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My heart lifted, and I knew what I’d see when I looked up. Luke, the one who always saved me. He might not have been as big as Brody, but he was twice as tough. And he’d just decked my persecutor. I spat the dirt out of my mouth and got to my feet.
It wasn’t just Luke who had come to my rescue this time. Marshall and Cody were flanking him, and the three of them were staring down the football team. I mustered what was left of my dignity and went to stand beside Marshall. Not behind him, like a little girl being protected. I was a Walker brother, and I’d stand with the rest.
After all, Jess was watching.
It all ended like these things always do—a teacher broke it up before we had to re-enact the Tombstone showdown. Luke never threw more than one punch, and he never started it, but he was always the one who ended up in the office. Since the teacher hadn’t seen Brody push me, she didn’t send him to the principal.
Luke got suspended for a week over it. But he still drove us all to school and home every day, because he was the only one with a truck and a license. On the second day of his sentence, Marshall and Cody had to stay after school for being tardy to class. I figured I’d just be sitting on the park benches waiting for everyone else, but when I came outside, there was Luke, honking his horn at me.
“Hey, little brother! Wanna go get some ice cream?”
That was how it was with Luke. He was a lazy student and a lackluster athlete—the football team had cut him after the first week—but he was fiercely devoted to the family. Mostly to me. He was four years older, and our personalities couldn’t have been more opposite, but we’d been almost inseparable since I got my first pair of boots. I was his sidekick, his roping partner. I did his homework half the time, and I helped him get a date for his Senior Prom when Minnie Stephens dumped him. “Brains and Brawn, and Walker through and through” was what Dad always called us—two sides of the same coin.
That was why it was such a slap in the face when, twelve years later, Luke asked Jess Thompkins out.
Luke wouldn’t know what to do with a nice girl if she gave him an instruction manual.
Marshall wasn’t much better, but at least he knew how to keep a girl talking to him once he got started. Why had I suggested coming to town tonight? I didn’t want to see this—any of it. But I couldn’t stay away, either. Marshall was over in the corner fight-flirting with Kelli Mason, and Luke was more interested in watching the game over the bar counter than talking to the goddess at his table. The whole night was humiliating, and I was here to watch it all.
“Why shouldn’t I ask her out?” Luke had harrumphed when he first told me. “She’s single. I’m single. She’s hot, and I’m—”
“A horse’s behind,” I’d shot back. “You really only asked her out because she’s single and beautiful?”
“Isn’t that enough? Calm down, little brother. You’d think I was gonna elope with her the way you’re carrying on. It’s just nachos at the diner.”
Nachos. He really ordered nachos. I buried my face in my palms. Jess was way too good for him. Too innocent and gentle and far too intelligent. Not that he could see that. Luke was my favorite brother, but he’d gone too far this time, asking out the most amazing girl in town and thinking she was no different from all the rest.
Except she didn’t seem to mind Luke’s less-than-polished ways In fact, it looked like they were having scads of fun, sitting close to each other, laughing and bumping elbows over their nachos. My stomach twisted, and it had nothing to do with my meal.
Somehow through the evening, I found myself snared into a long conversation with Austen Conrad, the guy who’d just bought the ranch off High Line Road. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I was able to answer some of his questions. I was glad for the distraction because I was stuck at the diner until Marshall decided to quit arguing with Kelli Mason and drive home. We burned up half an hour talking feed conversion and bull stats and keeping my mind off Jess Thompkins. Mostly.
Eventually, Austen paid his tab and left, and then there was nothing more for me to do but wait. I sat back to finish my drink and scrolled on my phone for a while. It was better than looking up and seeing what I’d probably see. That was when Jess passed by me on her way to the restrooms.
I looked over at Luke, but he was walking the other way, leaving their coats and even Jess’s purse hanging on the backs of their chairs. It was a small town. People did that.
But it gave me an idea.
I fingered the printout of the poem in my pocket.Thepoem, the one that was going to be published. I wasn’t sure what had made me print it and bring it tonight, as if I could find a chance to show it to someone. There was only one person in the room who would probably like it, and her coat was hanging right there.
I didn’t need to claim it as mine. She could just read it and hopefully enjoy it. Would she find it creepy having a poem show up in her pocket? I prayed not. I had never worked up the courage to ask her out, but maybe I could do this one small thing. Before I could talk myself out of it, I was on my feet, the slip of paper concealed in my hand.
And it was done.
Chapter 2
Jess
“Goodnight,Jerry!‘Night,Tucker!” I waved at the guys in the paint booth as I walked out of the shop, keys jingling in my hand. They both stopped cleaning their sprayers long enough to wave back. My dad’s office was next, and I found him at his desk, squinting over his glasses and typing up the day’s invoices.
“I can do those in the morning if you want,” I offered.
He looked up and took off his glasses. “Oh, hey, sweetie. Thanks, but I have to get Jed Watts’s total sent to his insurance company this evening. You heading home?”
“Yeah. I need to get chores done early and get cleaned up. I sort of have a date.”
“Oh? Who’s the lucky guy?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Luke Walker. I can’t believe I agreed to go out with him.”
