The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(52)

Ranger’s tail was wagging so hard, his entire body wagged with it.

Finally, Johnny’s eyes lifted and mine went in the direction he aimed them.

And there she was, maybe ten feet from our blanket.

Tall.

Buxom.

A mane of wild, beautiful, dark red hair.

A killer outfit that fit close to the one Johnny was wearing, a slim-fitting, black baby doll tee with what looked like a heart from a playing card on it with some wording in it, seriously faded jeans, worn in cowboy boots and lots of silver at wrists, ears, fingers and neck.

And a face that could start wars and end them.

She was so beautiful, I envied her on sight with such intensity it felt like I shriveled sitting there on my picnic blanket next to Johnny. Shriveled and shrank until I felt two inches tall.

Her face was stricken, pained, tortured.

And then she ran. Like a heroine in a romantic movie, with the grace of the beauty that was just her, she turned and raced through the crowd, bobbing and weaving, her hair flying out behind her, catching the sunlight with a ruby glow.

I was watching her so I didn’t know how it happened but Ranger made a choice and raced after her.

He stopped though. Stopped, looked back at Johnny, and with what looked like a “come on!” jerk of his head toward Johnny that sent his floppy ears flying, he turned and bolted after her.

And I sat frozen in agony on a picnic blanket dappled with sun on a summer day, holding my nephew as I felt the sudden movement beside me when, without a word, Johnny Gamble surged to his feet and sprinted after the both of them.





A Memory

Izzy

I WAS ON the back porch pulling on my wellies the next morning when the door to the house opened.

I looked up and saw my sister standing there with bed hair, in her jammies, looking both just woken up and still tired, with an expression on her face that I was sure I wore the night she arrived and the morning after when I’d looked at her.

“Hey,” she said gently.

“Hey,” I replied strongly.

“You okay?” she asked.

No.

No, I was not okay.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Her hand came up and in it was my phone.

“He’s calling again,” she said.

She’d turned the ringer back on.

I wished she hadn’t done that.

I didn’t even look at the phone.

“I’m going out to feed the horses and let them loose. I didn’t get to muck their stalls yesterday morning so I’ll come back in, make you guys breakfast, change, but then I have to go back out and do that.”

“I’ll help you when you do.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I will,” she stated firmly.

“Someone has to look after Brooks,” I reminded her.

“He can hang in a stable. Kids for millennia have been hanging around horses and eating dirt and whatever and they survived. Plus his favorite place on earth is with his mom and his Auntie Izzy, so that’s where he’s gonna be.”

I shrugged, bent to my boots and finished putting them on, saying, “If it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me.”

I started toward the screen door of the back porch when she called my name.

I turned to her.

“You should talk to him,” she urged quietly.

Not going to happen.

She liked him. A brief conversation on a picnic blanket and she’d liked him.

This was unsurprising.

He was Johnny.

I nodded, muttered, “Maybe later,” and took off out the screen door.

I headed to the stables trying not to think about the fact that Johnny had called when we were in the car on the way home from the festival yesterday. And we’d headed home from the festival approximately ten point eight seconds after he’d hauled ass after Shandra.

Worse, we’d packed up and hightailed it out under the kind and sympathetic eyes of the many spectators to the reunion of Johnny and Shandra, a reunion that was mere minutes after he’d been cuddling on a picnic blanket with me.

A reunion where he’d raced after her, not looking back.

I didn’t take the call because I knew why he was calling.

He was Johnny. He was sweet. He was a gentleman. In the throes of the situation, he could forget me. But he’d see to me when it hit him what he’d done, and he’d be as kindhearted about it as he could when he explained the way things needed to be.

But I didn’t need that.

I knew where I stood even before that happened.

It was nice and all, but unnecessary.

I had to admit, the text that came in seconds after I didn’t answer his call was a surprise.

I also had to admit the repeated calls and texts, none of which I took or looked at, were a surprise too.

However, after I’d phoned Deanna and Charlie and lied through my teeth that I was hungover, couldn’t hack the crowd, noise, smells and heat and we’d headed home so we wouldn’t meet them when they hit the festival later as planned, I’d turned my ringer off so I wouldn’t have the constant reminder that I’d been smart not to let myself think I could have Johnny.

But knowing now without any doubt I couldn’t have Johnny still hurt way, way, way more than it should.

Addie had tried once to coax me to pick up the phone and talk to him. But when I refused, she let it go. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you, our mother taught us the old proverb and she’d done it frequently. Addie lived that, as I did too.