Chapter 6

6

A bby hit a bump and cringed as she heard the crash of books in the back of the Bookmobile. "I hate that pothole," she grumbled. She hated worse that she'd forgotten to avoid it. How many times had she driven this road out to Dog Valley? At least a thousand.

The reason she'd forgotten about the pothole rotated in her mind, the perfect specimen of a cowboy. Of a neighbor. Of a man.

She shook her head, but Tex refused to leave, just like she'd laid in bed last night and relived every memory with his lips on hers from yesteryear. Even the purring of her cats hadn't helped soothe her enough to fall asleep. She'd had to get up and take a Simply Sleep just to drive him into her dreams.

Yes, he starred there too, and with the help of the mild sleeping aid, the dreams had been vivid .

She frowned to herself and took the corner slowly. She ambled down the road now, her frown turning upside down when she saw the children come running from the playground beside the church, which was her goal.

She made another painstakingly slow turn over the bumpy entrance to the church parking lot, the kids lined up now and their parents coming out from the shade of the trees to join them. Abby's heart squeezed, because she knew all of these people intimately. Many of them had been bringing their children to the Bookmobile for years, and she waved to one fourteen-year-old that Abby had bought a whole series set for only a couple of months ago.

Sandi had turned fourteen, and that was the perfect age for all of the Coastal Girls books. Abby had loved them when they'd first come out several years ago, and Sandi had torn through them.

Abby pulled the Bookmobile up to the curb and set the parking brake. The vehicle hissed, and she unbuckled her seatbelt. She could stand in the front of the truck-like Bookmobile, and she stepped through the skinny doorway leading into the back space. Several books lay scattered on the floor from that pothole, and Abby quickly picked them up and replaced them on the bookshelf.

She loved the smell of books and the way their colorful spines all lined up on both sides of the Bookmobile. She knew the kids outside would be anxious for her to unlock and open the door, so she didn't make them wait any longer. She twisted the big lock and pushed the door open as she went down the three steep steps to the asphalt.

"Hello, everyone," she called, her smile genuine and big as she took in the crowd. She pushed the heavy door open all the way and secured it with the hook she'd drilled into the side of the Bookmobile herself. "Go on," she said to the boy first in line. "Be careful on the steps, remember. They're really tall."

She grinned as the little boy scrambled forward, two books clutched in his arms already. He'd put those into the slot at the top of the steps, and all of the returned books would drop into a bin that sat where the passenger seat normally did.

Abby smiled at everyone as they filed into the Bookmobile, and once it was full, she opened the passenger door and reached for the scanner in the glove compartment. She started checking in the books people had brought back, and once the initial crowd thinned, she'd reshelve them.

Nothing made her happier than providing books for children, teens, and adults, especially in small communities. She'd even started volunteering twice a month for the Books for Prisoners program in Jackson Hole. She didn't like leaving Wade home alone overnight, but he'd been fine for the past eight or nine months since Abby had started driving to Jackson, opening letters, finding books to match the requests, and then packaging them to be mailed to prisons all over the country.

She'd often lost herself between the pages of a good book, and she wanted to provide that for everyone who wanted it.

Tex had never been much of a reader, and as she went through the motions of scanning, stacking, and selecting another book, she wondered if that had changed. When she caught herself thinking about Tex, she frowned and forced him out of her mind again.

"Miss Abby?" a girl asked, and she turned from the bin.

"Yep." She scanned the book's barcode and then looked up at a girl who'd just started junior high last year. Claire.

"Did The Cozy Cat Mystery come back?"

"Yes," Abby said, having just seen that title. "Let me find it for you." She scanned the stack of books, finding the cozy mystery volume near the bottom quickly. She plucked it from the pile and handed it to Claire. "There you go."

Her face lit up, and that was the moment Abby always knew she'd made the right choice in her career. "Thanks." She hurried back up the steps, saying, "Momma, it came back!"

Abby finished checking in all the books, then gathered a stack of them into her arms. The Bookmobile had one aisle down the middle of it, with room for people to look at the shelves on either side. It didn't offer much more than that, but Abby squeezed around the patrons to put the returned books back on the shelves.

The Bookmobile didn't take names for a waitlist the way the library in Coral Canyon did. It was first-come, first-served out of the Bookmobile, and people came every week to get the books they wanted. In a town as small as Dog Valley, people would loan them around before returning them too. Abby didn't care, as long as the books came back within their allotted two-week timeframe.

