Braydon(38)

Or maybe just overly hopeful.

“How’re you?” Braydon asked, trying to make conversation with the woman, who looked like she was ready to bolt out the door.

“Good,” Lorrie answered, her eyes meeting his for the first time.

“I’m glad you called,” he told her honestly, and those words changed his mother’s expression immediately. No longer did she look quite so eager to go.

“Everything okay?” she asked softly, her hands coming to rest on the top of the table.

“No. But I don’t expect it to be.”

Lorrie’s eyebrows furrowed; her smile faltered. “Talk to me. Are you thinking about leaving again?”

“No,” he assured her. “I’m not leaving again. I’ve decided to stay and figure this out. The time away was good for me though. I . . . I needed to be away from Brendon, Mom.”

Lorrie nodded in understanding. “The two of you never wanted to be apart as kids,” she began. “Did you know that I could never just take one of you somewhere? Brendon couldn’t tolerate being away from you. If you weren’t there for him to see, he would panic.”

“Seriously?” Braydon hadn’t heard that particular story, although he knew they’d been inseparable.

“Oh, yes. Taking care of two babies at one time was hard enough, especially when I had Travis, Sawyer, and Kaleb to contend with. But it was even harder because Brendon insisted on being with you at all times. Your father couldn’t even take one of you off my hands for a little while. He had to take both of you, or it resulted in Brendon throwing a tantrum.”

Braydon smiled at the thought of Brendon crying like a little girl.

“But we’re grown, Ma. He should know that this can’t last forever.”

“Can’t it?” she asked. “Have you ever given him the impression that you wanted otherwise?”

No, he hadn’t.

His mother reached out and patted his hand. “It’s gonna work out, Bray.”

Why did everyone keep saying that? And how did they know?

Before he had the chance to ask her those questions directly, his mother’s phone rang and Braydon watched as she lunged for it in her purse sitting beside her. Holy shit. She was jumpy all right.

“Hey, yeah. Oh, okay. Just a sec,” she told the caller. Lorrie looked up at him and smiled. “I need to take this phone call, dear. Give me just a minute.”

Braydon’s eyebrows lifted, probably touching his hairline based on his shock. He fought the urge to laugh his disbelief as he watched his mother slide out of the booth, snatching up her purse as she did. His mother, the woman who detested phones being used at the dinner table, was excusing herself to take a phone call. He was suddenly glad they weren’t sitting near a window or he’d have been tempted to look outside to see if pigs were flying over.

Rachel arrived at the table a second later to take his drink order. “I’ll have what my mother’s having,” he told her.

“Oh.” Rachel glanced behind her and then back at him. “She hasn’t ordered anything yet.”

“Then I’ll have iced tea.” Damn. What in the hell was she up to? He’d suspected she hadn’t ordered yet, and Rachel had confirmed it.

Braydon looked up to see Rachel walking away, and that was when he saw her.

Jessie.

Rachel stopped, offered Jessie a friendly smile, and then pointed toward his table.

Yep. This was a setup.

And for the first time in his entire life, he was grateful that his mother insisted on being a matchmaker.

Even if she wasn’t at all subtle about it.



JESSIE OFFERED A sincere thank-you to Rachel after the waitress motioned her toward a table in the back. It was the only thing she could do as she stood frozen in place, staring in the direction Rachel had pointed her. Her brain was too busy trying to process what she was seeing to say anything else. There was Braydon, sitting at the table that Lorrie had supposedly been seated at a few moments ago.

Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have been quite so stunned. Her first clue that something was off should’ve been when she had passed Lorrie on her way into the restaurant. Lorrie had been rushing for the exit, holding her cell phone to her ear, and with a brief interruption to her call, she’d told Jessie that she would meet her at the table but she needed to take the call. It should’ve also clued her in when Lorrie didn’t bother putting the phone back to her ear, instead dropping it into her purse as she darted toward the front of the restaurant.

For whatever reason, Jessie hadn’t thought anything of it.

In fact, she hadn’t thought that it was strange that Lorrie had called her that morning and asked to meet her for lunch. The older woman had informed her that she’d missed her during last night’s dinner and wanted to catch up. Seemed legit.

Since that was normal Lorrie behavior, Jessie had agreed to meet her.

And here she was, standing just a few feet away from Braydon.

“I see she hooked you, too,” he told her gruffly when she finally got her feet moving and approached the table.

“A setup?” she asked curiously.

“It would seem so.”

Jessie glanced over her shoulder and then back at Braydon. “She’s good.”

Braydon gestured for her to sit as he smiled. “And she’s gone.”