Devon resisted the urge to strangle her mother, instead deciding to beat her at her own game.
“I wouldn’t dream of denying you that opportunity, Mom. After all, you know more about the town than I do since you’ve lived here longer.”
The slight narrowing of her mother’s eyes told Devon she was going to pay for that comment later when Steven Jackson was nowhere near to hear it. Still, her mother didn’t listen to reason. She simply refused to believe that Devon didn’t like any of the men her mother deemed appropriate for the only daughter of one of the county’s wealthiest families.
“I can’t, dear,” her mother said. “I have a meeting that was planned before I knew Steven would be here.”
Yeah, right.
“If it’s an inconvenience, please don’t worry about it,” Steven said.
Before Devon could respond, her mother said, “Oh, nonsense. I’m sure Devon is free and would love to be your tour guide. I just heard that they have a new chef at the Wildflower Inn, too. You’ll have to try it out and let me know how the food is.”
Devon wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if poor in-the-middle Steven could see the steam coming out of her ears.
“There you are, sweetie. Sorry we got held up in there.”
Devon turned to Barbara, who’d stepped up beside her. Cole had to be close by, but Devon didn’t look for him. She wasn’t willing to risk that certain rush of heat up her neck and into her face in front of her mother.
“You ready to go?” Barbara asked Devon.
She was about to ask Barbara what in the world she was talking about when she realized the older woman was throwing her a lifeline. It didn’t matter why, Devon decided to look at it as a gift from the universe and roll with it.
“Yes.”
She could almost feel the anger radiating off her mother.
“Excuse us, Barbara, but Devon was making plans with Steven.”
Devon barely kept herself from telling her mother she was being rude. How could anyone be rude to Barbara Davis? She was as sweet as pie.
“Devon already has plans to have dinner with us,” Barbara responded. Was that a little edge to her voice? What was going on here?
Her mother’s expression revealed a moment of shock, over in less than a blink when she pasted on her fake smile. “Perhaps you can reschedule. Steven is only in town from Dallas for this evening.”
Steven looked like he wanted to be snatched up by a giant eagle and carried right out of this really uncomfortable situation. Devon didn’t blame him.
Devon sensed movement on her left a moment before someone wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Not someone. Cole.
She stiffened, afraid that if she moved he would disappear, taking his delicious warmth and fresh, clean, honest scent with him.
“You ready for dinner?” he asked. “I’m starving.”
She was starving, all right. Starving for air. Starving for a regular heartbeat. Starving for the ability to be able to look up into his eyes without revealing just how much his simple gesture was rocking her world.
When Cole wrapped his arm around Devon’s shoulders, she went stiff as a fence post. He wondered if he’d made a miscalculation of how she’d respond, but then she relaxed a fraction and played along with the tale he and his mother were spinning by the seat of their pants.
Though he suspected his mother was up to something, he followed her lead. It was that or continuing to watch Devon’s mother bully her. How the older woman was treating her daughter raised his ire, the same way he was angered anytime he saw a parent belittling or mistreating a child. He’d damn near gotten himself thrown in jail up in Wyoming the time he’d intervened when he’d seen a woman grab her little girl by her ponytail and nearly drag her out of a restaurant. Thankfully, there had been enough witnesses who took his side that he’d avoided ending up behind bars. But he wouldn’t have done anything differently even if he had ended up there.
Granted, Devon was a grown woman, but that didn’t suddenly give her mother the right to embarrass her in public.
“It was nice to meet you, Steven,” Devon said, sounding sincere. “I hope you enjoy your visit to Blue Falls.”
“Thank you,” the man beside Angela Newberry said.
Cole fought the strange urge to dislike the guy, but it appeared Steven had been roped into this awkward situation unknowingly.
Angela appeared as though she was about to protest again, so Cole steered Devon away from her mother and toward the parking lot. Yes, it was partly to prevent Devon from having to endure any more pressure from her mother, but it was more so he’d remove himself from Angela’s presence before he said something that would embarrass both his mom and Devon.
“Devon,” Angela called out.
“‘Bye, Mom.” Devon threw a wave over her shoulder without looking back.
As they put distance between themselves and Angela, Devon didn’t move to extricate herself from him. Most likely it was because she knew her mother was probably staring at Devon’s back, but it felt good to have his arm wrapped around a woman again nonetheless.
Oh hell, he was not going there. If he could be sure Angela wasn’t watching them, he’d be the first to step away. The absolute last thing he needed in his life was a woman. He’d been down that path more than once, and it always ended up dead-ending in Craptown.
When they maneuvered their way to the other side of his truck, he lifted his arm away from her and let it fall to his side while he propped his other arm along the side of his truck bed.
“Thanks for the rescue,” Devon said, not making eye contact.
He wondered if she was embarrassed because he’d witnessed the disagreement between her and her mother or if it was that she’d allowed him to pose as something he wasn’t. And would never be. He might convince himself to go on the occasional date, but from now on it was going to be casual one-and-done for him. Getting serious with someone led to marriage, and he’d tried that twice already and neither had ended well. There was no third-time’s-the-charm.
“No problem,” he said.
She shifted from one foot to the other, as if she might be about to turn and leave.
“You’ll need to come out to the house now,” his mom said as she joined them.
At that, Devon looked up.
“If you don’t, your mom will find out and know this was all a ruse. Plus, it’d be nice to visit anyway. And you could see Cole’s sculptures.”
There it was, his mother’s undying belief that “the one” was still out there for him, the woman who would love him and give his mom grandchildren. He could tell her a million times that he was done with marriage and she still refused to believe him.
“Neither of those marriages worked out because neither of them was the right woman,” she’d said on more than one occasion.
He’d finally stopped wasting his breath. She’d figure it out when year after year passed by with him still single and childless. Leave it to his younger brother, Cooper, to be the provider of grandchildren. Maybe