setting them in the newly unearthed sink. “He puts on a fine show, as far as being sheriff, but he’s got to be feeling pretty darn low to let things come to this.”
“Try not to worry,” Hutch said. “Corrie’s death threw Boone for a loop and that’s for sure, but he’s coming around, Opal. He’s finally coming around.”
“I hope you’re right,” Opal fussed, sounding unconvinced.
“You’ll see,” Hutch answered, wondering where he was getting all this confidence in his best friend’s future all of a sudden. He and Slade and plenty of other people had been worried about Boone for years.
Running for sheriff was the first sign of life he’d shown since losing Corrie, and there had been precious little reason to be encouraged since then.
Boone knew his job—even as Slade’s deputy, he’d been a standout, steady, dependable, honest to the bone. His clothes were pressed, his boots polished and he got his hair trimmed over at the Curly Burly salon once a month like clockwork.
But then he came home to a hellhole of a trailer and did God knows what with his free time.
“He’d be a good match for Tara Kendall, you know,” Opal speculated aloud, her tone wistful. “Both of them lonely, with their places bordering each other the way they do—”
“They hate each other,” Hutch said.
“Same way you and Kendra do, I reckon,” Opal shot back, smiling.
Hutch felt a slow flush climb his neck to pulse hard under his ears, which were probably red by then. “I don’t hate Kendra,” he informed his friend gravely. He couldn’t say whether or not Kendra hated him, but he sure hoped not, because that was just too desolate a thing to consider.
“And Boone doesn’t hate Tara, either,” Opal went on, self-assured to the max. “She makes him feel some things he’d rather not feel, and that scares the heck out of him, and the reverse is true, too. Tara’s as scared of Boone Taylor as he is of her.” She paused, probably for dramatic effect, then delivered the final salvo. “Just like you and Kendra.”
Hutch was suddenly too exasperated to eat, even though he was still a little hungry after working like a field hand all morning. Ranching involved some effort, but these days he spent more and more of his time supervising the men who worked for him, driving around in his pickup, riding horseback for the fun of it instead of rounding up strays or driving cattle from one feeding ground to another, or checking fence lines.
If he didn’t watch out, his own prediction would prove true and he’d be too fat to compete in the rodeo by the end of the week.
He excused himself, rose stiffly from the table and carried his dishes and silverware toward the sink. He scraped his plate into the trash, set it in the hot, soapy water Opal had ready, and left the kitchen.
* * *
“GO OVER THERE?” Kendra repeated, peering through the pair of binoculars Tara had brought out onto the porch so they could spy on the doings over at Boone’s place. Heat surged through her as she watched Hutch haul his shirt off over his head, revealing that lean, rock-hard chest—the one she’d loved to nestle against once upon a time. “Are you crazy?”
“It would the neighborly thing to do,” Tara replied, appropriating the binoculars and raising them to her face. Lucy and Daisy, having run off all that energy chasing each other around Tara’s yard and trying to catch grasshoppers, were asleep in the shade of a gnarl-trunked old apple tree nearby.
“Since when are you and Boone on ‘neighborly’ terms?” Kendra countered. Damned if she didn’t want to get a look at Hutch Carmody, up close and shirtless, but damned if she’d indulge the whim, either.
“We’re not,” Tara admitted. “But after all the verbal potshots I’ve taken at the man for maintaining an eyesore, the least I can do is encourage him to stick with the cleanup campaign.” She handed the binoculars back to Kendra, who immediately used them. “Besides, Opal is over there, working her fingers to nubs. Maybe she could use some help from us.”
“Right,” Kendra said, thinking of her business suit and high-heeled shoes. “I’m certainly dressed for it.” She watched, heartbeat quickening, as Hutch used the T-shirt to wipe his forehead and the back of his neck. Muscles flexed in his arms and shoulders, making her mouth water. “You, on the other hand, look like a fugitive from a rerun of Green Acres, so you