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He wished he could just take the ad down, as easy asaccidentallykicking down the sign at the front of the property. Maybe it could get taken down, though, just not by him. He had contacts, didn’t he? The amount of tech industry people that were at sporting parties had always struck him as kind of strange, but he’d met more than his fair share of software geniuses over the years. Sawyer himself didn’t know all that much about computers, but surely there was a way to cause a glitch on a website without being noticed. Nothing big, just enough to maybe freeze the ad listing for the ranch, make itso that people couldn’t see it. That had to be somehow doable, right?
A little bored but still not quite ready to sleep in the dim lighting of his bedroom, he opened his email and started typing up a message, to whom he didn’t know yet, asking if something like that was possible, some sort of internet booby trap…
Sawyer stopped. Literally froze from top to toe, every muscle and every thought coming to a screeching halt. Slowly, as if fending off a venomous snake, he shut his laptop and pushed it away from him.
What was he doing? He honestly couldn’t give himself an answer because he was acting like some crazy villain out of a movie, desperate to sabotage a bank for a heist. Except it wasn’t a heist; it was his family’s property, hisbrother’sproperty, and he was trying to implode it from the inside out. Scared of himself, frightened that he’d actually been about to type up an email like that without a second thought, Sawyer got up, put the laptop in the closet, and shut it in. He could go without it for the night, heck, maybe the rest of the week. Take a tech detox or whatever it was called because clearly, he’d lost his mind.
Sawyer laid back on the bed and hoped that he’d miraculously just fall asleep and he wouldn’t have to think anymore. But he wasn’t that lucky; thoughts crammed into his brain, each of them screaming for attention, the loudest one beingwhat is wrong with me?
He hadn’t had a vacation in years, not one where actual rest took place. Back in Houston he’d always filled every available minute with parties, women, football or booze. Maybe this is what burnout looked like; maybe it made you go crazy.
Maybe he just needed to grow up and actually look at the reason he was doing all this… telling Mathers that the property wasn’t ready, wanting to hide any evidence that it was up for sale…
He didn’t want it up for sale.
As soon as he formed the words in his mind, knowing that it was the truth behind all of this, everything else went quiet. He was able to breathe again, the shadows across the ceiling looked less menacing, and the chirp of crickets from outside was the only thing to listen to.
Well, that was great. He didn’t want to sell the place. But it wasn’thisplace; it was Luke’s, and it always had been. Sawyer didn’t have a say in the sale, legal or otherwise. So, what, he’d just become some weird obsessive saboteur overnight?
He rubbed his hands over his face, not sure what to feel, what to think. No answers came, no matter how long he laid there. The only thing he knew was that he was confused. Which meant he knew nothing at all.
CHAPTER 11
SAWYER
If you had told Sawyer a month beforehand that he would have stuck around for far longer than he’d ever intended and happily gone about daily chores on the family ranch, he would have laughed in your face and suggested you go see a psychiatrist. But here he was, still on the ranch, still staying in his childhood bedroom, sleeping on the too-small bed and picking up new tasks every day to keep himself busy and the place running a little more smoothly. The major repairs were done, the stuff that needed to be finished in order for the Butler Ranch to be put up for sale, but the day-to-day maintenance still needed to be tended to. It was a never-ending list and made Sawyer feel like he was ten years old again, falling into old routines as if he’d never stopped.
Somehow, without much say from anyone, he’d ended up in charge of taking care of the last dozen head of cattle living on the farm. Even with such a small herd, it was a lot of work to look after the animals and it freed up Luke and Sandy to put in more time at the diner. If Sawyer was being honest, he’d really taken on the task because it meant that Josie got to spend more time with her horses before they were gone. But he’d keep thatto himself. He also kept tight-lipped about his aborted attempts to somehow sabotage the ranch’s sale. He’d gotten a grip on himself and regained at least a little of his sanity, even if he did keep his laptop in the closet for an extra couple of days just to be sure he didn’t do anything stupid.
