A Town Called Valentine(65)

“Now that would ruin the surprise.” Grinning, he slipped on his hat and tipped it toward her. “Afternoon, miss.”

Emily watched him walk down the street, shaking her head. You didn’t meet men like that in San Francisco—what a shame.

That evening, when darkness began to creep over them, Nate was answering e-mails in the ranch office. At last he sat back and let his mind wander tiredly—and it immediately went to Emily. He’d see her in the morning, and he was eager for it.

He could be careful. It wasn’t as if he was unaccustomed to dating and enjoying himself, ending it when the urge to smother the woman with his opinions and his help started to prove too attractive.

With Emily, his help was concrete—it was about her renovations, or her search for her dad. His opinion wasn’t important, so much as practical advice. Now if she started asking what major she should focus on in college, he was backing away like she was dynamite. He’d talked careers before, with terrible results, and not just with his college girlfriend.

He turned off the office lights and went out into the night, standing still for a moment as his eyes adjusted. He saw the lights on in the horse barn and knew it had to be his brother. Josh had converted an old tack room into a leatherworking shop and spent a lot of his spare time there. On his way through the barn, Nate petted the horses, who all dipped their heads out of their stalls to greet him with soft whinnies. Scout was a favorite with the horses and remained behind to greet his friends.

Nate followed a stream of light across the floor, then leaned his shoulder against the doorway to watch his brother. Josh was using shears to cut a piece of leather into a strange shape that Nate didn’t recognize. But he knew talent when he saw it, and his brother had that.

Josh suddenly glanced up, his face creasing into a curious smile.

Nate looked around the workshop at the goods in various stages of work, from pieces of unadorned leather to braided rope to the beginnings of a vine of flowers etched into a long piece of leather. “What will that be for?” Nate asked, gesturing to the last item.

“The frame of a mirror.”

Nate nodded, impressed. “I know I’ve told you before, but you’re really good.”

Josh glanced up. “Thanks.”

“So what’s the plan for all of this?” Nate asked.

“There has to be a plan?” Josh asked, studying him with amusement.

“My thought was, you’re so talented that it’s a shame you only create things for yourself or the family. Lots of other people would be interested, especially in a tourist town like Valentine has become.”

Josh cocked his head. “What if I’m not interested in becoming a businessman? I’m a cowboy, a full-time job.”

Nate didn’t like how he was suddenly feeling defensive. “You don’t have to become a businessman. You can hire people to do that work for you. But you have to come up with a business plan, a guide for what you expect to do with this.”

“That’s what you’d do, big brother,” Josh said quietly. “You like the business side of things.”

“Well . . . yeah. It’s part of having a business.”

“You’re making my leather tooling about more than it is. It’s what I do for enjoyment.”

Nate’s defensiveness morphed into irritation. “I don’t just work, you know. I can enjoy things, too.”

“Seems to me you’re turning even Emily Murphy into work—drywalling, I hear? Sexy.”

“How did you know—” Nate broke off.

Josh grinned in a knowing way, and that made Nate want to stick out his chest, and say, “Oh yeah?” like he was twelve.

But he wasn’t going to go bragging about what he and Emily had recently shared just to prove to his brother that he had all the different parts of his life under control.

Nate gritted his teeth. “I came to tell you that I’ll be gone part of tomorrow morning.”

“Drywalling.”

Nate groaned as he turned to leave.

“Hey, where you going?” Josh called, all innocence. “You can’t take a joke? Or I’m hitting too close to the truth?”

“I’m blowing off a morning’s work,” Nate called over his shoulder. “Guess after all the pestering you’ve been doing, that should make you happy. My irrigation ditches are all yours.”

Josh grumbled, and Nate felt a little bit better.