“Not enough light or warmth in winter for photosynthesis,” I say automatically. “The trees rest and shut down their ability to make food, so the green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. They end up orange and red and yellow. Small amounts of these colors are always in the leaves, but you just can’t see them because of the chlorophyll.”
His eyes search mine. “You’re smart. I guess I meant more like—why do they have to fall?”
I think about it as the leaves swirl around in the wind. “I don’t know,” I say finally. “I guess sometimes things have to end in order for life to continue. So the leaves die, but the tree lives on for another season. Trees are amazing.”
We lapse into a comfortable silence, sitting side by side with our hands wrapped around our mugs of hot chocolate. I point excitedly out the window when two deer stop underneath the largest tree in Brayden’s backyard. The brown coat of the deer is an even deeper shade from the rain on their backs, and I can see their dark eyes from here.
Brayden smiles at my enthusiasm. “They stop by sometimes. I get a lot of wildlife here, and I’m away from the cattle fields, so there’s a lot more open space.”
I’d love to sit here all day and paint. I’ve always loved nature. Mom and Dad got me involved in environmental biology, but I can’t remember the last time I just sat and actually enjoyed the environment.
But that’s what I do with Brayden today. For the next hour and a half, we sit and do a lot of nothing. We watch the deer before they run off into the woods. We try to count the leaves falling but give up quickly. And we laugh a lot. We laugh about the strange noises coming out of his wood stove and about our dance teacher’s admonishment to practice dancing.
“I’ll be lucky if I remember any of the steps,” I say. “I’m getting married twenty-four days from now, and I don’t know if a choreographed dance is possible. Besides the fact that I have to teach it to Phillip.”
“Twenty-four days to learn a dance? That’s definitely possible.”
“You’re right,” I say, feeling optimistic. “For some species, that’s a lifetime. For others, it’s several lifetimes.”
“You’re still smart.” The cool blue of his eyes turns hot as he meets my gaze with his own. “People probably tell you that all the time.”
“Not really,” I say honestly. “I’m surrounded by geniuses.”
When neither Phillip nor Sophia have texted me after cup two of our hot chocolates, Brayden lies down on his rug in front of the wood stove. “It’s relaxing. And you can hear the rain in a really cool way from here,” he says.
I get down on my back next to him on his dark green shag rug and feel the warmth of the fire at my feet. “Now what?”
“Just close your eyes.” His low voice is soothing. “The rain sounds like it’s all around you instead of just over your head.”
I close my eyes and try to relax. I’m jazzed from the chocolate and from the company so close to me right now, but I do hear the rain. It is cool.
“That’s neat,” I say. “Almost like being in a waterfall without getting wet.”
“Yeah, it does sound like that. I could lie here all afternoon.”
“Do you?” I ask him curiously as I open my eyes.
“Sometimes,” he says. “I work a lot, so not as much as I’d like. But at night, I like to just hang out.”
“Do you read?”
“Sometimes. I do a lot of film study during football season.”
I gesture at a crack in his ceiling. “That looks like the Big Dipper. The big crack and then those dots around it.”
“I see it.” He points above his head. “That looks like an elephant.”
I laugh. “There are no elephants in the sky at night.”
“This isn’t a night sky, Leleila.” His tone is amused. “It’s a white ceiling. We can make whatever we want to on it.”
I point out a swirl of paint on the ceiling that looks like a puffy cloud, and Brayden finds another swirl that he claims looks like Rain Man.
“Rain Man? That’s a character!”
“Well, it looks like Dustin Hoffman, then. Look more closely and tell me you don’t agree.”
“Fine. I actually see what you mean.” I smile. “But you’re still crazy for seeing it in the first place.”
“Creative. I’m creative.”
I laugh before closing my eyes again and listening to the rain and remembering the deer. I wonder if animals in the wild do this, just lie together and feel the rain.
“Are you hungry?” Brayden asks me. “I could make us some dinner if you’d like.”
