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I did keep track of him for a couple of years. I would have paid attention even longer if things had continued to be reported about him. But soon, he seemed to disappear. Out of sight, out of mind. That was how fame worked.
But Abbie had to know who he was. I could pull up pictures on my phone to jar her memory. I had to talk to someone. A guy bearing the same first name and eye color as a former celebrity was in Blackbear Bluff. That was huge.
“Texas, huh?” Slade glanced over at Brody with a smile before looking back at me.
That snapped me out of my trance. Get it together, Cheyenne.
“I would have guessed the Northwest,” Slade continued.
“Cheyenne, Wyoming,” Brody said. “I get it.”
“Yeah, my mom just liked the name,” I said. “She picked it out of a baby name book.
All my life, I’d wished for an interesting story about my first name. Never more so than now, though. Former celebrity or not, this guy looked interesting. If he shaved off that lumberjack beard of his, he’d look exactly like Slade Shepherd.
“Cheyenne.” Slade crossed his arms over his chest and stood straighter, filling the doorway with his presence. “Thank you for giving up your room. If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”
All the air seemed to leave my lungs at once. It wasn’t my imagination. This guy was flirting with me. Brody, to my left, coughed, and when I glanced over at him, he had his fist close to his mouth, clearly suppressing a smile.
“Well, I need to get to the kitchen and fill this belly,” Brody said. “You coming, Slade?”
The guy with Slade Shepherd’s eyes gave a nod, but those eyes were still on me. “I guess I’ll see you in the kitchen, Cheyenne.”
Continuing to look at me, he walked past, leaving me standing in the hallway, swooning like a tween girl at a boy band concert.
2
SLADE
Cheyenne. Was there a more beautiful name in the English language? There definitely wasn’t a more beautiful woman.
I bit into one of the sliders as conversation rolled all around me. Most of my attention was on the entrance to the kitchen. I’d stand here until she came in to get food. She’d have to eat eventually.
“Slade can help with that.”
The groom’s voice broke into my thoughts, making me fully aware I’d stopped paying attention to the conversation.
I looked over at Bo Phillips with what I knew was a sleepy expression. “Huh?” I asked. Then I took another bite of my slider.
“Dallas here is talking about adding onto his cabin.”
“Not yet,” Dallas rushed to add. “Maybe someday.”
Dallas and his new girlfriend seemed to be getting pretty close. I didn’t know him as well as Gage and Brody, but I’d waved to him in passing.
“Sure,” I said, “Or we can trade cabins. I could use a downsize.”
When I first moved to Blackbear Bluff, following a couple of my military buddies, I didn’t think about the upkeep on the three-bedroom cabin I’d had built. I made a butt-ton of money in my twenties as a musician—pop star would be a more accurate word, but I preferred to think of my former self as a recording artist.
Over the years, though, the residuals had significantly shrunk. Luckily, I’d invested well, and I had enough to hold me over well into old age. But it was clear I was destined to a life alone in this mountain town, and the less I had to clean and maintain, the better.
“You wouldn’t want to live in my tiny cabin,” Dallas said. “Where would you put all your stuff?”
I shrugged. “You can have it.”
“No, man,” Dallas said. “Sell it. Take the money and?—”
“What?” Bo asked.
