by Liz Isaacson
“How are things going with her?” Shane asked, looking up from his phone.
Austin poured himself a cup of coffee, the memories of their Monday night date flowing through his mind. It had been almost a week, and while he wanted to take her out every night, it wasn’t reasonable. Or feasible. They’d spent plenty of time together right here on the ranch. He’d eaten at her place on Wednesday night, and then skipped the anger management meeting on Thursday.
He sensed she needed some space. Or something. Things had gone great on the way into town. But something had flipped inside Shay as soon as they’d stepped into the Soup Kitchen. What it was, Austin didn’t know. He was determined to find out, but only when Shay had softened toward him again.
“Austin?” Shane moved, the chair scraping against the tile to produce an annoying sound.
“Fine,” he said. “Things are fine.” He added sugar and cream to his coffee, keeping busy so he wouldn’t have to look at his brother or sister-in-law.
“Oh, fine’s bad,” Robin said.
“No, it’s not,” Austin said.
“How did the date go?” Shane asked. “And you guys have been working non-stop all week. Can’t be that bad.” He looked at his wife and then Austin, who gave in and joined them at the table.
“She’s…I’m getting mixed signals from her.” Not that such a thing was new. Shay had been putting off I like you vibes for months, only to shut him down when he asked her personal questions, reject him when he asked her out, or stroke his beard in one moment and then separate herself from him in the next.
“The date really was fine. There was a moment that I lost her, and things changed after that.” He remembered how she’d gone rigid in the alley, how he’d practically had to drag her toward the Soup Kitchen, how the talk after that had focused on nothing and everything. Nothing important. Everything little and unimportant—at least to him.
He looked at Robin, then Shane. “She said she was a mess, and she didn’t know what she was doing there.” His chest collapsed again, just with the memory of her words. Did she know how pointed they were? How sharply they sliced his heart?
“Maybe she’s not ready to be dating.” Robin reached across the table and patted his hand.
“What do you know about her dating history?” Shane asked.
“Nothing,” Austin admitted. He sipped his coffee, his mind whirring. “And she’s not real interested in answering my questions.”
“You’ve asked?” His brother sounded concerned—classic Shane.
“Not that one specifically. I meant in general.” Their week together since the date had been fine. “But she’s not scolding me while we work anymore. She doesn’t snap at me the way she used to. We’re gettin’ along great around here.” He looked to Robin and Shane hopefully. “So that’s good, right?”
They exchanged a glance. “Or it could mean she only wants to be friends,” Robin said.
“Or that she just wants to keep her job,” Shane added.
Neither of those options sounded good to Austin. They both punctured his lungs, making breathing difficult.
He stood half a second behind Robin. “I’ll make breakfast,” she announced at the same time Austin said, “I’m going to go see what’s goin’ on at my place.” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and left his coffee mug on the table as he turned toward the front door.
“Let him go,” he heard Shane say when Robin started to protest.
And go Austin did. Out the front door and down the road. Past the chickens and to the smaller house that sat in the crossroads.
Dylan had been working on it bit by bit, in between all the other projects on the ranch. Austin appreciated the new, bright white paint on the exterior. The porch on the front had been expanded and reinforced, and it was stained a beautiful, oaky yellow that made Austin smile as he climbed the steps.
There was plenty of room for a couple of dog houses, or a few chairs, where he could sit in the evenings and listen to the crickets or the clucking of his little chickens. The front door had been replaced and Dylan had painted the new one a bright blue that Austin ran his fingers down before entering the house.
It didn’t look huge from the outside, but it was deeper than the eye could tell, and he thought there was plenty of space for a spacious living room. Right in the middle of the house, stairs led into a basement—that had never been used or finished, and which Dylan called, “a hazard of the worst kind,” so a wall about five feet tall separated the living room area from the back of the house, where the kitchen and dining room sat.
To the left, stairs went up too, housing two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second level. Underneath them and down the hall past the stairs was a big master bedroom, with an attached bathroom, a small office, and another half-bath. The ceilings stretched to double-height in the living room and kitchen, which also added to the size of the house.
No matter what, it was way more space than Austin himself ever needed. He could live on the main level quite easily, and if he ever had a family, there were bedrooms for them too. He’d told Dylan to leave the basement for now, since the need to have it finished certainly wasn’t pressing.
And they’d really only been working on pressing issues since they’d bought the ranch.
Things in the house looked great. New vinyl flooring stretched from the front to the back, a handsome dark wood color that made the light gray walls seem even brighter. With white trim, Austin knew he was getting a modern interior for an ancient dwelling.
The kitchen didn’t have appliances, but it was clear the electrician had been out to make sure everything was wired and ready. Carpeting supplies waited in the office and bedroom on the main level, and Austin found the same stuff upstairs. He tried the water in the bathroom up there, and it came gushing out clear as crystal.
“Getting closer,” he said aloud to himself, to the house, to whoever was close enough to hear. Not that anyone was.
He couldn’t hang around in this house that didn’t have heat or air conditioning yet, so he left, bringing the door closed behind him, and went down the road a bit to the chicken coops.
