Chapter 4

4

A bby stewed as she watched Tex and his mini-me drive out of the library parking lot. He didn't come to a stop before he pulled onto Main Street, and she scoffed, folded her arms, and marched back inside the building.

It was too hot to be standing outside, obsessing over an ex-boyfriend. "Your new business partner," she muttered to herself. She had to view Tex like that, or her heart would start to whisper scandalous ideas to her mind.

She wasn't working today, but she went back to her office and closed the door. She leaned against it in the cool dimness and pressed her eyes closed. In truth, her heart wasn't beating like a big bass drum because she and Tex had just bought the property next door in a joint venture.

He'd made it very clear he could afford the full one-fifty, and in fact, he'd tried to take the property from her completely. Thankfully, the banker was greedy, and he wanted his one-fifty. Abby had stored the money in her office, and she looked over to the cabinet that still stood open.

She moved to close it, finally admitting the real reason everything hurt when she looked at Tex. He'd broken up with her almost twenty years ago, before he'd left for college. He'd come back the next summer, and then he was off on his next endeavor—starting his country music band.

It hadn't happened right away, but within a few years, she'd heard Country Quad on the radio when their first album came out.

What hurt the most was seeing his son with him. The teen would be a senior in the fall, and that meant he had to be seventeen years old. Or close to it. So within two years of Tex leaving Coral Canyon, he'd met someone else, fallen in love with them, gotten married, and had a son.

Like she'd never existed. Like Tex had never considered being with her for longer than it took him to pass his exams and claim his diploma.

Her heart trembled, and Abby curled her fingers into fists to contain her emotions. She wasn't going to make decisions based on what Tex had or hadn't done two decades ago. Lots of people left their hometowns and went to college, fell in love with classmates or the man down the hall, and moved on.

Heck, even she'd once been in love with someone else. She absolutely refused to think about Jonas for longer than five seconds. He didn't deserve more time than that, and she pushed him and his cheating heart right out of her mind and life. She usually didn't have to work that hard to do it today, but with Tex's reappearance in Coral Canyon—with Bryce—she couldn't help thinking that she had some fundamental flaw that no man would ever be able to see past.

She'd be single forever, and while she'd thought she'd be okay with that, she knew now how lonely and empty she was. Even with Wade at the farmhouse, Abby still felt alone.

He was dating Cheryl Watts, and Abby wouldn't be surprised if her brother asked Cheryl to marry him this summer. They'd been seeing each other for six or seven months, and Cheryl didn't seem to care about Wade's injuries at all. He'd been really concerned about that after his service and surgeries, and he hadn't dated anyone until her.

Abby liked Cheryl a lot, as she was sweet and kind. "You could probably learn something from her," Abby said as she slumped into her desk chair. Her phone rang, and she pulled it from her pocket to answer Wade. "Hey."

"So," he said. "How did it go?"

She reached up to rub her eyes, sighing as she did.

"Not well, I see," he said. "So who bought it?"

"We did," she said. "Kind of."

"Abigail," he said in his military voice. "What does that mean?"

She didn't want to tell him she'd gone crazy and overbid herself by almost double. She also didn't see a way around it. She spilled the whole story in less than a minute, barely taking a moment to breathe.

Wade sat on the other end of the line, silent.

"Say something," she said. "I know I'm an idiot. Proud. Selfish. Impulsive. All of that." She knew, because she wasn't blind. She could see herself clearly, and she had been trying to change. There was just something about Tex Young that irked her.

More like lights you up , she thought. The past twenty-four hours with him back in her life had been more eventful and colorful than the previous twenty-four months without him. She couldn't believe she still had this insane crush on the boy next door—and he was once again the boy next door, literally.

He's definitely not a boy , she told herself while Wade made her revel in his judgmental silence.

"I guess that's why Tex and his son just pulled into the driveway," Wade said.

"Yeah," she said, relieved he hadn't launched into a lecture. Wade wouldn't anyway. He usually let what he didn't say weigh more heavily on her mind than what he did.

"I suppose I should go say hello," he said.

"If you want," she said. "I'm still going to get chicken parm from Capolti's, and then I'll be home." Hopefully, Tex and his twin would be gone by then.

"Do you want me to text you when he leaves?" Wade asked.

"No," Abby said. "I'm not that pathetic."

"I didn't say you were pathetic," he said. "You just…went off about him last night, and I thought maybe it would be easier if he's gone before you get home."

"He's going to live there," she said. "I can't avoid him forever." She didn't even want to do that.

"All right," Wade said easily. "Then I want double chicken and an extra breadstick."

"Okay," Abby said. "See you soon." The call ended, and she phoned in her order to Capolti's, which was a newer Italian restaurant that had come to Coral Canyon in the past few years. She didn't hate all the growth and newer restaurants. She just didn't want to look out her back windows and see two hundred new homes instead of the farmland and fields and pastures she'd known for so long.

Now she wouldn't have to, and Tex was right about that. He wouldn't build condos or section off the land and sell it to a builder. He'd revive the ranch where he'd grown up, and Abby couldn't help wondering if he'd mind fixing her up too. He'd already brought back to life part of her that had been dark and dreary for a long time.

Maybe living next door to him now would be as exciting as it was all those years ago. With that hope in her heart, Abby left the library and went to pick up her lunch. The moment she turned onto Mountain View Road, her hope turned into a prayer.

