of course. Now, come on, you’re burning nightdark.”

“Nightdark?”

“It’s the opposite of daylight and you’re wasting it sitting out here alone when you could be spending it with me.”

He grinned, took her by the hand, and reeled her in for a long slow kiss. “Better?”

“Much, but I’m not getting naked in the barn office, so let’s get a move on, cowboy.”

“Yes ma’am, at your service,” he drawled.

“Good, because I have plans for you.”

They walked hand in hand out into the crisp night air, she stopped and looked up at the stars. “So beautiful, they look a little different here than they do at home, but not a lot. We both live in areas without a lot of ambient light. I’m further north than you are here, so it’s a little different view.”

Beau looked at the stars and thought of when she would be back looking at that little different view and his heart hurt, just a little, at the thought.