“Here you go, darlin’,” Dolly said, appearing at my table with a glass of ice water and a steaming mug of coffee. She set them down with a practiced flourish. “You know what you want, or do you need a minute?”
“The special,” I said, handing her back the menu. “Thanks, Dolly.”
She winked at me. “Comin’ right up.”
She’d barely disappeared back behind the counter when the bell above the door jingled again. I didn’t look up from my coffee right away, just wrapped both hands around the mug and stared into it like it had answers.
It was the sound of Dolly’s voice that made me glance up.
“Brooks Callahan! And Rowan! Well, come on in, you two. Perfect timing.”
I felt the muscles in my jaw tighten before I even laid eyes on them. Brooks. Of course it was Brooks. That guy seemed to be everywhere I went, always checking in on me and trying to makefriends. But I didn’t want family or a friend or his apologies. I just wanted to live my life without him butting in all the time.
And Rowan… ugh. Don’t even get me started.
To my horror, Dolly was already steering them toward my corner of the diner like a tugboat guiding a pair of reluctant ships into port.
“You boys sit right down here with Cash,” she said, gesturing broadly at my booth with the coffee pot. “No sense in takin’ up two tables when there’s perfectly good company to be had.”
Brooks’s eyes found mine. Something passed between us that wasn’t quite hostility and wasn’t quite warmth. More like two men sizing up weather on the horizon.
“Dolly,” I started.
“Don’t you ‘Dolly’ me,” she said pleasantly, already filling a second mug without being asked. “Sit down, Brooks. Rowan, scoot in. Y’all are family.”
Brooks looked at me for a beat longer than was comfortable, then pulled off his hat and slid into the booth across from me. Rowan dropped in beside him with the uncomplicated ease of someone who didn’t sense tension so much as float above it entirely.
“Cash,” Brooks said. Just my name. Nothing attached to it. Clearly he’d given up on trying to win me over.
“Brooks,” I replied in kind.
That about covered the pleasantries.
Dolly set down menus they clearly didn’t need and bustled off, leaving the three of us in a silence that felt like the pause before a poker hand gets flipped over. Rowan, bless his heart, didn’t seem to notice. He was already scanning the laminated menu like it might have changed since the last time he’d been in.
“She always do that?” I asked, mostly to have something to say.
“She’s done it a few times to me,” Rowan smiled, no longer looking at his menu. “But that’s usually because someone has a sick pet that they want me to look at down at the vet clinic.”
Brooks let out a sound that might have been a laugh if it had tried a little harder. “That sounds about right. She had me sittin’ down with Earl Patterson last spring when his cattle dog had a limp. Spent forty-five minutes hearin’ about Earl’s opinions on the county commissioner.”
“Was the dog okay?” I asked, before I could stop myself from caring.
“Thorn? Yeah, just a burr between his toes,” Rowan said. “Earl cried anyway. You would’ve thought we were putting that dog down the way he carried on.”
Despite myself, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. I pressed it back down and took a sip of coffee. Rowan wasn’t supposed to make me smile.
The silence that settled between us after that wasn’t quite as sharp as the one before. Still uncomfortable, but less like a knife and more like a pair of boots you hadn’t broken in yet. Brooks turned his coffee mug in slow circles on the table, not drinking it, just moving it around. I’d seen my father do the same thing when he had something on his mind he wasn’t saying. It used to drive me crazy.
Rowan set his menu down and leaned back against the booth. He had the easy confidence of someone who’d made peace with being the odd one out in any given room. Probably helped when you were the only vet in a town full of ranchers and farmers who needed you more than they liked you.
“How’s the property sale comin’ along?” Brooks asked finally.
“It isn’t,” I said.
He nodded slowly, like that was the answer he’d expected. “Heard the buyer fell through.”
I looked up at him sharply. “News travels awfully fast.”