It had been a long,longtime since he’d been charged with the care of livestock, but it all came back to him like some sort of muscle memory. A herd wasn’t all that different from a team, which some of his fellow Falcons players might have something to say about, but to Sawyer the similarities had always been pretty obvious. It was a group ofthings, people or cattle, all striving for a common goal, be it scoring a touchdown or finding food. And a group like that needed a leader, someone to look to so they all stuck together, someone to feel safe with. It made sense in Sawyer’s head, at least. Either way, it worked. He’d taken on the responsibility, claiming he’d be sticking around to help with any extra stuff over the next few weeks, trying to make life easier for all of them. And despite Luke and Sandy’s mild confusion, it really had seemed to take a lot of pressure off of them. Sawyer tried not to think about how he probably could have helped them out a lot sooner…
That evening Sandy had declared that they were all having a proper, sit-down, family dinner together. And that included Josie because she was family as well. It was sort of an invitation but only by technicality because if Sandy said they were having a family dinner, then there was no real room for any sort of argument.
They’d all continued about their various chores, and Sawyer hadn’t thought all that much about the fact that they’d be sitting down for a meal together instead of just making themselves food individually whenever they happened to be hungry. That is untilhe’d showered and changed that night and was faced with Josie in the hallway downstairs dressed up and looking like a fairy queen that had accidentally stumbled out of a forest somewhere. It didn’t matter that the sounds of cooking and commotion were drifting in from the kitchen; Sawyer felt like he’d been transported entirely to another plane of existence.
He tried not to stare at her, but it was about as easy as not staring when they’d gone swimming in the creek. So… impossible. He’d never seen Josie in anything but work clothes before, either her farming gear or her diner uniform. But she was wearing a pretty floral dress with a strappy back, showing off her millions of freckles, her hair loose around her shoulders, and bare feet as she padded from the living room to the kitchen.
She caught him staring because, of course, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.
“What?” she asked, a glass of sweet tea halfway to her mouth.
Keenly aware of Sandy and Luke not that far away in the next room, Sawyer kept quiet as he took Josie’s fingers in his and tugged her forward to murmur in her ear.
“You look beautiful,” he whispered.
He figured it was obvious, but Josie turned a bright shade of pink beneath her freckles, her grin shy and small compared to her normal million-watt smile. Sawyer wanted to say something else, to shower her in compliments just to keep seeing that look on her face, but the noises from the kitchen broke the spell and Josie scuttled away, clinging to her sweet tea and throwing a sly glance over her shoulder at him. It took all of Sawyer’s self-control to not yank her back into the hallway so that he could trace the freckles down her back and kiss her bare shoulders.Somehow he managed, walking into the kitchen with the rest of them, Josie adding more ice to her drink, complaining that she was hot and Sandy agreeing that, yes, she did look a bit flushed.
It was then that it dawned on Sawyer that a simple dinner might pose more problems than first expected. While everyone chatted as normal about what they’d done that day, stories from the diner and other inconsequential things, Sawyer was hyperaware of Josie and where she was at all times. He was like a moth drawn to her flame and had to constantly remind himself not to be pulled in where he’d get burned. Despite the fact that all he wanted to do was hold her, be it her hand or her waist… he had to resist because Luke and Sandy were right there, and as far as they knew, absolutely nothing was going on between Sawyer and Josie.
Josie seemed to be facing the same predicament as Sawyer, avoiding eye contact with him like he had some sort of contagious disease, offering to help Luke, who was cooking, as much as possible in order to have an excuse to steer clear of Sawyer. Sawyer followed her lead, as always, and struck up a conversation with Sandy, desperate to keep his eyes from roaming over Josie like he wanted to devour her for dinner instead.
Their strategy seemed to be working just fine until the cooking was done, the table was set, and they actually had to sit down. That was when things got a little awkward, especially when Luke and Sandy automatically sat side by side on one edge of the table and Sawyer and Josie were left to take the other two chairs, arms in continual danger of brushing against each other in the cramped space. It was rare that Sawyer bemoaned being as big and broad as he was, but this was one of those times.
“You’ve been quiet, Josie,” Luke said at one point, picking up on his friend’s unusual lack of rambling. She’d been steadily shoving food into her mouth in what Sawyer guessed was a strategic maneuver. Josie swallowed her mouthful of pie and shrugged.
“I’m starving, and this is all so delicious,” she said simply, taking a sip of her sweet tea.
“Fair enough.”
