“Fair enough. Now you can just stagger across the property.”
At least Grant wasn’t drinking alone. He wasn’t going to say that, but he was grateful for that. They all worried about Grant. They had thought that in a year, two years, five years, he would have done something in the way of recovering from Lindsay’s death. But Lindsay had been his high school sweetheart, his first and only love, and the fact that he had married her even knowing their marriage wouldn’t be a long one, knowing that eventually her terminal illness would take her, had made them a kind of tragic love story for the ages in Gold Valley.
And unfortunately, Grant, it turned out, excelled at existing in tragedy.
“I’m sure I’ll see y’all tomorrow,” he said. “If you end up needing any help on anything specific let me know.”
He stood up and went back outside, feeling a little bit like an unsettled boomerang not sure what target he was hoping to return to.
His hand itched, and he wanted to reach for his phone to call Kaylee.
But it was late now, and she had probably gone to sleep.
He had already interrupted her date, he didn’t need to wake her up too.
Part of him wondered if she had called her date back, if they were resuming activities now. At her home. In her bed.
He gritted his teeth. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t think about Kaylee and sex. He didn’t think about Kaylee showering. Didn’t imagine pale skin and her curves. Never.
He blamed this whole thing on Olivia because he didn’t think of Olivia as being the mother of someone else’s children either.
She was supposed to be the mother of his.
And whether or not he had a broken heart, he felt...
Well, thwarted plans were never fun.
Having built an entire life in his head that was now permanently crumbled around him was not fun.
He had encouraged Luke to go after Olivia, when the man had shown up at the ranch looking brokenhearted and generally hangdog. Because Bennett hadn’t felt that broken when Olivia had left him. And he knew that Olivia deserved a man who did. When push came to shove, he felt like he had done the right thing.
But he kind of wished that he hadn’t now. And in this moment, by himself, he was going to go ahead and feel petty.
Yeah, and he was going to take that home by himself. All of his anger, all of his unsettled feelings. All of the weird thoughts he had about his best friend tonight.
Tomorrow would be a new day. And he would start making a new plan. There wasn’t another option.
BEFORE TEN O’CLOCK Kaylee had already dealt with a parakeet that had a fever, a ferret with a bad skin condition and an old dog that had gotten into some foxtails.
Business was never slow at Valley Veterinary, which was a good thing in many ways.
But at the moment Kaylee would kill for another cup of coffee and a moment to sit down.
And that was when Bennett walked in, looking like her salvation with his strong hands wrapped around two cups of coffee from Sugar Cup.
“Thank God you’re here,” she said, stretching her arm out.
“That’s quite the greeting.”
“I didn’t mean you. I meant coffee. Hand it over, Dodge. I’m dying.”
“Well, we can’t have that, Kay.” He thrust the cup into her hand, and she took it greedily, taking a cautious sip. It was scalding hot. Just the way she liked it.
She looked up at the clock, and then looked at the schedule sitting on the desk. Unless there was another emergency, she was clear for the day.
“Have you been out to check on the calf?”
“Yep,” he said, “first thing I did this morning. Everything looks good. But it’s just the start of busy season for me.”
“Right,” Kaylee responded. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The time of year where you spend half your time shoulder deep in cows.”
He chuckled and lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “It’s a living.”
“Indeed. Not jealous of you, just FYI. I prefer the small and fuzzy to the large and smelly.”
Usually, she didn’t have to assist with many births. Occasionally there were some breed-specific issues, and she would have to do something like give a bulldog a C-section, but that wasn’t very common around here.
“Did you end up finishing your date last night?” Bennett asked.
It was a weird question, and there was something weighted in his voice.
“Did I end up...finishing my date?” She blinked. “I didn’t go back to the restaurant at 9:30, if that’s what you’re asking. My steak would’ve been cold.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
Heat flew into her cheeks, her heart slamming against her breastbone. “Bennett, are you asking if I brought the man home?”
His expression was overly bland. Overly casual. “Just out of curiosity.”
“I have never asked you such question in my life,” she pointed out.
“Well, no. And you probably never would.”
Because the idea of Bennett with another woman burned her with jealousy, and she would have maybe had a blackout and stabbed him with the nearest medical instrument, but she wasn’t going to say that.
Bennett was not asking out of the burning jealousy of his heart. Not even a little.
In fact, that Bennett was asking at all proved how much the thought of her being with someone else didn’t matter to him.
She blamed Olivia Logan for all of this. Yes, him being with her had hurt. Knowing that he was probably going to marry her had hurt. But she had also seen...the end.
If Bennett were married then there really wouldn’t be a them. Not like part of her stupid heart had hoped there would be since junior high. If he married another woman then it really wasn’t going to happen between them. So yes, it had been indescribably painful to know that was finally coming.
But it had been a relief in some strange ways. A relief because it would finally kill her hope dead.
And then the golden couple of Gold Valley had broken up.
Bennett being single forced her to ponder all the what-ifs again.
Which was why she had gone out on that date.
She hadn’t been on a date in forever—it had been even longer since she had been with anyone, and she had just been...tired of that. Tired of the fact that her emotions, her body, seemed to be completely held hostage by a man who didn’t want them.
“Normally I wouldn’t,” he said, “but the whole thing with Olivia has me thinking.”
Everything inside Kaylee drew in tight, the breath in her lungs, her stomach, even her pulse seemed to narrow down to the tip of the pen, stabbing at her with each beat.
She swallowed hard. “You mean, you’re looking for someone else to marry?”
She had survived the selection process of Olivia. Had survived that relationship and near-marriage. She wasn’t sure if she was going to survive it again.
The corner of Bennett’s mouth tipped upward, the expression on his face turning wicked, which