ratcheted up a few notches when silence settled between them. For the life of him, Kaden couldn’t come up with anything to say. Thankfully, she finally did.
“Did you see they’re buildin’ a spa on Main Street?”
Keegan chuckled. “A spa. We’d been tossin’ around the idea of buyin’ it. You know, before we learned the ranch was available.”
Bristol smiled. “Really?”
Kaden shook his head. “No. We weren’t tossin’ it around.” He nodded toward Keegan. “He was.”
“Whatever.” Keegan grinned, turned his attention to Bristol. “We’ll let you settle the debate.”
Bristol’s blue eyes widened. “What debate’s that?”
“We batted around ideas on what might work there.”
“Such as?”
Keegan shrugged. “Vape shop, thrift store, sandwich shop.”
Kaden grinned when Bristol didn’t seem impressed.
“Yarn store?” Keegan’s grin widened. “Maybe one of them overpriced pet stores dedicated to pamperin’ your pooch.”
“Tell her what you were really thinkin’,” Kaden urged.
Keegan’s chin tilted up. “Arcade.”
Kaden glanced her way, relaxed somewhat. “What are your thoughts?”
“Old-school arcade? Like Pac-Man and Centipede? Or you talkin’ monster televisions hooked to PlayStation and Xbox?”
“Definitely old-school,” Keegan said quickly.
“Skee-Ball?” Bristol asked.
Keegan’s grin widened. “Sure. Why not?”
“If it was yours, what would you put in there?” Kaden inquired.
“Good question. We’ve got a bookstore now. And a bakery.”
“Plus the toy store,” Keegan added. “Have you been in that place?”
Bristol nodded. “Once. To check it out. A little too new-age for my taste. An arcade, huh? I’m not sure it would’ve lured in the teenage crowd, but you would’ve gotten us old folks in there all the time.” She smiled sweetly. “But good thing for the women of Coyote Ridge, a day spa’s exactly what we need.”
Kaden made a mental note to see about getting her a gift certificate to the place when it opened.
“So, how did you come to buy the ranch?” Bristol asked, sounding surprised. “I didn’t even know Tuck was sellin’.”
Kaden was the one to respond. “He moved to Wyoming to be with his kids and grandkids.”
“Wow. I guess I thought he’d always be part of the landscape. Kinda like the Walkers.”
“He’s gettin’ up there in age,” Keegan explained. “Got some health issues. His kids wanted him closer to them.”
Kaden watched as she tossed around the information.
“That’s hard work,” she finally said. “He runs what? Thirty head of cattle out there?”
“At his high point, yeah, thirty was about where he was,” Kaden told her. “Right now, there’re ten out there. Once we get settled, we’ll figure out what we can and can’t handle.”
“What about Walker Demo? Working a ranch is a full-time gig.”
“It is,” Keegan confirmed. “We plan to let Autumn know we’ll be goin’ to part-time. Won’t leave her in the lurch.”
“Is that what you wanna do?” she asked, again looking back and forth between them. “Be ranchers?”
“What we’ve wanted for as long as we can remember,” Kaden admitted.
A knock sounded on the door and Bristol shot to her feet like someone had fired a pistol in her ear. So much for thinking she was beginning to get comfortable.
“I think she’s scared of us,” Keegan whispered when she carried the food into the kitchen.
Kaden stared after her, though he couldn’t see her because of all the damn walls separating the space.
He wasn’t sure scared was the right word, but they certainly made her nervous. Then again, he was feeling a bit twitchy himself. You could’ve knocked him over with a feather when she texted to suggest lunch. Now that he was here, Kaden couldn’t help but think this was a bad idea.
“You gonna hold down the couch?” Keegan teased. “Or you comin’ to join us?”
Hell, he hadn’t even realized his brother had left the room.
*
After they ate, as she cleared the table of the old plastic plates her father had favored, Bristol wished she’d taken the time to make a few upgrades to this place. The fact that Keegan had called her out on it had cemented the fact she truly was stuck in the past. Probably one of the reasons she didn’t have people over.
Of course, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it right now. It was bad enough she’d made the offer to fix them lunch only to realize she didn’t have any food in the house. Seriously, who did that? Certainly not a good host.
“Why don’t you let me handle that?”
Spinning around, Bristol inhaled sharply when she noticed Keegan standing directly behind her.
Before she could argue, he took the plate out of her hand, carried it over to the sink.
“I’ll get to it eventually,” she assured him. “The dishwasher doesn’t work,