The birds inside squeaked and clucked as he loaded up the six buckets it took to feed them each day. Then he let the first section of hens into the yard, where their throaty voices turned into squawks as he threw the grain to them.
Something about the way they walked—all broken angles and wild eyes—made him smile. Their necks didn’t seem connected to their bodies as they pecked with such jerky movements, and he continued feeding them until all five sections had been let into the yard.
Then he took one of his empty buckets and went inside the hen house to collect the eggs. Some were warm, some already cold. Some were the color of cream, while some took on a darker hue of brown, and even blue.
He marveled at the eggs, each one of them magical to him for some reason. He hadn’t been to town to sell them for a few days, and he decided on the spot that he’d go today after church. If he packed them under ice, they could sit in the back of the truck during the sermon, and he could hit the farmer’s market in the afternoon.
“All right, ladies,” he said to the hens when he came out from collecting the eggs. “Back to the coops.” It always took several minutes to get them to comply, and he supposed he couldn’t blame them. He wouldn’t want to be cooped up inside when he could be roaming free.
He glanced down the road toward the cabins though he told himself not to. If he was going to go to the farmer’s market after church, he’d need to let Shay know. He’d assumed they’d be riding to church together again today, which was probably a mistake.
“You shouldn’t assume anything with that woman,” he muttered to himself, turning away from Cabin Lane and lugging the bucket of eggs back to the homestead, where Shane’s heavy duty refrigerator spit out ice cubes from the automatic maker like it had been storing them up for just the purpose Austin needed.
Before he went to shower, he sent a te
xt to Shay. I have to go sell eggs at the farmer’s market after church. Still want to ride together?
When he got out of the shower, he found the green light on his phone flashing. He’d gotten a text. From Shay: Will we be back in time for the lighting ceremony?
Of course, he tapped out. He dressed, refusing to dive for his phone when it went ziiiiing!, a special sound he’d assigned to Shay’s messages.
Then I can tag along.
Austin grinned at the five words. Great.
Satisfied that the message he’d just received really meant, “I’m still interested in you, Austin,” he finished getting ready for church and went to see what Robin had made for breakfast.
Shay seemed perfectly flirty, fun, and feminine when they went to church. She held his hand and cuddled in close to him on the bench. So close that Austin could barely pay attention to what the minister said. In the end, he still wasn’t sure what he should’ve taken from the lecture.
She was capable, captivating, and cute as she helped him get the eggs displayed at the farmer’s market. He didn’t do fancy. He had a six-foot folding table he put a blue table cloth on, with a sign pinned to the front that said FRESH EGGS he’d lettered himself. He’d figured out he could buy egg trays in bulk and he had half-dozen cartons, dozens, and three dozen. He normally sold his eggs by the dozen, and usually in about an hour.
With Shay standing at the front of the table, wearing those four-inch heels that drank up the dust and a pulse-pounding sundress, the eggs were gone in twenty minutes.
Back in the truck, Austin wanted to clear the air between them. He felt like he’d seen two different sides to the woman sitting down the bench from him. One who was moody, sullen, and clearly dealing with the loss of her ranch—and probably a lot of other stuff Austin couldn’t even fathom.
Surely she had friends she’d left behind in the Army. Her relationship with her father wasn’t great, Austin knew that. And he suspected she’d never dealt with losing her mother either. So Shay was complicated, and she deserved to have a bad day if she needed to.
But there was also a sunny, sophisticated side of Shay that he’d seen several times. He really liked her, because she brought light into his life where it was the darkest.
“Thanks for coming with me,” he said as she pushed her fingers through her hair. He watched her, completely captivated, only springing into action to start the truck when she turned to look at him.
“Sure.” She smiled, such a simple action that made him ridiculously happy. “Anytime. That was fun.”
“Have you been to the farmer’s market before?”
A shadow crossed her face, but she cleaned it away quickly. “I sold a lot of my father’s unopened items at the swap meet,” she said. “When I was getting the ranch and house ready for sale.”
“Oh.” Foolishness raced through Austin. Way to bring up something sensitive, he chastised himself. At the same time, he hadn’t known what she’d had to do. He only knew what she’d told him.
He navigated back to Grape Seed Falls and through town, trying to summon the courage to ask the question he wanted to. We’re more than friends, right?
But he couldn’t say them.
What do you know about her dating history?
His brother’s words wouldn’t leave his mind either. He really needed to hear her say they were dating, and that she liked him, and that he had a shot at a future with her. Maybe it was too much for a casual Sunday afternoon conversation, but the craving to get the ball rolling in the conversational direction he needed it to go wouldn’t leave him.
“I wanted to ask you something,” he said when he made the turn from town onto the road leading out to the ranches.
“Sure.”
“When my mom comes for Christmas with her boyfriend, I’d like you to come.” He had no idea where the words had come from. They weren’t even what he’d been thinking about. “And when I introduce you, I want to call you my girlfriend.” He almost choked on the last word, especially when such a sound came from Shay’s throat. Austin looked at her, heat rushing into his neck and face. “How does that sound to you?”
