Bang. Bang. Bang.
Brendon bolted to his feet as someone pounded on his front door. He was startled by the demanding beat, but he managed to pull himself together before his hand gripped the knob.
A quick peek through the security hole in the door told him that Jessie was standing on the other side. And the woman clearly wasn’t happy.
Pulling the door back slowly, he peered out at her. She’d ceased the pounding, but now she had her hands on her hips, and she was glaring at him as though she wanted to kill him with the death rays shooting from her eyes.
Even angry, she looked just as pretty as always. Her golden-brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, accentuating the soft line of her jaw and the smoothness of her skin along her high cheekbones. Jessie wasn’t exactly short, but she wasn’t tall, either. Average was probably appropriate. He still had to look down at her, especially when she wasn’t wearing her favored footwear—sexy high heels.
“What’s up?” he asked as casually as he could manage. He didn’t feel at all casual when this woman was around. Not after their last encounter.
For three months, he’d been avoiding her, mainly because he was a selfish bastard and he was pissed that Braydon had disappeared. He’d even gone so far as to blame her, knowing good and damn well that Jessie wasn’t the reason Braydon left. Hell, if anything, Jessie would probably be the only thing that would get Braydon to return.
Not that he’d told her that, either.
“Call him,” she demanded.
“Call who?” he asked, pretending he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Call Braydon.”
“Why?” he probed, stepping back out of the doorway to allow her entrance. To his shock, she didn’t move from her position.
Yeah, it was safe to say she hated him.
“I’m not coming in,” she insisted. “Call him. Tell him it’s time to come home.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so!”
Brendon couldn’t help it; he started to laugh. His amusement died instantly when he realized Jessie had tears in her eyes. “What’s the matter?” he asked, pulling her into the house and shutting the door behind her.
“He’s not coming back,” she sobbed as he pulled her up against him, wrapping his arms around her. It was second nature for him to want to comfort her. It didn’t matter that they’d had a falling-out; he still cared about her. He wanted to believe that beneath all the hurt he’d caused her, they were still friends.
Fuck.
“Did he call you?” he asked, his breath fanning her hair.
“No. I was at my sister’s. Travis told me.”
Sonuvabitch.
As much as he hated to admit it, Jessie’s demand that he call Braydon might not be such a bad idea.
But getting Braydon to answer might be another issue altogether.
chapter FOUR
Braydon dropped the pitchfork and wiped his forehead with his T-shirt, which had been hanging over the stall rail.
Summer in Texas royally sucked. With temps soaring into the high nineties by ten o’clock in the morning, the air thick enough to choke a man, he wanted nothing more than to find a cool place to sit for a few minutes. And to think, it was only seven.
But he had things to do, which was why he was in the barn early.
Today was supposed to be his day off, but since he couldn’t sleep, he’d opted to pull on his jeans and do something constructive. Pitching hay into one of the empty stalls had seemed like just what he needed to burn off some excess energy.
It wasn’t helping.
Grabbing one of the three water bottles he’d brought with him, he twisted off the cap and swallowed half the water in one gulp as he peered out the open doors. He could see Cooper and Tessa’s house from where he stood, and just a short while ago, he’d noticed the couple sitting on the back porch. He knew the two of them usually had breakfast together after handling their early-morning chores, and it looked like today hadn’t been any different.
Finishing off the first bottle, Braydon tossed it into the wheelbarrow that sat empty beside him. Reaching for the pitchfork, he let the scent of fresh hay fill his mind as he forced everything else out. That was one of the benefits of manual labor: he could spend hours working and not thinking about how screwed-up his life had become.
Braydon had no idea how much time had passed, but he’d worked his way through three stalls, dumping hay into each one and then spreading it across the floor. By the time he heard someone clear their throat behind him, he was ready to drop.
“What are you doin’ up this early on a Sunday? Today’s supposed to be your day off.”