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Age had calmed him, as had Mama’s illness. Daddy was downright kitteny sometimes now, and he’d broken up a couple of arguments recently that he would’ve fueled previously.
“Who’s winning?” Will asked, shading his eyes despite the sunglasses he wore. He’d also changed out of his normal farm attire of jeans, long-sleeved shirt, and boots and into a pair of khaki shorts, a polo the color of limes, and a baseball cap. He didn’t quite feel like himself, but he fit into the Beach Bash better than Travis did.
“Lou’s Plumbing,” Trav said. “We’re cheerin’ for them.”
Will nodded like he cared, but he didn’t. Still, he did like watching the volleyball, and the plumbing shop won a few points later.
“Let’s find Rissy and get something to eat,” Trav said.
Will nodded and tagged along, the third wheel to his brother and his fiancée. He realized that when they found Rissa and Spence, he’d be the fifth wheel. His gaze automatically moved toward the food trucks, because they would be headed in that direction.
Irritation spiked through him, and Will tried to push it away. The crowd here on the beach drove him batty. The sun was far too hot for December thirty-first. He should’ve just stayed home, where the air conditioning never stopped blowing.
Travis and Shay got swallowed up in a group of teenagers, and Will paused as he got separated from them.
Couldn’t anything go right tonight?
Why had he come?
He looked over to the food trucks again, and his feet took him that way. “Apple sample?” someone asked on his left, and he hadn’t even seen the woman standing there. She wore the same bright colors in her uniform as had been painted on the Taffy truck.
“Sure,” he said, though he didn’t want to talk to her. He took the apple slice and ate it in one bite, the sweet caramel and warm chocolate easing some of the grumpiness inside him.
“Oh, this one gets a whole apple,” a woman said, andthatvoice lit him up from inside.
He turned to find Gretchen walking his way. Gretchen Bellows. She was blonde and curvy, with long legs and a smile that could charm snakes and cowboys alike. He stumbled in the sand, though he’d barely moved his feet. A grunt came out of his mouth, and he latched onto her arm to steady himself.
Horror struck him like lightning, and he yanked his hand back. “Sorry.” He stepped away from her too, to have more distance.A proper distance, he told himself.
“It’s fine. I’ve fallen twice today. This sand is so lumpy.” She handed him a white-chocolate-coated caramel apple with plenty of cinnamon stuck to the outside. “Apple pie flavor,” she said.
He didn’t believe for a single second that she’d fallen in this sand. “Oh, I can’t,” he said, though he already held the apple in his hand. His face flamed with heat, but Will didn’t know how to quench it. The moment his eyes locked onto Gretchen’s, she’d see his feelings for her.
So he kept his gaze flitting around. “I just lost Trav and Shay. We were going to go get something to eat.”
“You can put it in your truck,” she said. “Or I’ll hold it for you at mine.”
“Is that the apple pie one?” another man asked, and Will looked at him. He practically salivated over the apple, and Will wanted to clutch it to his chest and tell him to back off.
“We have a lot more over at the truck,” Gretchen said, and she turned to lead him that way. She smiled at Will over her shoulder, and the gesture dove right into his heart.
Feeling foolish, he smiled at the girl giving out samples, though her attention had been stolen by other people at the party. Will knew the feeling. He felt like he had fifteen hundred things going on at any one time, and he was responsible for everything going smoothly at the farm.
He maintained all of their equipment in the milking operation, and he managed the schedules for all of the cowboys and cowgirls who worked the farm with them, on both sides. On the agriculture side and the milking operation. He never got time off. He never slept more than six hours.
The cruise had shown him how wonderful it was to have a break, and he’d told himself that was why he’d come to the New Year’s Beach Bash too. To find a few hours of non-work. To get a break.
He returned quickly to his truck and put the caramel apple on the seat before pulling out his phone and texting his brother that they’d gotten separated.
We just found Rissa, Trav said.We’re going over to the Hawaiian rib truck.
I’ll meet you there, Will said. Then he shoved his phone in his pocket and faced the beach again.
The Hawaiian barbecue tasted like meat candy, and Will enjoyed himself despite being the extra man out. He kept himself from looking over to Gretchen’s truck too often, and every time he did, he didn’t see her.
No one asked him about her, and no one suggested they get apples.
The sun set, and the beach bonfires got lit. Will yawned long before midnight, and he’d never intended to stay for the twelve o’clock countdown and fireworks show. After all, they had milking to do in the morning, and because it was a holiday, they’d delayed the chore an hour. From five to six, which was still really early in the morning.