Patrons checked out themselves, using a wall-mounted scanner right beside the door, and after about thirty minutes, the crowd had thinned to only a few people and Abby. She answered questions, looked up titles for people if they asked her to, and tidied up after children who couldn't quite get the books back in the right place.

There was little that made Abby happier than perfectly alphabetized books, all done by author, of course. The Bookmobile had a very small non-fiction section, which she was working to increase, but donations were hard to come by in small communities.

She once again thought of Tex and if he might donate to her cause. The man certainly seemed to have money growing in the walls of that farmhouse for how much work he'd done in only a few days.

The lawn had started to green up considerably, and he'd already had the window coolers removed when the brand-spanking-new dual heating and cooling unit had been delivered. He and Bryce had sturdied up the front porch and Abby had seen Bryce sanding it that morning. She fully expected to find it painted or stained by the time she pulled into her driveway next door.

Tex had painted both doors leading into and out of the house, and he'd weeded all of the flowerbeds, as well as the driveway. That he'd gotten re-graveled, and Abby was tired just by the progress she'd seen on the outside of the house.

She had no idea what the interior would look like, as she hadn't been inside that house in years. Something itched beneath her skin to go next door and peer through the windows. She could just see herself with her hands cupped around her eyes so she could see in, her back to the road, and her mind whirring with how she was trespassing to even be on the front porch.

"…is that okay?"

Abby blinked at the woman standing in front of her. Rita Norris stood there, a knowing look on her face. She put one hand on her hip and grinned at Abby. "Who are you thinking about?"

"No one," Abby said defensively. "Who says it's a who?"

"You were smiling," Rita said. "I know you, Abby." She wore her dark hair in a messy bun on the very top of her head, and Abby wished she could do that. Whenever she tried, she didn't feel like herself. She looked like she was trying too hard to be casual and cool, when she was hardly ever either of those.

"I was just thinking how glad I am that I'm not working tomorrow," she fibbed. "That's all."

"Sure," Rita said, clearly not believing her. "Whoever he is, I hope you do more than just think about him."

"What did you ask me?" Abby asked, deciding to ignore Rita's statement.

"I asked if it was okay if I took the keys and drove off with the Bookmobile." Rita giggled. "That's how distracted you were by this mystery man."

Abby rolled her eyes. "There is no mystery man." She checked the clock above the highest row of books and gasped. "It's almost time to go."

"You didn't know?" Rita's surprise made Abby uncomfortable. "Wow, he must be something special."

"He's not," Abby said, moving to pick up a book that hadn't been put away properly.

"But there is a he ," Rita said triumphantly.

Abby sighed as she straightened. With the book back in the right place, she turned to face Rita. They were the only two in the Bookmobile. "Fine," she said. "There's this man who moved in next door. We dated once, and he's…."

Irritating would've fit in that pause. Handsome would've too. Intriguing, sexy , and maddening all would've worked.

Rita waited, her eyebrows sky high.

"He's fixing up the place next door," she said. "That's all."

"Oh, honey, that's not all."

"It is."

"But you don't want it to be."

"Are you getting any books?" Abby asked. "I have to start closing up."

Rita moved over to the scanner and checked out the three books in her arms. She faced Abby again and said, "Remember when I had that huge crush on Stephen? What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything."

"You nagged me to death," Rita said with an enormous grin. "To death , Abby, until I finally talked to him. Look at us now."

Abby had attended their wedding three years ago, so she didn't need to look at Stephen and Rita.

"I'm going to nag you to death over this," Rita promised.

"Please don't," Abby said with a moan.

"Then do something about it before I get the chance," Rita said as she went down the steps to the ground. Abby followed her and made sure the passenger door was locked. Then she unhooked the door and pushed it closed. She'd lock it from inside before she drove back to Coral Canyon.

She waved to Rita, got back into the Bookmobile, locked the door, and then sat behind the wheel. The drive usually took twenty-five minutes, but tonight, it passed in the blink of an eye. She didn't remember turns or tunes on the radio, because Tex once again dominated all of her gray matter.

She'd even turned onto Mountain View Road before she realized she hadn't taken the Bookmobile back to the library. She pressed on the brake, indecision raging inside her now. Her stomach needled her for something to eat, while her ethics told her she should return the Bookmobile and get her car.

It was another twenty minutes to town, and then back….

She continued down the lonely road out on the east side of town, slowing to a crawl to go past the farmhouse where Tex and Bryce lived.

The sexiest cowboy alive sat on the newly stained front porch, a guitar across his lap, his fingers coaxing music from the instrument.