His thoughtful invitation brings me back to reality, and I sit up slowly. “Actually, I think I should wait for Phillip.”
As if on cue, my phone rings, and I stand up as I answer.
But when I grab it, it’s Sophia. “Hey, Soph.”
“Lei, I’m at my apartment if you want to come by. Or should I pick you up?”
“Um…”
Brayden reaches for his car keys on the coffee table, and we make eye contact. He holds up his keys, signaling that he can drive me.
As he goes to retrieve my clothes from the dryer, I say to Sophia, “I’ll be right there, Soph. Thanks.”
After I change back into my top and jeans, Brayden locks his front door, and we walk in silence to his truck. As I step up into the cab and close the door behind me, I debate how to articulate what I want to say to him. But I’ve never been good at this sort of thing.
So as soon as Brayden sits down in the driver’s seat, I burst out with, “I kept your hat.”
He jerks his head in my direction. “What?”
“Your cowboy hat that you gave me all those years ago? I still have it,” I say as I buckle my seat belt.
He stares at me in silence. His blue eyes flash with an unnamed emotion, and when he opens his mouth to speak, nothing comes out.
Oh, God.
The ship of mortification has left the dock. In fact, it’s sailing gloriously toward me. Oh, and look…it’s now docked at my feet.
I avert my gaze and start to fidget with the seat belt. “Anyway,” I say quickly. “It’s not a big deal…”
A warm hand lands on my fumbling fingers, and I look up.
“I’m sorry.” His expression has changed to warm. “That is just, literally, probably the last thing I expected you to say to me.”
“Oh.” I swallow. “I just wanted to thank you. For being there for me that night and for giving me your hat. I never got a chance to truly thank you for what you did for me.”
His voice is gruffer than usual when he says, “I’m happy if holding onto the hat helped you in some small way.”
“It reminded me every day that most people are good,” I say softly. “You didn’t save me physically that night, Brayden. But you saved me in just as important a way—you gave me strength in salvation.”
“Leleila.” His gaze feels like fire on my skin.
I bite my lip, and he gives my hand a quick squeeze and then abruptly shifts to face the steering wheel.
“I better get you to Sophia’s,” he says in apparent explanation.
But the spark between us will not die. The electricity heats up the car during the entire ride even though we only speak occasionally. And guilt tugs at my chest. I try to calm myself with the truth—in a few weeks, any time spent hanging out with Brayden will be over for good. And if I weren’t already having so much fun with him, it probably wouldn’t be so painful to imagine it ending.
Chapter Twelve
Brayden
I’m falling for her. For the brilliant, green-eyed, shy on the surface but sassy on the inside woman who got inside my heart with one curious glance, and no matter what I do, I can’t shake her out.
But I have to.
Leleila’s engaged, for fuck’s sake. I’ve never once been drawn to a woman who was taken. Not one fucking time. So why is this happening now?
And Christ, why’d she have to go ahead and tell me
she kept my cowboy hat? The whole time I drive her to Sophia’s, I’m picturing her wearing my hat. And yeah, sometimes she’s naked. With me.
Riding me.
Bent over in front of me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pull into Sophia’s driveway, and Leleila nearly leaps out of the truck. We say goodbye politely and in measured tones, completely faking the fact that this truck is about a thousand degrees right now. Because of us.
Once she’s finally gone, I exhale and head for home. I force the dirty images of Leleila out of my mind by focusing on what plays we should run in practice Monday. Next Friday is a big game, and it’s at home. So no worries about Wes and his father, although to Luke’s credit, everything was in good shape when we got home late last night. Luke was at Wes’s house. Wes’s dad was sitting up next to him watching an Old Western movie. Sober.
No idea what the fuck my brother did to conjure up that magic, but I took it. We said goodbye to Wes, and we left.
