Chapter 7

7

T ex's nerves had all come alive at the same time, about the moment he'd seen Abby behind the wheel of that Bookmobile. He hadn't even known such a thing still existed, but he should've. A small town like Coral Canyon didn't progress as fast as the rest of the world, and he'd experienced a pang of nostalgia at the sight of that vehicle with those huge, black blocky letters on the side of it.

He had no idea why he'd then pressed in close to Abby, nor why he'd felt it natural and normal to hold the woman's hand. She hadn't protested, but she'd also gone into robot-mode. He'd seen her do that before, and he didn't like it.

Thankfully, when she came around the corner, her eyes flowed with liquid fire, the kind that made Tex want to get closer and get burned.

"You've done so much," she said. "It's only been a week."

"My brother comes to help," Tex said, not wanting to take credit for everything. "And Bryce and I aren't lightweights." He grinned at his son, who had done everything Tex had thrown at him that week.

"The air conditioning is nice." She ran her hand along the cupboards. "These are new, I think."

"Got those in this morning," Tex said, a touch of pride entering his tone. He forced himself to swallow it as Bryce served him two pieces of French toast, his eyebrows up near his hairline. Tex would have so much explaining to do, and he sort of wished his kid was younger, like Beth, so he wouldn't have to.

"We're doing the countertops and floors next," Bryce said as Tex moved past him to the butter and syrup. "And if we don't get a dishwasher soon, I'm going on strike."

Tex chuckled, though he knew Bryce wasn't kidding. "It's comin', bud," he said. "Should be here Monday."

Abby dropped her eyes to the hole in the cabinetry where the dishwasher should be, and then she picked up a paper plate and let Bryce serve her too. "One piece?" he asked. "Or two?"

"Two, please," she said.

"Bacon is down there," Bryce said, setting down the spatula. He started to dip more slices of banana bread for himself, and Tex once again dealt with pangs of regret and embarrassment. He shouldn't have invited Abby over without talking to Bryce first. Yes, he'd made two loaves of banana bread that afternoon, after his girlfriend had sent him a recipe she'd made earlier this week.

That didn't mean Bryce was ready to make both loaves into French toast. Thankfully, he didn't complain about not being able to eat with Tex and Abby, and he kept himself busy in the kitchen after he'd laid the pieces in the pan.

"How long have you been driving the Bookmobile?" Tex asked, flipping over his French toast. He didn't like it too soggy, and this way, all the syrup was on the bottom, without gravity to pull it through the bread.

"About five years," she said. "Since I moved back to town."

"You've only been back for five years?"

"Yes," she said. "Wade got transferred out of the hospital in North Carolina at that time, and…." She trailed off, sudden anxiety in her expression.

"You came back to help him," Tex supplied. "Right?"

"Yes," she said, shifting in her seat.

Oh, Tex wanted to go further down this road. "Where were you before that?" he asked as casually as he could. He was much better at hiding his true feelings, and he thought he did a decent job of pretending not to be very interested.

"I worked for the Chicago Library System," she said. "I was out in the suburbs, in one of their libraries there."

He grinned at her and cut a piece of French toast. "You have always liked the cold climate."

"It doesn't bother me," she said with a shrug.

"But Florida is so nice," Tex teased, drawing Bryce's attention. He stuck his food in his mouth, so he'd stop flirting so blatantly.

Abby actually smiled, and Tex could count on one hand how many times she'd done that since he'd returned to town. "Humid there, though."

"It doesn't bother me," Tex said, and they smiled at one another. He sobered and cut another bite. "Lucky you got another job at the library here."

"I didn't go straight to running it," she said. "That's new too. I've only been at the helm for about eighteen months."

He nodded and took his bite of toast, glancing over to Bryce. His son had just flipped his bread, which meant Tex only had a couple of minutes before he'd join them at the table. "You didn't leave anyone or anything behind in Chicago?" he asked, this time failing to be casual.

Abby's eyebrows turned into hooks, and she gave him a glare. "I don't have to answer that."

"Nope," he said. "You sure don't." He glanced over to Bryce again, who openly stared at him. He gave his son a smile and dove into the deep end. "I met Bryce's mom in Boise, near the end of my last semester there." He looked back at Abby. "It was this whirlwind relationship, and we got married only six months later. Then I started working on Country Quad, and she had Bryce, and I was gone all the time." He left the explanation there and shrugged.

"How long were you married?" she asked, also failing at the casual tone.

