AllFreeNovel
Share Us
9
Will threw the tie on his bed in complete irritation. “I don’t have time for this.”
“You don’t need a tie,” Trav said from the doorway. “Shay’ll be here any second, and she could tie it for you though.”
“No.” Will glared at his brother in the mirror. “I should’ve left fifteen minutes ago.” Someone had stopped by the office to talk to him right as he was getting up to leave. Of course. That was the story of William Cooper’s life.
He turned toward Travis, feeling naked from head to toe. He hated it and reminded himself one more time that hewantedto go out with Gretchen. Helikedher. He liked spending time with her and holding her hand, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about kissing her tonight after dinner. He had mints in his pocket and everything.
“Are you sure I don’t need a tie?”
“You don’t need a tie,” Trav said, a smile touching his face. “I haven’t seen you like this since—” Thankfully, he stopped talking, but the name hung in the air.
Tara.
“Yeah,” Will said. “I just feel like a fool.” He looked down at his shirt, which bore a collar and the color of lemon juice. “This shirt isn’t right.” He started undoing the buttons and flung it on the bed too. “It needs a tie.”
“I’m coming in,” Shayla Nelson called, and Will lost Trav’s attention to his fiancée.
“In Will’s bedroom,” he yelled. “Come help him get dressed.”
“Don’t ask her to do that,” Will grumbled, pulling a couple of polos out of his closet. These wouldn’t require ties, and he wondered if he should change back into jeans too. He turned toward the door as Shay filled the doorway. Trav beamed at her and slid his arm around her waist.
She smiled up at him, kissed him, and then the pair of them focused on Will. “I like the blue one,” she said. “With your hair color and that white hat.”
“Great,” Will said, already discarding the red and black one. “These pants? Or can I go back to jeans?”
“Those are great,” Shay said. “They say I-thought-about-what-I’d-wear-tonight, and they look like you didn’t just come in off the ranch.”
“It’s a farm, baby,” Travis said, and somehow, that got Will to smile.
“Farm, ranch, whatever,” Shay said, rolling her eyes. “Are we going to dinner or what? You made it sound like you might feed me at the farmhouse.”
“Will’s skipping out on his night,” Travis said.
“I’m not skipping out,” Will said. “We switched.”
“So I’m cooking tonight,” Travis said. “He’s taking tomorrow.” He left the room with Shay, the two of them still chatting, and Will took a moment he didn’t have to look at himself in the mirror.
He’d shaved this morning, and only a little growth now covered his face. He’d showered, brushed his teeth, and used a couple of precious pumps of his grandfather’s cologne. The polo was almost the same color as his eyes, with darker stripes of blue and navy running down it, and he could switch out his white cowboy hat for a ball cap of the same color and change his look entirely.
He didn’t want to. He wanted to be a cowboy tonight, and he grabbed his wallet and shoved it in his back pocket as he turned to leave the bedroom. “I’m goin’,” he said as he went into the living room. He shrugged into his leather jacket while Travis laughed about something with Shay.
Neither of them even seemed to notice that Will was there, and he paused again. The entire world froze, and he saw Travis and Shay living right here in this cabin together. As the heavens opened and told Will he’d be the one to move out and into the cabin next door to Spencer and Clarissa, he smiled.
That somehow drew their attention, and Shay scanned him from head to boot. “Gretchen is going to have to hold onto something when she sees you.” She grinned at him, and Will reached up to tip his hat.
“Call me if you need me,” Trav said. “I might have to call you to get out of the farmhouse tonight.”
“If you do, I’ll pour water in your bed.” Will wasn’t kidding either. He wasn’t going to interrupt his first date with Gretchen to save his brother from an uncomfortable conversation with their dad.Everyconversation they had was mildly uncomfortable, and Travis could deal with it.
Travis burst out laughing, and even Will smiled. He left the house and hurried to his truck. Twenty minutes later, he pulled up to the house at the address Gretchen had given him.
The little white brick house possessed charm, and Will felt life pulsing from it. The light green door bore a wreath, though Christmas had come and gone a few weeks ago. Bright bluebells and snowballs made up the circle, and the whole thing made Will smile. It screamed Gretchen, and he couldn’t wait to see what the inside of her house looked like.
He got out of the truck and went up the walk, then the steps. She lived on a street with a few other people, but there was a lot of land here. Plenty of space for horses or cows, sheep and chickens. It didn’t seem like she had any of those things, but a big, square patch of grass surrounded her place.
Her doorbell broke through the stillness out here in this more rural part of Sweet Water Falls, and Will wondered if she was in the town proper or not. “You drove to a Sweet Water Falls address,” he muttered, quickly silencing as scratching happened on the other side of the door.