He wasn’t comforted by the way her mouth gaped open, nor the way she blinked rapidly like she was trying to come up with something that wouldn’t hurt his feelings. He’d seen that look before, after all.
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice falling almost to a whisper. “Forget I asked.”
He hoped she’d jump in with, “Of course. That’s great.”
But she didn’t, and the forty-minute drive back to Triple Towers was one of the most torturous drives Austin had ever made.
Chapter Ten
Shay stalked back to her cabin, her fire angry and burning and hot, hot, hot. Why did Austin think he could ask her about things—girlfriend things—without giving her some time to think? Time to process?
She’d had a great day with him. A fun ride into church, and wow, she’d enjoyed the hand-holding and the leaning into his chest while the pastor delivered a fine sermon on forgiving others. Shay wasn’t super great at that, and she’d felt the need to get better. She would. Once she figured out how.
The chickens on the ranch laid beautiful eggs, and it had taken no time at all for them to get rid of all three hundred Austin had brought to the farmer’s market. And then he’d had to go and ruin their perfectly good day with questions. With labels. With frustration.
She thought back to Thursday night’s anger management meeting. Shawna had talked about self-training. Reasoning through a problem, finding your way through your specific brand of anger. Not only that, she’d mentioned training the people around you. She’d said she used to get even more furious when her husband would offer a solution to her problem.
“I didn’t need his help,” she’d said. “I just wanted his sympathy. His empathy. Not what I should’ve done or what I could do to fix whatever was going on. When I finally realized that—and told him—I stopped getting mad at him over something he really had nothing to do with.”
Shay burst out of her cabin, the door banging against the wall in such a way that said she’d have to fix the plaster later. Didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding Austin and talking to him. Lizzy and Molly trotted alongside her as she marched down the road toward the big house on the end.
She felt like her fists could knock down the homestead as she hammered on the door. “Comin’,” a man called, but it wasn’t Austin. Sure enough, Shane opened the door, looking sleepy and completely different without his cowboy hat. “Hey, Shay.” He rubbed his eyes. “Austin’s not here.”
“Do you know where he is?” It was a miracle she didn’t speak through clenched teeth. But this man was her boss, and she didn’t need to give Shane Royal a reason to dismiss her.
“I figured he was with you.” He looked over her shoulder to the ranch beyond. “He didn’t come home after church.”
“We’ve been back for twenty minutes.”
“Maybe the hen house, but he did that this morning.” He looked at her and shrugged, the hint of an apology in his eyes. “Sorry.”
Shay nodded. “I can text him.” She backed up a step before turning and practically flying down the steps. She didn’t want to text Austin. She wanted to catch him by surprise the way he constantly seemed to do to her. “Come on, girls,” she said to the dogs, and they happily came with her. Molly, the more sensitive of the two German shepherds drifted closer to Shay, finally settling her walk in step with Shay’s.
She knew of two other places he liked almost as well as the chicken coops. His house and the equipment shed. He didn’t normally work in either on Sundays, but only completed mandatory chores. But if he wasn’t at the homestead, he had to be holed up somewhere.
Bypassing his house—it didn’t even have appliances yet—she went for the equipment shed. The lighting ceremony was in only a few hours, and he was no doubt checking everything for the fifth time. It hadn’t been hard to tell in the week they’d been working to put
the Christmas decorations up that this old tradition held some meaning for him. Somehow.
Sure enough, she knew the man was in the equipment shed as soon as she entered. She wasn’t sure how, but it could’ve been because she heard something rattle and bang near the electrical boxes on the south side. Or the lingering scent of his cologne in the air. Or the way her soul seemed forever called toward his.
He glanced up and saw her when she was still several paces away. Settling on his back foot, he gripped the jumble of lights they hadn’t used in one fist as his expression darkened.
Face-to-face with him, some of her fury faded. Fascinating, she thought. Before he’d shown up at that anger management class a week and a half ago, spending time with him had been a form of torture. Seeing him and his brothers prancing around her ranch had inflicted her with anger so fierce she hadn’t been able to calm it without help.
But now…she could look at him and come down from the fury inch by inch.
“What are you doin’ here?” he asked. “Come to play more games with my head?” Bitterness and sarcasm dripped from every word, and Shay balked, unsure what to do with the emotion coming from him. He’d taken all of her abuse over the months, willfully submitting to her chastisement over the simplest of tasks.
Austin glared at her. “I’m not interested in this, Shay. I’m already mad.”
“You’re mad?” Her fingers clenched into fists.
“I don’t want to talk to you right now.” He pressed his lips together and lightning coursed through his eyes. “Leave me be.”
She stalked a few steps closer. “Why are you mad?”
He gave her an exaggerated sigh, those eyes still storming with anger. “Because you keep giving me mixed signals. You’re cuddling up to me at church, and flirting with me in the truck, or giggling as we walk into a restaurant. And the next thing I know, you’ve shut down, won’t talk, won’t even look at me.” He flung the lights to the workbench and turned away.
Shay’s heart shriveled, right there in her chest. She’d already hurt him.