"A couple of years," he said. "When we split, I moved to Nashville with Trace and Otis, who'd just graduated. We started writing songs and trying to get in front of record labels."

Bryce plated his French toast and started to pour syrup on it. They had a full dining set, so Tex didn't have to give up his seat for his son to join them. When he did, Tex added, "Bryce would come join me in the summers, and any time I wasn't touring, I'd go to Boise and spend time with him. Had a house there too."

"Wow, two houses," Abby said.

"No," Tex said. "We gave up the apartment in Nashville once we got a contract and started touring. That's when I bought my place in Boise, but I mostly lived out of a suitcase and a trailer." He grinned at Bryce, because Tex did have happy memories of his band life. It might have cost him more than he'd known, but he hadn't been unhappy doing it. In fact, he thought he'd been downright lucky and blessed. "Right, bud? I think he liked the trailer until he was about twelve."

He chuckled, glad when Bryce smiled too. "The trailer isn't so bad," he said. "I just don't like sleeping with you." He stabbed a stacked bite of French toast. "He snores, Miss Abby. Loudly. You don't want any part of that."

Tex choked on his bite of bacon, and Abby's face turned bright red. "Bryce," he said. "My goodness."

"I wasn't sayin' you two shouldn't sleep together," Bryce said, and that got Abby coughing.

"Okay, stop talking," Tex said, thoroughly humiliated.

Bryce started to laugh, and that made Tex want to yell and laugh at the same time. He oscillated between mortified and giddy, and he got up to throw his plate in the trashcan. He started to chuckle too, because laughter lightened everything.

He returned to the table, still laughing lightly, to get Abby's plate. "Good?" he asked. "I can make more."

"Don't let him do that," Bryce warned again. "The other night, he nearly burnt the place to the ground heating up a can of soup."

"Hey," Tex said, his laughter drying up. "That was an accident."

"It still happened," Bryce said, grinning at him. "If you want more French toast, Miss Abby, I'll make it for you."

"I'm good, thank you," she said, handing her syrupy plate to Tex and turning back to Bryce. "But thank you so much. It was delicious. I haven't had banana bread French toast since the last time I ate over here."

"Sure," he said. "When was that?"

Tex walked away from the conversation while keeping one ear on it. "Easter Sunday," Abby said. "When your daddy was a senior in high school."

He bent his head over the dishes in the sink, because he only did them once per day. More than that was a crime, and he let the water run until it started to get warm. When he was a senior, Abby had been a junior. She had eaten over here a lot, especially once they'd started dating. His mama liked having her eye on Tex and Abby, and she told her mom everything. She'd told him once that she trusted Abby just fine. It was Tex she didn't trust, and he'd gotten mad at her. He was her son; she should trust him.

Of course, he was the one sneaking down into the basement to kiss his girlfriend, or convincing Abby to meet him in the barn before school so they could be alone. In a family as big as his, it was hard to find somewhere to be without a bunch of other people. That wasn't ideal when he had a girl he really wanted to hold hands with or kiss, so he'd had to resort to some…sneaky ways to be alone with Abby.

That wasn't a crime, but he supposed it did make his mother distrust him a little bit.

He lost track of the conversation, but he knew the moment Abby stood and walked toward him. She brought the smaller plate the bacon had been on, and she handed it to him. She stood at his side while he soaped, and when he handed her a washed bowl from earlier, she pulled the faucet over to her side and rinsed it.

He had to say something, because this was Abby, and he had all kinds of feelings for her. "You remembered Easter Sunday with perfect clarity," he said, immediately clearing his throat afterward.

She took the pan Bryce had cooked the French toast in and held it under the stream of water. "Yeah, I—" She sighed. "I remember everything with you, Tex." She looked at him, pure vulnerability in her eyes. "You're a hard man to forget."

He didn't know exactly what that meant, and he searched her face for more answers. She turned away from him to pull a towel from the stove handle. She started to dry the dishes she'd rinsed, all while Tex's heartbeat stampeded through his whole body.

He felt light-headed and weak in the knees, and he wondered if this was how Mav had felt when he'd first started dating Dani. Tex hadn't felt like this in years and years—probably since he'd signed his first contract for two albums with King Country. Then, he'd felt like he could float up to the clouds and shout for joy, just like he did right now.

And Abby hadn't even said anything all that good. She hadn't asked him to take her to dinner, and she hadn't accepted his invitation for a date.

"Good or bad?" he finally asked, hoping Abby would know he was simply continuing their conversation.