So yeah, I have enough going on with football and the ranch. So much that I could easily tell Leleila I can’t dance with her. I should tell her that. With the way my truck nearly combusted just now, I should definitely back out.
But I don’t break promises. And Leleila clearly needs a friend. So somehow, I’m going to have to ignore my heart and stay on the proper side of the line. I’ll be her friend. Just her friend and nothing more.
Thoughts of kissing her dominated my brain when we were chatting on the couch. Dirtier thoughts of taking her against the washing machine raced through my head while I tried to keep up a casual conversation about my career plans. The way Leleila looked wearing my clothes had me so turned on I could barely focus on anything else. Everything was too big on her, but it didn’t matter because she wore my sweatshirt and pants like she owned them. And she relaxed for the first time since I’ve known her. She seemed…at peace, almost. It was a turn-on. I run my hand down my face. And now it’s time for me to turn off.
As I reach the ranch, I pull down the driveway until I reach the guesthouse. I step out of my truck, close the door, and jog up the steps to the front door.
Before I can put my key in the lock, the door opens wide.
“Hey!” My cousin, Cam, has me in a headlock before I can answer him.
He releases me immediately.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask him. “You look like crap.”
Cam chuckles and runs his hand through his dark hair, which is standing up every which way. His always-there facial hair is thicker than usual, and his dark eyes are bloodshot.
“I found your spare house key under the same broken stone where it’s always been. We took a cab here.”
I punch his arm. “I meant, what are you doing in Montana? You live in Minnesota.”
“Had some time off and decided to come see you for a few days. Ayden, Bella, and Jasalie are out on your porch.”
“No shit. They flew in from L.A.?”
Cam nods. “Just for the night. Totally spontaneous, but Jasalie wants to check out the wedding venue that Dylan located online, and he and Colt can’t take time off from practice. So Ayd and Bella came with her. Let’s go out and party tonight, and we can go see the venue tomorrow.”
I drag my hand over the back of my neck. “I’ve had a long day. I’m kind of beat.”
Cam’s eyes narrow. “From doing what? Or who? Because the only way you’d blow us off is if there’s a woman involved. And I haven’t heard anything about a woman. So who is she?”
Before I have to answer him, my other three surprise houseguests come down the hall.
“What’s up?” Ayden gives me a hug and immediately narrows his blue eyes, much the same way Cam was just doing. “You look weird, Bray. Everything okay?”
“It’s a woman,” Cam says confidently.
I don’t even get an opening to deny it before Bella throws her arms around my neck.
“Oooh, who is she?” she squeals. “I’ve never met one of your girlfriends before!”
“That’s because Bray keeps everything on the fucking down-low,” Cam says with a smirk at me. “Good thing we walked in on him tonight. He says he had a long day.”
Jasalie shoots me an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry we didn’t call you ahead of time,” she says, pulling her long blond hair up into a ponytail. “It was completely last-minute.”
“It’s no big deal,” I assure her. “I know your husband doesn’t work on a normal person’s timetable.”
She laughs, amusement dancing in her eyes. “No, Dylan thinks everyone can just jump on a plane at a moment’s notice to go check out a wedding venue a thousand miles away. If he didn’t have a game to prepare for, he’d be here too.”
Dylan and Jasalie got married this past summer. They eloped to a private island and didn’t tell any of us until they returned with rings on their fingers. But they’re having a public wedding ceremony and reception this fall in Montana, and we’re all in the wedding party. The renewal will be on a Monday, the day after Dylan and Colton have a big home game in L.A.
“Dylan wants to make sure this venue is perfect,” Jasalie says. “So here we all are.”
Ayden’s gaze shifts to Cam. “Although I didn’t expect you here, Wild. What made you decide to fly out?”
Cam shrugs noncommittally and doesn’t answer.
Ayden and I look at each other.
Something’s clearly up with Cam, but we know better than to push him. His father’s done enough of that for a lifetime.
