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He shook his head, his smile wide. “I’ll go get it, Miss Maddy.”
* * *
The following week,Kyle once again pulled up to Maddy’s house. The difference was, she wasn’t there. He knew that too, and the way Hadley gestured to him from the front porch told him she was running ahead of schedule.
“Come on,” he said to Todd, Jesse, and Adam, the three of his brothers he’d managed to convince to help him with this idea. “Looks like we don’t have much time.”
“What do you think about goin’ out with her?” Adam asked.
“Me?” Jesse got out of the back seat on Kyle’s side, while Adam did the same on the passenger side. Kyle dropped to the ground, keeping one ear on the conversation.
“Not you,” Adam said from the other side of the truck. “Me.”
“You?” Todd, Kyle, and Jesse all asked together, the level of disbelief flying up into the sky.
“You don’t have to say it like that,” Adam grumbled. “Don’t say anything at all.” He’d come around the truck and was moving toward the cabin.
Kyle exchanged a glance with Todd, and then Jesse. They watched Adam practically stomp up the steps, then soften his footsteps and tip his hat to Hadley. “She is pretty,” Todd said.
“Are you kidding?” Jesse asked. “She’s been out with at least a half-dozen cowboys here. She’s way more than pretty.”
Surprised, Kyle looked at Jesse, his eyebrows up. “Hey, I don’t like her,” Jesse said. “I just know when a woman is gorgeous, and that woman is flawless physically.”
“I thought you were with Starla,” Todd teased.
Jesse rolled his eyes about the same time Adam realized no one had followed him up to the porch. “What’s goin’ on?” he practically bellowed. “Are we doin’ this or not?”
“Coming,” Jesse said, and he took off like a frightened jackrabbit.
Kyle shook his head. “Are he and Starla still together?” he asked.
Todd sighed and shook his head. “On-again, off-again, I think.”
“About like his moods.” Kyle grinned at Todd, and they hurried toward the cabin too. Kyle needed their help, and he didn’t want to get on anyone’s bad side.
Adam simmered inside the cabin, while Jesse chatted easily with Hadley about her latest social media campaign. Whatever she did, it was working. They’d booked out fully over October and November, some of their slower months.
“Take the glaring down,” Todd muttered as he went past Adam. “You catch more flies with honey.”
“Thanks, Grandma,” Adam sniped at him.
“All right,” Kyle said. He turned and closed the door. “How long do we have, Hadley?”
“Fifteen minutes, tops,” she said.
A blip of panic moved through Kyle. “Okay.” He swallowed. “We can do this, guys.” He turned to Adam. “You’re in charge of the candles.” Giving Adam free reign with a lighter probably wasn’t Kyle’s best move, but he couldn’t dwell on it.
“Jess, you and Hadley get out the food, please. Todd, you’re with me on music.”
He’d stashed his guitar here earlier, and he opened the coat closet and took it out. Todd started setting up the music stand, and as Kyle approached, he asked, “You still want me to play with you?”
“Yes,” Kyle said without missing a beat. “I don’t care if it’s perfect, Todd.”
“Good,” his brother said. “Because it’s not gonna be.”
Kyle was grateful for the lessons he’d learned recently. Making sure everything went off without a hitch simply never happened. He could make it look that way on the surface, but behind anything that seemed perfect was a manager running around frantically.
He tuned his guitar and let his fingers wander over the strings. He hummed along, the song in his head not the one he’d written for this proposal. It didn’t matter. He’d sing whatever came out of his mouth, because it would really be coming from the heart.
