Chapter 10

10

A bby plucked the Bookmobile keys from her boss's office and turned to get going. Mya stepped in front of her, a giddy smile on her face. "You live out on Mountain View Road, right?"

"Yeah," Abby said, sliding her eyes from Mya to Quincey, who'd joined them. She'd worked with the two part-time librarians for a few years now, and one of Tex's brother's—Mav—had a wife who'd started working there too. She considered herself friends with all three women.

Her very best friend in the world, besides her brother, was Georgia Beck, but if Abby had to name someone besides the two of them as friends, she'd say Mya, Quincey, and Dani.

Maybe not right now, what with the way Mya and Quincey exchanged a knowing glance that made her feel like she'd missed a very important memo. "What's going on?"

"Georgia said there's a hot new cowboy in town, and that he lives out on Mountain View Road."

Abby knew exactly where this was going. She cocked one hip and folded her arms. "Georgia said that?"

Georgia Beck owned a cute little bookshop sandwiched between the post office and the best barbecue place in Coral Canyon, and since so many women moved through the shop, she could start a gossip fire with only a few words.

Abby had been friends with her for a while now, as she loved to spend her time with books, both in libraries and bookshops.

"She's friends with Dani Young," Quincey gushed. "And Dani says her brother-in-law just moved to town and needs a girlfriend."

Abby squinted at Quincey. "Tex is almost forty, Quince. I think he might be too old for you."

"Not for me," Quincey said, waving her hand like Abby was being utterly ridiculous. "I'm married, silly."

Abby grinned widely "Oh, of course."

"For you," Mya said as if Abby hadn't already connected those dots. "He lives right on your road."

"Ladies," Abby said, leaning closer and smiling at them. "He lives right next door to me."

Quincey squealed and Mya started fanning herself. "Right next door? My goodness."

"Yeah," Abby said. Maybe she'd stood over the air conditioning vent a couple of times while she'd watched Tex carry debris out of the basement. She couldn't control that he wore tank tops that showed off his impressive muscles, nor how hot Wyoming was this summer.

"You should see what he did to his fields though." She clucked her tongue like he'd done a real number on them, which he had. She didn't agree with his philosophy of killing everything and starting over. The soil wasn't ready for that, and his parents would've never spent as much as he had to rent those mowers. They'd worked their ranch with love and respect, and it had taken a lot of Abby's willpower to keep her mouth shut about his tactics.

"You can still go out with him," Mya said.

"Can I?" Abby shook her head. "I don't know. I have to respect how a cowboy works." He had made some impressive improvements around the ranch and with the house, and she couldn't fault him for too much. "I have to go, girls. I don't want to be late getting to Dog Valley."

With that, she spun the keys around her finger as she walked away. "We'll figure out how to get him to ask you out," Mya called after her, and Abby turned around.

She walked backward as she said, "You really don't need to do that." She hadn't dated a whole lot here in Coral Canyon, and she appreciated her friends looking out for her. But she'd gotten a date with Tex Young all on her own, thank you very much, and she smiled to herself as she went down the back stairwell to the parking lot behind the library.

"Then," she said later that night, everything about her lit up from within. "The cutest little boy came to the Bookmobile tonight. You have to be five years old to check books out, you know, and his birthday was this week." She knew she was gushing, but Tex hadn't stopped smiling once, and Abby just felt so alive.

"His mama said he only wanted one thing for his birthday—to come to the Bookmobile and get his own books. He's been coming with his sister, you see, but he's never been allowed to take any books of his own." She reached for the saltshaker and shook it over her salmon and rice pilaf.

Tex had texted, which she loved, and he'd suggested they try Pearl's on Fifth tonight. He'd never been there, and she'd admitted she hadn't either. The food was farm to table and locally sourced from Wyoming, Idaho, or Montana, and she'd ordered the fish while Tex had gotten the meatloaf.

"Tonight, he got four books about trucks or insects, and he was so happy, Tex." She sighed, because she loved seeing children interacting with books. She'd loved reading for as long as she could remember, and her book friends had been some of the most real people in her life.

"That's amazing," Tex said. "I can't remember the last book I read."

"Yeah," she said. "It was that manual for the mower, remember?" She grinned at him, feeling like she'd shed her winter skin and had become a beautiful butterfly.

He chuckled and shook his head. "I really only needed to rent one of those. Bryce didn't come in all day, even when I said he could."

"Trust me," she said dryly. "I know."

"Oh?" Tex's eyebrows went up and he swiped another bite of meatloaf through his mashed potatoes. "Did he disturb your beauty rest this afternoon?"

"As a matter of fact, he did," she said with a smile.

"I didn't think the mighty Abigail Ingalls slept."

She laughed, not caring that it was probably too loud and too flirty. Tex grinned with all he had, and that only made Abby feel even more beautiful than he'd already helped her to feel.

He'd picked her up properly, whistling as he dripped his gaze down the length of her body. Tonight, she'd stepped out of her jeans and plaid shirts and into a pair of slacks and a blouse her mother had given her for her birthday.

Other than church, Abby had no need to dress all that nicely, though she occasionally wore slacks or skirts to the library. She packed and unpacked a lot of boxes, had to get down on the floor often, and her boss didn't enforce a strict dress code.

Since jeans would do, and Abby felt the most comfortable in them, that was what she wore.

Tex had also leveled up his attire, and he wore a sports jacket with his polo and dark wash jeans. He always had that white cowboy hat on, and tonight, his boots had been black to match his pants.

"I was thinkin' about something," he said, moving his mashed potatoes through the pool of gravy on his plate.

