Braydon(18)

“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.”

The deep bass, accompanied by a heavy Southern drawl, had Braydon glancing over to see Cooper Krenshaw. Turning, he came face-to-face with Cooper, who was standing behind him, one booted foot on the bottom rung of the stall door, his forearms resting on the wood beam, hands hanging limply over. His expression was one that Braydon had grown used to in recent weeks: concern was etched across his face.

Cooper was Tessa’s famous husband and the man who’d given Braydon a job several months ago. It was kind of strange how close the Walker clan had become with Tessa and their other cousins during the past year, considering they hadn’t had much contact with her growing up, but as time continued to pass, they were becoming quite close to her and her family.

Of course, they had known about Tessa, but due to a family rift in generations before theirs, they had never been close with her. But lately, they’d all sworn to rectify that, everyone agreeing that family was the most important thing. Despite Tessa’s initial resistance to opening up to a long-lost part of her family, she and her brothers, Adam and Jack, had been relatively positive about embracing the new friendship. And now Braydon owed her so much for helping him through his tough time these last few months.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Braydon told Cooper. Not that his insomnia was a new development. That had started many months ago and hadn’t let up in recent days.

Cooper pushed off the rail, walking to the opposite side of the wide path that split the stable in two, and returned with one of the remaining bottles of water. Without a word, he tossed the plastic toward Braydon. Catching it with one hand, Braydon leaned the pitchfork against the wood wall and resigned himself to having to talk. Apparently Cooper intended to stay awhile.

“You’re gonna work yourself into the ground, you know that?”

Braydon laughed as he tipped the bottle to his lips. That wasn’t the first time Cooper had mentioned that.

In the three months Braydon had been hanging out with Tessa and Cooper, they’d pelted him with more questions than he cared to answer. And every time they dug just a little too deep, he brushed them off. That hadn’t swayed either of them in their quest to get him to open up.

“I’m good,” Braydon lied. He wasn’t good. Far from it. But that was the same song and dance he had endured for the past few months.

Physically, he’d never been better. Apparently working from sunup to sundown did a body good. But it didn’t do a damn thing to help Braydon sleep at night, which had been his hope when he first arrived at the ranch.

“Brendon know where you are yet?” Cooper asked, reaching for the last bottle of water once Braydon finished the other and then tossing it to him.

“Not unless my dad told him,” Braydon answered, looking directly at Cooper.

“You still not plannin’ to go home?” Cooper questioned, sipping coffee from a thermos he’d brought with him and peering at Braydon from beneath the rim of his Stetson.