"That is so not fair," she muttered to herself as Tex looked up. He caught sight of the Bookmobile—and Abby behind the wheel—and his grin filled his whole face.

" So unfair," she said, glad her windows didn't even roll down. "Really, Lord? He has to have a smile like that? Why can't it be hideously crooked or something?"

The speedometer read two miles per hour as she made the wide turn into her driveway and parked behind Wade's truck. It was fitted with extensions for the pedals for when he wore his prosthetics, and he could drive with just his hands if he wasn't wearing them.

His meet-the-parents date had gone swimmingly well, of course. It was only Abby who couldn't seem to charm anyone or anything. Even Atticus and Scout, her cats, had been aloof this morning. That wasn't super unusual for her cats, but still. She just wanted someone to look like they were excited to see her. Someone over the age of fifteen, that was.

She sighed as she cut the engine and reached under the front seat for her purse. She'd just dropped to the ground, her own feet making shifting noises in the old gravel, when she heard footsteps walking through rocks.

"Hey," Tex said, still wearing that swoon-worthy smile. "Look at the old Bookmobile." He actually patted the side of it, right over the M. "You drive this?"

"Every Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday," she said, unable to look away from him. He really was symmetrical and gorgeous. Only his nose sat a tiny bit askew, from a horseback riding injury when he was sixteen. Abby hated that she knew that while she also enjoyed knowing things about Tex.

"Where'd you go tonight?" he asked, looking at her.

"Dog Valley," she said. "I go out to Coyote Creek on Mondays, and Rusk on Tuesdays."

"Wow, Rusk." He dropped his hand, the other one holding the neck of the guitar. "That's a drive."

"An hour one-way," she said. She should walk away from him and see what Wade made for dinner. Then she remembered that it was Saturday evening, and Wade didn't sit at home like a pathetic spinster, petting her cats and thinking about the cowboy next door on Saturday nights.

Her stomach growled, loud enough for Tex to hear. He chuckled and asked, "Do you have dinner inside?"

"Oh, we'll have something," she said airily.

"Bryce made banana bread French toast and bacon. Remember my mama used to make that?" He nodded toward the farmhouse with his cowboy hat, those eyes sparkling like so many diamonds. That wasn't fair either, and he had to know it. "We have tons. You're welcome to come have some."

"Oh, I…." Abby looked next door too, her mouth watering. She'd eaten the banana bread French toast several times at Tex's house. Everything at his house had been the opposite of hers. She had one brother. He had eight . They enjoyed quiet family meals, with please's and thank you's. She had to ask to be excused.

At the Youngs, they were lucky if a brawl didn't break out during dinnertime. She'd actually seen more than one food fight firsthand, and whenever someone finished eating, they simply left the table.

Their mama had taught them to clean up after themselves, and she distinctly remembered the first time Tex had picked up her plate and then his, rinsed them, and put them in the dishwasher. Then he'd looked at her with a million stars in his eyes, and she'd slipped away from the table.

She'd slipped her hand into his, and they'd slipped into the basement. He'd kissed her there while everyone else in his family finished eating, and to Abby, it had felt dangerous and forbidden, and utterly thrilling and special all at the same time.

"What's goin' on in your head?" Tex asked softly, and Abby turned back to him as she pulled herself out of the memories. He stood very, very close now, and her mind blanked.

His hand whispered against hers, barely touching her skin before it was gone. She shivered though it was still plenty warm in Coral Canyon. "Come eat dinner with us," he said, and he wasn't really asking.

If he had, Abby would've said no, because a direct question she could answer. When her mind went soft like this, however, she let Tex take her hand and lead her across the narrow strip of grass and onto his newly graveled driveway.

She let him take her up the stairs and into the house through the back door, and she let him lean his guitar against the door there before she met his gaze again.

She would've let him kiss her had he tried, but his son said, "There you are. I just checked the front porch to tell you dinner was ready." He looked at Abby too, then dropped his eyes to where Tex still held her hand.

Abby pulled away at the same time Tex did, feeling like she'd been caught with the wrong boy by her father, and he said, "I was just talkin' to Abby. It's okay if she eats with us, right, bud?"

Bryce wore open shock on his face, but he said, "Yeah, sure," to his dad. Tex followed Bryce around the corner and into the kitchen, and Abby took a deep breath. It smelled like fresh paint mixed with bacon, and that wasn't wholly appetizing.

The cowboy sticking his head back around the corner and saying, "You comin'?" was, so Abby nodded and forced her feet to move.