“I don’t know, just...someone who has an easy time going out, making friends, attracting men, having fun with them. Not a sad girl whose mom left her.”
And Hunter knew her. All the parts of her life story. But somehow admitting this felt...exposing, and she was sorry she’d said it. Sorry that she always led with honesty instead of sitting with her words for a while and deciding if they needed to be said.
He might know her life story, but he didn’t know how it made her feel.
No one did.
And now she’d gone and told him.
But then, to her relief, the corner of his mouth lifted into a smart-ass smile.
“Around these parts parental abandonment seems to be the most normal thing there is.”
She was grateful. So very grateful that he’d made a joke. That he’d lightened the moment. Lightened the weight on her chest.
“Maybe I want to forget that part.”
“You want to get married?” he asked. “Have a family?”
Just thinking about that struck terror into her heart. “No. I want a date. And we’ll go from there.”
“Okay.”
She sighed. “I wish there was a place for me to buy clothes. I could borrow some from Alaina.” Alaina’s clothes wouldn’t fit her right. Her friend was shorter and curvier.
“I have to go up to Vancouver. I’ll be gone a couple days, but I’m headed up to Running Y Ranch to see some horses, and I was thinking about this anyway, but...you should come. We can stop by some actual stores.”
“Really?”
She hadn’t left Four Corners or the general Pyrite area in way too long. Months, maybe. And even then she’d only gone to Copper Ridge, not anywhere like Vancouver.
“Yeah. It’s for work.”
The unspoken part of that was: tell Sawyer it’s for work.
She nodded. “Yeah. For work.”
“It’s settled, then. We leave on Friday.”
“Okay.”
She had a feeling that that concluded the evening, so she got up and took a step back. “Thanks,” she said. “For tonight.”
“No problem.”
She left, and as she walked down the stairs she texted Sawyer and told him she’d be there for dinner in five minutes.
CHAPTER FOUR
HUNTER HADN’T WORKED with Elsie today, and he felt grateful for the break. He wasn’t really sure why. Maybe it was because she was just so... She was like a dog with a bone when she got something in mind. And he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had hopped off her horse today and demanded he give her an exhaustive list of...sexual positions or something. And he just wasn’t in the space for that.
For some reason, his fingertips—the ones he’d used to grab her chin the other night—felt hot.
He’d thought he might have a whole day not dealing with her, but then Evelyn texted him and asked if he would like to come have dinner tonight. And he would. So he agreed to go over to the Garretts’ house for dinner that night. That didn’t mean Elsie would be there, but there was a high likelihood.
By the time he washed up and headed that direction, he had accepted the inevitability of it.
Sawyer’s house was all lit up when he arrived. It was a nice place, modern, remodeled some years ago. But now it was different than it had been. Because now he had a wife. A kid.
It was the strangest thing. The way that he and Wolf had domesticated so suddenly and quickly.
He shook his head, got out of his truck and noticed that Elsie’s was already here. He shook his head again. Well, he’d chosen this. A night in with his friends, their wives, their kid and a half, and their kid sister who acted like she wanted to take a chunk off him with her teeth, when she wasn’t asking him for help with something.
He walked right in the front door without knocking and was greeted with an uproarious screech by June Bug, Sawyer’s daughter, who was one now, and hell on two feet. She ran toward him, little toes slapping on the hardwood floor.
And he had no choice but to bend down and pick her up. Because nobody could deny a cute little creature like that. And if you did, you were something more than dead inside.
“Hey there, varmint,” he said, putting his cowboy hat on her head, much to her delight. Even though it immediately fell down and covered her eyes.
She reached her chubby little hands up and tilted it, looking up at him with sky blue eyes.
“You’re very popular around here, Uncle Hunter,” Evelyn said.
“Women love me,” he said, flashing her a grin.
“Not all of them,” Elsie said, her toothy smile full of cheek.
“You should be nicer to me,” he said, leaning in and bumping his elbow against her arm.
Her eyes went wide, and he knew that she was afraid he was going to give away her little flirting initiative. Good. She should worry.
“Because I sign your paychecks now,” he added.
“Right,” she said, snappish.
He carried June into the dining room, and everybody else went too. There was a beautiful dinner laid out. Roast chicken and gravy, potatoes, homemade bread. Evelyn really knew how to treat...well, everybody.
She made a case for any man having a wife. It had to be said.
He sat down, and Evelyn relieved him of June, putting her in the high chair. Wolf and Sawyer were already seated at the table.
“Glad you could make it,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah,” Hunter agreed.
Elsie ended up taking a seat beside him. She put a boot up on the table.
Evelyn smacked it. “I will not have you teaching June to be a little heathen.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Elsie said, reaching forward and grabbing a slice of bread, buttering it generously.
“I set a nice table, Elsie Garrett. And you live to lower the tone.”
“In fairness,” Hunter said, “it’s usually me that lowers the tone.” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to defend her, even while he felt compelled to be a little bit of a dick to her. Par for the course, he supposed.
Just how they were.
“Well, you don’t put your boots on the table.”
“Most things I say are a ‘philosophical boot on the table’ at a dinner party, Evelyn. You can’t really take me anywhere,” he said.
Wolf’s wife, Violet, leaned back in her chair, her hand on her swollen stomach. “Let’s eat,” she said. “I’m exhausted. And starving. Don’t banter at the expense of serving food.”