Ayden puts his arm around Bella and kisses her temple. “Bella’s working on a demo already.”
She blushes and buries her head in Ayden’s shoulder. Her blond hair covers her face, and I laugh.
“You’ve got to get over that, Bella. People are going to find out you sing soon enough.”
“I know,” she answers me, her voice muffled by Ayden’s shirt. “I just want everything to go right this time.”
“It will,” Ayden promises her, his tone certain.
With my hand halfway to tossing my sweatshirt onto the nearby table, I halt. The way Ayden’s supporting Bella, looking out for her, hits me in the gut.
Because for the first time, I recognize that reaction, that need to protect someone else.
When I turn back around, all four of them are staring at me.
But I do what I’m good at. I keep my feelings to myself.
“Changed my mind,” I say to Cam. “Let’s go out.”
Leleila
When Phillip finally calls to tell me that he can’t leave the lab for another two hours, I nearly lose it.
“Could you do the rest of the experiment at home?” I hate that I sound like I’m whining. “I really would like to get into our house before midnight.”
“Wish I could, Lei,” he says. “But the lab’s got the equipment—with the industrial scope, the lighting is so much better. You know that. If you need to go home that badly, you can come by the lab if Sophia doesn’t mind driving you…”
Because Phillip always talks three volumes higher than needed on the phone, and Sophia is sitting literally right next to me on her couch, she hears everything.
“Leleila can wait another two hours!” Sophia says loudly. “We’ll go have some fun.”
“That’s a great idea,” Phillip says through the phone. “Maybe you and Soph can go out. I know you don’t like socializing, honey, but try to enjoy yourself. I haven’t seen you smiling much lately.”
I nod even though he can’t see me.
“I promise to send you a text the minute I’m leaving. But stay out as late as you want, okay?”
“Okay.” I hang up and turn to Sophia. “I guess we’re going out.”
“Yay!” She breaks into a big smile. “Let’s get you dressed.”
An hour later, Sophia is still smiling as she hustles me into a little black dress that she’s been dying to lend me.
“That dress just looks so damn hot on you, Lei,” she says as w
e look together into her full-length mirror hanging inside her walk-in closet.
I refuse the light coat she’s offered me. “I’m fine. It’s not that cold out, and it’s stopped raining. But I feel weird dressing up for no reason.”
“And that’s why you never dress up,” she contends. “You and Phillip don’t go out on dates unless you’re attending one of his boring work functions.”
“That’s true. I don’t know when we stopped doing stuff just for the fun of it. I miss that, you know?”
She gives me a hug. “That’s what tonight is about, Lei. We’re going to have fun.”
“What bar are we going to again?” I ask her as we head for her front door.
“The Cowboy Saloon on the edge of town. Near the Mexican restaurant we’ve gone to loads of times before.”
“Oh, right. I know where you mean.” I glance at her mini-skirt and fitted pink top. Then I take a closer look at her heavily made-up face. “You’re wearing a lot of makeup. Who else is meeting us there?”
She hits me playfully on the arm. “Don’t be silly, Lei. Why do you say that?”
“Because you look like either a hooker or a Broadway star.” I touch my finger to the excessive amount of rouge on her cheeks. “You’re so gorgeous without all of this. You only wear this much makeup when you have a date with some guy you already know isn’t nearly good enough for you.”
Sophia sticks her tongue out at me.
We step outside the house, and I lock it behind me before following Sophia down the path to her car.
“Seriously, who’s meeting us there?” I ask again as I get into the passenger side and shut the door behind me. “That guy from the food drive?”
“Yep. Glenn.” Sophia starts the car and backs out quickly, far more quickly than I do on this steep driveway. “You remember Glenn.” She puts on her turn signal and takes the first left. “I slept with him a few times about a year ago.”
I strain to think back. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I do remember someone named Glenn…”
“His nickname is Slammer. That’s his last name.”
Brayden (Wild Men Book 6) Page 10
