“Are you looking for some ranch hands?”
Jake didn’t want to commit to anything. The chances of Erin accepting a job from him were slim, at best. Then there was the question of whether he wanted her working for him. There’d be battles. She was strong-minded and could be as stubborn as the day was long. But he couldn’t deny that she knew her way around livestock. She would be an asset.
“Maybe,” he answered. “Not that she’d take a job on my ranch.”
Luke and Dylan looked at each other, and Dylan said, “She might.”
Jake was still skeptical.
Luke shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We understand what a pain she can be.”
Jake didn’t even try to curb his smile. “I guess she never grew out of that.” He was glad she still had the spunk she’d had when they were young. And although he suspected she’d never forgiven him for ending what had barely started, it obviously hadn’t kept her down.
“She has a good heart, though,” Dylan said. “After Pop and Mama died—”
“We appreciated the check you sent to the memorial fund, Jake,” Luke told him. “Your uncle, too.”
Jake nodded. “It was the least we could do. I remember when Uncle Carl called to tell me. I—” He swallowed hard at the memory and how he’d wished he could do something to comfort all of them. David and Ann Walker had treated him like one of their own. “I couldn’t imagine what you all were going through. They were great people.”
Both brothers nodded and were silent for a moment, and a shadow crossed Dylan’s face, before he spoke. “Did you know Erin postponed her rodeo career to stay home with us, until Luke graduated from high school?”
Jake shook his head but wasn’t surprised. She’d always been fiercely protective of the two of them. “I didn’t know, but that sounds just like her.”
“There’s nobody like Erin,” Dylan said.
After another brief pause, Luke put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “It really is good to see you. We all need to get together again.”
“Soon,” Jake answered.
“We’ll do that. And if you hear anything about a job for someone with Erin’s qualifications...”
“I’ll pass it on,” Jake promised.
As they moved away, he noticed that Erin had left the table where she’d been sitting with the others. After a quick glance around the tavern, he saw her. On the far side of the room, she stood with her hands braced on the old jukebox as she leaned forward to read the list of song titles. He felt a surge of heat shoot through his body but did his best to ignore it. He suspected she wouldn’t accept if he approached her about a job. She had a lot of pride, but she had a lot of talent, too. If he hired her it wouldn’t be because he wanted to try to repeat the past.
Or did he? He’d never forgotten her. Hardly a day had gone by that he hadn’t thought of her. Would it hurt to see if she would take the job? What did he have to lose? He’d already lost her, but maybe he could change that.
* * *
ERIN TOOK HER time at the jukebox. She needed to pull herself together. She’d never expected to see Jake Canfield again and wondered if he’d thought the same about her. When she saw him talking with Dusty McPherson and Morgan Rule, she made her way back to the table where Kate and Trish were sitting. She felt light-headed, weak at the knees. She had to stay as far away from Jake as possible until she could regain her equilibrium. Seeing him again had been a shock, and she hadn’t felt this vulnerable for a long time. She knew she could handle it, but she wished she didn’t have to. She had enough to deal with already.
“You always pick the best music, Erin,” Trish said, as she approached the table.
Pulling out the empty chair across from them, Erin settled on it. “There’s not a lot to do when you’re driving around the country from one place to another.”
“And we’re so glad you’re not doing that anymore and have come home,” Kate said.
Even though she’d been home for several months, Erin felt overwhelmed by all the things she still needed to catch up on. “I’ve missed so much. I guess that’s one of the drawbacks of having only brothers. They can rattle off every statistic to do with cattle and crops, but anything else must instantly vaporize in their brains.”
“Typical men, then,” Trish said, laughing.
“I heard that.”
Erin turned and looked up to see Jake, whose frown made deep lines between his gray eyes. In an instant, he revealed the matched set of deep dimples she remembered so well that bracketed his smile. It was that smile and the look in his eyes that could turn her inside out.
She dipped her head to avoid him. She’d known him since she was almost six years old. They’d grown up together. He’d spent summers at his uncle’s ranch, and she and her brothers had become friends with him. He’d been tall and thin, a bit gangly and a little on the quiet side. She’d found a hundred ways to make his life hell because of it, and he’d done the same to her.
But the Jake Canfield standing by her now was far from a thin, quiet boy. The image of him in the pond had been burned into her memory as permanently as another memory of him. If she’d known it was him she was watching from the tall grass... She shook her head. She should have known, instead of convincing herself she’d dreamed that he’d spoken to her.
“Right, Erin?”
Lost in thought, she glanced up at him. “Hmm?”
“We were just talking about what a scrawny, ornery tomboy you were when we were growing up.”
“No more scrawny than you,” she said, but her reply lacked the bite it needed. She had to be careful. If she let him, he would tear her heart out. Again.
But when she saw his steel-colored gaze moving over her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking about, she resolved not to let him break her a second time. Still, it didn’t stop the flip-flopping of her heart.
Dusty and Morgan joined them, taking the seats on either side of their wives, and Erin decided it was time to escape. “I think I’ll get a snack. Anybody else want something?”
As she started to push her chair back, she felt Jake’s hands on the back of it. “A snack sounds good. I’ll go with you.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” she said, standing. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it.”
His eyebrows shot up, accompanied by a killer smile. “No, that’s okay. I don’t mind.”
Not seeing a graceful way out of it, she nodded. But as soon as they were out of earshot of their friends, she stopped and turned to him. “Are you following me?”
“Could be,” he answered, that devilish smile of his reappearing.
“Well, don’t.”
When she started to walk away, he took her arm and stopped her. “If you’d give me a minute—”
The quick skip of her heart set off warning bells, and her old habits came back. “I think you’ve had more than a minute with me before.” She felt her face grow hot with embarrassment and ducked her head, hoping he didn’t notice.
“Can we put the past behind us?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Hesitating for a moment, unsure of how to answer, she nodded, took a deep breath and looked up. Keep it friendly, she told herself. Pretend none of it happened. “How is the ranching business, Jake?”
“Good. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“Yeah?” She gathered her strength and asked, “Why are you