Bryce stood and brought over his glass, his eyes searching Tex's too. But he really needed Abby to answer first. "Abby?"

"Both," she said. "There's always good and bad with you, Tex."

"With everyone," he said, a stab of guilt going right through his heart. "Everyone has good and bad times."

"I'll give you that," she said with a weak smile. "I should go. You guys have band practice tonight."

"No," Tex said at the same time Bryce asked, "How'd you know that?"

She pointed to the wall calendar Bryce had hung next to the refrigerator and smiled. Tex had seen that grin before, and it made his pulse fly off the charts. "I saw it on your family activities calendar. I think that's great. I need to get one of those." Her face pinked up again, and she said, "I mean, if I had anyone to do any activities with. Which I don't."

"Well," Tex said, deciding to go full-send with the flirting, the presence of his son notwithstanding. He already had a million explanations to make. "You do have those two cats. Maybe the three of you could do some knitting or something."

Abby looked at him with such aghast that he burst out laughing. "That was a joke, Abs."

She held her head high as she re-hung the towel over the stove handle. "For your information, Mister Young, if my cats and I were to do something together, it wouldn't be knitting. I'm not seventy years old."

Bryce chortled at that, but Tex asked, "What would it be?"

"We'd watch a rom-com, of course," Abby said. "With plenty of caramel popcorn and hot chocolate."

"In the summer?" he asked.

"Tex, rom-coms, popcorn, and hot chocolate are year-round items." To prove her point, a rumble of thunder sounded overhead, causing all three of them to look skyward despite the ceiling in their way.

"The storm is here," Bryce said with glee. "I'm goin' out, Dad."

"All right," he said as his big kid ran for the back door. "Don't get struck by lightning." The door slammed before he'd really finished speaking, so Tex wasn't sure Bryce had heard him at all. "I did warn him."

"I should go," Abby said. "It's only a hundred yards or so, but I don't want to be running in the rain."

Tex reached for the towel and dried his hands. "All right," he said. "Thanks for coming over."

"Yeah," she said. "Thanks for feeding me."

They walked toward the door, and Tex hesitated at the corner. He wanted to ask her out. He wanted to apologize for leaving her here in Coral Canyon without much communication. He wanted to learn everything about her and have her tell him about the past twenty years of her life.

Instead, he said, "Maybe I'll see you at church tomorrow."

She nodded, her jaw jumping. "Maybe."

"Or maybe you could come over and help me with the fields next week." His eyebrows went up. Maybe if he hid his desire to spend time with her behind the work this ranch needed, it wouldn't seem like a date.

"The fields?"

"They're wildly overgrown," he said. "I don't quite know how to get them into shape. I asked Wade, but…."

I want you sounded far too forward at this juncture in their relationship.

"Wade will know what to do," she said as another clap of thunder filled the air. She ducked toward the door, and Tex felt the world slipping through his fingers.

"Abby," he said as she opened the door to leave. She paused and turned back to him. He swallowed and once again committed to going all-in. He wasn't playing cards with his brothers, and this might have real losses and gains. "If you don't want to do the fields, maybe you could come on Wednesday evening, and I'll show you the blueprints for the basement."

Her eyes went wide, but Tex had pushed all of his chips into the center of the table. "Or I'll bring dinner over to your place one night when Wade is out with his girlfriend, and I'll show you then."

He was very clearly asking her out, and he'd tossed every ball he owned into her court. The first drops of rain hit the railing outside, making a clunky sound. Somewhere in the yard, Bryce whooped, and Tex smiled at the innocence of his son dancing in the rain.

"Think about it," Tex said. "And you better run, because it's coming down."

Abby didn't nod or confirm anything. She simply turned and left his house, racing down the steps and running across the fifty-two steps from his door to hers. Up onto her back porch she went, and right through the door without looking back at him once.

A sigh leaked from his body, and he went back inside, leaving the door open to hear the rain. He looked out the window above the sink to find Bryce soaking wet, his arms splayed out at his sides as he tipped his head back and smiled into the storm.

Tex's heart filled with love for the boy, and he hoped the rain would postpone the conversation his son would insist on having about Abby and Tex's obvious feelings for her.

"Thank you for my boy," he said to God. "And for the rain. And for Abigail Ingalls. Help me to do things right with her this time, and bless her to…know I won't hurt her again."

Tex realized with that prayer that he had hurt Abby all those years ago, and he added it to the things he regretted deeply. Maybe if he made it right, if he repented and apologized, their second chance could turn into happily-ever-after.