"Oh yeah?" Abby flaked off a bite of her fish and popped it into her mouth. "What?"

Tex met her eyes, his throat working like he'd forgotten how to swallow. Her nerves fired at her like cannons, and she could barely get her fish down. "I have to make another album," he said. "Country Quad is under contract for one more."

"Oh." Abby didn't know what to say, but she knew people didn't make hugely popular country music albums in Coral Canyon, Wyoming. "You're leaving again."

"Not right now," he said hastily. "I don't know when, actually. Bryce and I have been fiddling around with some songs in the evenings." He looked at her with a slight edge of desperation in his eyes. "I want to be honest with you. At some point, yes. I'm going to have to go to Nashville to record."

Abby kept her head on straight. She didn't need to storm out right this second or anything. "How long does it take to record an album?"

"It depends on how well it's going," he said. "The fastest one we did took about four months. The one after that was a bit of a disaster, and it took us a year."

Abby pushed the rice around her plate. "Where is Country Quad right now?"

"Mav was our manager," Tex said with a sigh. "He quit, and believe it or not, Morris has come on."

"Oh, good for him," Abby said, brightening again. "Gosh, how old are the twins? They were what? Ten years behind you?"

"Thirteen," he said, with a smile. "They'll be twenty-seven in a few months."

"Your momma is a saint," Abby said with a giggle. "Nine boys? She'll go straight to heaven, I'm sure."

Tex chuckled too, nodding. "What about you, Abs? Do you want kids?"

Her stomach cramped, and she hated that she'd only gotten one bite of her salmon before this serious conversation had started. "Uh, I don't know, Tex."

"I have a son. You know that, right?" He grinned at her, clearly teasing. When she didn't throw something back at him, he covered her hand with one of his. "Abby, just…what's goin' on in your head?"

He asked her that a lot back when they dated as teens. He'd asked her that in the past few weeks since returning to town too.

"I…." He'd been honest with her about his band, and she could tell him. "I'm not that maternal, you know? I don't…I don't think I'd be a very good mother."

Tex studied her, and she appreciated that he didn't immediately jump in and tell her how wrong she was. He'd always been a bit more observant, only speaking after he'd thought about something. "I think you might be wrong," he said. "I've seen you with Bryce, and that boy is seventeen years old. You talk to him like he's normal—he even mentioned that about you. You don't talk down to him."

"I talk to him the same way I'd talk to a baby," she said. "That's the problem. I'm not the…coo-y or baby-waby type, Tex." She shook her head, because she did know herself. "I'm not."

He withdrew his hand and went back to his meal. "All right," he said. "That doesn't mean you won't be a good mother."

She didn't think it would help, but she wasn't going to debate him on it tonight. "Do you want more kids?"

"Yeah," he said easily, as if everyone went around longing for more children.

"That would be a big gap for you," she said.

"I had Bryce when I was twenty-two," he said. "I'm not that old." He grinned again, then groaned. "Of course, my body aches all the time and tells me I am, so maybe I'm fine with a dog."

She pointed her fork at him. "That dog is going to be the death of you. Mark my words."

He laughed instead of marking anything. She basked in the sound of it, because Tex did have a beautiful laugh to match his gorgeous smile and winning charm. Honestly, how he wasn't married again was a mystery.

The band , Abby thought, another slice of fear moving through her. She did not want his band to break them up the way it had his first marriage. At least she assumed that was why he and his ex-wife had gotten divorced. He hadn't actually told her yet.

"Do you, I don't know." He cleared his throat. "See yourself getting married?"

Abby put another tiny bite of fish and rice in her mouth. She chewed excessively to give herself more time to think. "For a while there, no," she admitted. "But…." She looked at him, willing to open this door to her heart if he wouldn't shove it closed again. "Can I tell you a secret?"

He leaned forward, over his plate. "I wish you would."

"I'm a little lonely," she said, the words raw and burning her throat. "When Wade got home, my life was consumed with taking care of him, taking over the farm, and dealing with stuff at the library. I didn't have time to be lonely." She set her fork down, not ready to eat more until the hard conversations ended. "But now." She sighed wistfully and looked out into the restaurant.

It was busy, because Saturday night brought out the families and couples. "Now, Wade has Cheryl," she said. "He doesn't need me as much, and he does most of the work on the farm. I'm…I think it might be nice to have someone the way he has Cheryl."

Tex gave her a few seconds of silence, and then he asked, "Are they going to get married?"

"It's highly likely," she said, sounding miserable about it. She picked up her fork again, only to cut off a piece of asparagus.

"I liked being married," he said. "I just chose the wrong person."

Abby's emotions wavered, and she said, "I know what you mean," with her focus down on her food. She'd had so much fun in Dog Valley that night, and she couldn't believe the word vomit about to spew from her mouth.

"You do?" Tex asked at the same time Abby looked up and right into his eyes.

"I was engaged in Chicago," she said, her throat closing around the last vowel.

Tex reached across the table and covered her hands again. "Tell me about him."

Abby didn't want to do that, but at the same time, she wanted to share her life with Tex. The good things, the bad things, the humiliating things. "You remind me a lot of him, actually."

"Uh oh," Tex said, grinning. "How's that?"

"He had a lot of money too, and he kind of threw it around sometimes."

Tex's hand slid away from hers, his face hardening. "I'm not throwing my money around," he said. "Do you have any idea—any idea at all —what I've invested into that ranch? Just the hours alone are insane."

"I didn't mean—" Abby clamped her mouth shut, because she didn't know what she'd meant to say.

Tex glared at her and leaned back in the booth. "Go on, then. Tell me what you meant."