"I will do what You want me to do, Lord," she said. "Help me to be kind to my new neighbors, and help me not to be too sensitive about…well, anything."

She saw Tex's truck parked in the driveway long before she drove past the ranch next door. She turned into her own driveway, her eyes stuck to that midnight black truck. Tex had always owned a truck, and she shouldn't have expected anything different.

She didn't, other than someone else entirely showing up to bid on the ranch. The fact that he was back, here, now, she didn't understand. When Jerry Young had first listed the property ten years ago, both she and her parents had been surprised one of the nine Young sons hadn't wanted it. None of them had lived in town at the time, and Susan and Jerry Young had moved into a fifty-five-plus community after the sale.

Her parents had done something similar a few years later, leaving the farmhouse to her and Wade when he'd come from North Carolina. They lived in the one and only condo building that had been built in town, and Abby had refused to visit them there for the first year in her own form of protest.

She'd gotten past her irritation with the bigger buildings in downtown Coral Canyon, because she just needed more time with some things. Looking next door as she got out of her own truck, Tex Young would just be one more of those things.

She took the food inside the house and closed off the sight of his truck and that dilapidated farmhouse with a slam. "Oops," she said when Wade looked at her with a frown between his eyes. "The door got away from me."

"Your temper gets away from you," he said, lifting his eyebrows in a challenge. He stood from the table, and Abby's surprise stole through her.

"You put on your prosthetics?" She put the bag of food on the table and started unpacking it. "Why?"

Wade moved over to the fridge to refill his water bottle. His cowboy hat hung beside the back door, and Abby didn't see his wheelchair anywhere. "No reason."

"Liar," she said, staring a hole in the back of his head. "You didn't want Tex to see you in that chair." She wadded up the plastic restaurant bag and lobbed it toward the trash can. "Newsflash, brother. He already knows you were hurt overseas. He said he was real sorry about it at the library."

Wade turned to face her, something challenging in his expression. "It wasn't for Tex," he said. " I'm not the one with a schoolgirl crush on the man."

Abby scoffed, her default emotion streaming forward. "I don't have a crush on him."

"Abby," Wade said. "You've been in love with him for twenty-five years." He returned to the table with real silverware, because he hated using the plastic stuff from the restaurant. "You don't have to hide it from me."

"I'm not hiding anything," she said, taking a fork from him. "You can't hide something that doesn't exist."

"Okay," Wade said, sitting down and opening his Styrofoam container of double-chicken parm with extra breadsticks. He grinned at it and then at her. "I put the prosthetics on, because Cheryl wants me to meet her folks today, and they make me more normal."

Abby collapsed into the only other chair at the dining room table in the old-fashioned kitchen. "Wow," she said, her body turning numb. "You're meeting her parents today?"

"Tonight," he said. "For dinner. We're going apple-picking this afternoon, and that's another reason I thought the prosthetics would be better." He put his head down and twirled spaghetti around his fork.

Abby let the subject drop. He didn't like talking about his wheelchair or making Cheryl push him in it over rough terrain. Abby did it without complaint, and Cheryl would too. Until now, they'd stuck to normal dates, like movies and restaurants and walks around town. He could do all of that from his wheelchair.

The apple orchards northwest of town would definitely be much harder in a wheelchair. Harder, not impossible. Abby felt like that summed up Wade's whole life—harder, but not impossible—and she couldn't help applying that same idea to her and Tex's relationship.

It would be harder this time, sure. But not impossible.

"You're going to clean out the stables this afternoon, yes?" Wade's question that wasn't really a question brought Abby back to her real life.

"Yes," she said. "I've got Kent bringing his trailer too. So we'll get all the sawdust down, and he's taking a load of hay for his farm."

Wade nodded, his mouth full of food. He and Abby ran the farm, with a lot of the work landing on Wade's shoulders. Abby worked at the library, and she drove the Bookmobile two nights a week and on Saturdays.

"Then I'll be in Dog Valley tonight," she said.

"Five to seven," he said. "I won't be home until late. Her parents got a reservation at The Branding Iron." He cocked one eyebrow, which said more than his words had.

"Wow," Abby said. "Are you nervous?"

"Yes," he said simply before stuffing his mouth full of food again.

Abby picked at her Caesar salad, not sure how to say what she wanted to. Her family wasn't great at expressing their feelings and emotions. She and Wade were better at it than her parents, so she cleared her throat and said, "You're the most amazing guy in town, Wade. It's going to be fine."

He nodded, his eyes wide. He clearly needed more reassurance.

"It's clear Cheryl really likes you," Abby said. "Her parents don't even matter."

He swallowed and said, "She's real close with them, being an only child and all."

"Then they already know how much she loves you and they'll be on their best behavior for her." Abby grinned at him as he smiled and shook his head.

Her phone vibrated at the same time Wade's did, and as they both looked at them, the doorbell rang.

Wade's smile really widened then, and he looked up from his phone, glee in his face. "Ohhh, guess who's standing on the porch?"

Abby's stomach dropped to the floor as she saw the image of the sexiest cowboy alive on her video doorbell app too.

Wade chuckled and twirled up more spaghetti. "He's not here to see me, Abs. Wipe your face and go say hello to your boyfriend."

Abby got to her feet, her hands straightening her hair though she didn't consciously tell them to. She glared at her brother and said, "He's not my boyfriend."

"Yet," he teased as she swiped her phone and left the kitchen to go see why the devil Tex Young stood on her doorstep.