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1
William Cooper scanned for a parking spot, the lack of one sending annoyance through him. He should’ve known better, in truth. Everyone and their dog, and their dog’s uncle, came to the New Year’s Beach Bash.
He normally didn’t attend things like this at all. It took a lot to get him off his family farm, which sat about a half-hour outside of Sweet Water Falls. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He worked a lot with the hundreds of acres and thousands of dairy cows the farm had, andthatprevented him from getting out into society.
He almost scoffed at himself for thinking the wordsociety. If there was one in Sweet Water Falls, he certainly didn’t belong to it.
An empty space caught his eye, and he swung his truck around the corner to get to it. The early evening sunlight glinted off his windshield, but he made it into the stall. There he sat, trying to decide if he should get out or not.
He’d come all this way…
Which in and of itself would be a dead giveaway to everyone who got within ten feet of him and Gretchen Bellows. For the life of him, he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman. He’d tried, and just when he managed to go a few hours with his focus on milk, money, or muffins, the blonde woman would get reintroduced into his life.
She’d been at Shayla’s big tent reveal, and Will had been too. His brother was now engaged to Shayla Nelson, and Will had wanted to be helpful to both of them. He currently lived with Travis in a cabin on their farm, but things would definitely change come springtime.
Trav hadn’t said anything to Will about where he’d live with his new wife, and there was another cabin out by Clarissa and Spencer, who’d just gotten married a few weeks ago.
They’d have the hard conversations, because they didn’t hold back on those in the Cooper family. They had enjoyed a very nice cruise over the holidays, and even Will could admit he’d enjoyed himself more than he thought he would.
In fact, he could use a waiter to bring him a plate of tacos and a tropical smoothie right about now.
The weather in the Coastal Bend of Texas never really got cold, though it did rain in the wintertime. Not this winter, however, and Will finally killed the engine and got out of his truck. Heat assaulted him, and he learned the weathermen Daddy liked to listen to in the mornings hadn’t been kidding.
His truck would be a furnace by the time he returned to it, though the sun should be long down by then.
Will took a deep breath and faced the beach. He’d found a spot on the second row over, and he smiled at his good luck. Someone had probably come early and then had to leave for an emergency. A sick child or one who wasn’t behaving.
Will thanked his lucky stars, his eyes moving automatically to the food truck arena—and straight to the brightly colored vehicle with the caramel apples on the side of it.
Gretchen’s truck.
He told himself he wouldn’t go there first. He could check out the other festivities first. There was a beach volleyball tournament happening, and he could stand there and watch that for a while. Travis and Shayla were already here, and he’d told them he’d meet them for dinner. Rissa and Spence too.
The caramel apple truck would be there all night, and Will wasn’t going to draw any attention to himself. None at all. Everyone in his family loved the caramel apples at Sweet Water Taffy—Travis couldn’t stop talking about them.
His suggestion they go get one wouldn’t be obvious. He’d make sure it wasn’t.
His first interaction with Gretchen hadn’t gone extremely well, and Will reached up to smooth his hand down the front of his shirt. She’d plastered caramel all over him in the drugstore, and he may or may not have barked at her.
Then run away.
It’s fine, he told himself. He’d been around her a few times since then, and while he didn’t currently have her phone number in his device, he knew where to find her.
As he moved from sidewalk to sand, he couldn’t believe he evenwantedthe woman’s number. He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d been half as interested in, and he hadn’t asked for a woman’s number in oh, at least five years. Maybe longer.
He had just turned forty this past spring, and as he’d watched Clarissa and then Travis start to date, fall in love, and get engaged, Will could admit that he had something missing in his life. A hole a certain blonde could probably fill right up.
Don’t be stupid, he told himself. He hardly knew Gretchen. He’d helped her set up at Shay’s tent reveal, and he’d run into her at the mall once. He’d been into her chocolatier shop a few times, but she hadn’t been there every time.
So while it was true that he barely knew her, he did want togetto know more about her. That thought made his stomach tighten and his vision narrow. So much so that he’d taken several steps toward the food trucks before realizing it.
He wasn’t going to go over there first. He made a sharp right turn and headed out onto the beach a little further. Trav had texted several minutes ago to say he and Shay had found a spot to watch the volleyball, and Will would join them.
His brother wasn’t all that hard to find, what with his tall, Texan cowboy hat. He stood with his hand in Shay’s, and the bright, white volleyball flying above their heads as Will approached.
“Howdy,” he said, easing in next to Trav.
“Will.” His brother seemed happy to see him, and Will hadn’t expected anything else. They’d always gotten along just fine, even if they did argue sometimes. Everyone in the Cooper family argued; it was bred inside them. Will thought it had something to do with the redheaded genes they’d all inherited from Daddy, who had one of the worst tempers Will had ever seen.
