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"Nothing like a funeral to bring out the cream of mushroom soup," she said, wrinkling her nose.
"And the Tater Tots," Liam nodded his head towards another baking dish topped with the crispy nuggets. "Gotta say though, that one actually looks kind of good." He shifted away to grab himself a plate and scooped up a healthy serving.
Colleen barely suppressed a shudder. Like her mother, she couldn't stomach much food these days, and certainly not something made with condensed canned soup and potato products that could survive a nuclear attack.
She grabbed a plate and searched the table for something her mother might be able to choke down. Her gaze traveled past a dozen varieties of beige and creamy until it locked on the only bit of green laid out on the table.
Unfortunately, that bit of green was lime Jell-O, formed into a ring. The bottom half was a paler green due to—if she remembered correctly—the cool whip mixed in. The bits of canned fruit cocktail suspended throughout were enough, she supposed, to qualify it as a "salad."
That's what her grandmother always claimed anyway, and Colleen had too much respect for her elders to call BS.
At least, not to her face.
Unable to resist, she reached out one finger and poked the ring. It was a ritual she and her grandmother had always had. After she'd slid the "salad" from the mold in all of its perfect, jiggly glory, Colleen poked it with her finger while she and her grandmother sang the song from the commercial.
She sang the familiar song under her breath as the green blob wobbled.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Handling toxic waste like that could give you something incurable."
Heat rushed to her cheek as she turned to see who was speaking to her. Her eyes had to travel up several inches of broad chest covered by a gray pearl snap shirt—cowboy formal wear—and a strong, tanned neck before she met the bright blue eyes and conspiratorial smile of the man looking down at her.
For several seconds she stared, not recognizing this stranger with his square jaw, strong, straight nose, and did she mention those eyes?
Those eyes... she knew those eyes. She felt her own widening even as she gasped his name. "JT!"
"Good to see you, Colleen," he said and pulled her into a tight hug.
She returned it in a daze. This was JT Osborne? The chubby, pimply kid from the ranch down the road?
No chub now, she noted as her hands pressed into his broad back. She felt nothing but firm muscle under her palms and resisted the urge to slide them up and down his back for full effect.
And wow, he smelled good too. She couldn't help but notice as her nose was buried in his shirt front. All clean laundry, soap, and a little whiff of shaving cream that made her wonder if it would be too weird if she buried her nose in the curve of his neck.
Yep, pretty weird, she decided and forced herself to step away.
How could a guy she'd known practically since birth have gone through such a metamorphosis without her having the slightest clue?
Okay, to be fair, what little time she'd spent at home since leaving for college had mostly been with family and close friends. Although they'd grown up next door to each other—a relative term when your closest neighbor was two miles down the road—and had always been friendly, JT was two grades ahead of her. Even if they had been closer in age, their social groups hadn't mixed much.
Colleen was a cheerleader who ran with the jocks, while JT hung out mostly with the other rancher kids. She knew that Liam and he had become pretty close in the past few years as JT had contracted Liam's construction business to do work at the Lazy Creek Dude Ranch run by JT's family, but they hadn't hung out a ton as children.
Okay, fine, she thought as she made sure her mouth wasn't hanging open, she seemed to recall her mom saying something about JT growing up and losing some baby fat, but please.
"I know you've been back for a while," he said. He stood a few inches away from her, and she noticed he held the crown of his gray felt cowboy hat in his big hand.
A smile tugged involuntarily at her lips at the sight of the small courtesy. Any cowboy with manners always removed his hat when he came inside. It didn't surprise her the JT followed the rules to a T.
"I thought I'd see you before now—other than you running up the road. I'm sorry this is the first time we get to see each other."
Colleen frowned at the thought of JT seeing her make-up free, cheeks flushed and mouth open as she forced her body five miles up and down the gravel county road that ran in front of their homes. She shook the thought off—why in the world should she care?
"Well, between taking care of my dad and working part-time at the medical center, I haven't gotten out much."
His blue eyes darkened with sympathy. "It was really great of you to be here for your dad. And your mom as well, of course. Liam too, though he'll never admit it," he said with a little grin that made her toes curl in her black leather pumps.
"I honestly couldn't imagine not being here for him." She gave a humorless laugh. "Besides, now that I'm here I don't have to run into my ex-husband and his new wife at work anymore."
JT's dark eyebrows knit over the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, Liam told me about the divorce. I'm real sorry about that."
