Country Proud (Painted Pony Creek #2) - Linda Lael Miller Page 0,2

signal from Cord Hollister sitting at a corner table, across from J.P. McCall, Brynne grabbed the coffeepot and headed over. Filled their cups.

The place was quiet, since the midafternoon lull was on. Things would pick up around four, when the early diners would rally for the supper special—tonight, it was meatloaf, spiked with Brynne’s own famous onion jam.

Curled beneath the table, J.P.’s retired service dog, Trooper, lifted his head and acknowledged Brynne with a doggy smile.

She smiled back.

“Thanks,” Cord said, and J.P. nodded in agreement.

Cord was married, but J.P. was available, and a real catch by anybody’s standards—like Cord, he was successful, smart and sexy as hell.

Oh, yes. J.P. McCall was a prize—a war hero, no less, with a sense of humor and a legendary investment portfolio. Women fell all over him, much to his delight, but so far, he’d remained single.

Brynne liked J.P., just as she liked Cord, but there was no spark between them. No chemistry whatsoever.

Which was a bummer, since she might have had a shot, otherwise.

Brynne was a pragmatic woman, and she was aware that, with her dark blue eyes, naturally silver-blond hair and decent figure, she turned heads.

Her appearance had been an asset in some ways, but she’d learned early that pretty girls had problems of their own; boys—and, later, men—hesitated to ask them out, lest they be rejected. She’d been popular in high school, a varsity cheerleader, proficient at both softball and soccer, a star player in the drama club, and she’d gotten good grades, too.

Senior year, she’d been prom queen.

Awkward, since she hadn’t actually had a date. By then, Eli had dropped her for Reba Shannon.

Even after all these years, Brynne felt a pang at the memory.

She’d put on a good front that long-ago night, kept her chin up and her shoulders back, but once she was home, in the privacy of her bedroom, still clad in the lovely lacy dress her mother had made with such care, she’d flung herself down on her bed and ugly-cried until her mascara ran and her whole face was puffy.

Watching Eli and Reba dance together had crushed her.

Things were better when she went away to college, at least when it came to the dating scene. At Northwestern, she’d been a very small fish in a very large pond, sheltered and naive; gently raised in Painted Pony Creek, Montana, she’d been homesick and totally overwhelmed during her freshman year.

Guys asked her out, though. They took her to parties and football games, dances and concerts, movies and festivals.

And, with few exceptions, they expected sex in return.

Immediately.

No getting to know each other. No taking the time to become friends, let alone build a relationship.

That kind of slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am approach had come as a shock to Brynne, though of course she’d known it was a thing. Sure, she’d grown up in a Podunk town, and she’d still been a virgin at the time, but plenty of the kids she’d gone to high school with had indulged. Two of her friends had been pregnant on graduation day.

But in college, sex wasn’t an option, it seemed to Brynne. It was a given.

She hadn’t been a prude, but she hadn’t been a pushover, either.

In her mind, there was sex—and there was lovemaking.

Sex had its place, she knew, but it wasn’t currency, to be exchanged for pizza and beer or an invitation to a party.

Soon enough, word had gotten around campus that Brynne Bailey didn’t put out; if she went out with a guy, it was Dutch treat—no exceptions.

And no hanky-panky.

After college, Brynne had moved from Chicago to Boston and made a life for herself, working in various high-end galleries, first in sales and eventually in management. She’d squeezed her personal artwork—mainly abstract acrylics, with diversions into watercolor landscapes, animals and birds—in whenever she’d had that rare combination of time and inspiration.

And then there had been Clayton.

Clay.

She didn’t want to think about him. Especially not in the middle of a workday.

So she shifted her attention back to Cord and J.P.

She’d gone to school with them, from kindergarten right on through high school and they were good friends, the kind of friends a person could depend upon, in the best of times—and the worst.

She refilled their coffee cups.

“You guys have a lot of leisure time,” she teased. Since there were no other customers in the café at the moment, she decided to chat a little.

Cord trained horses, and he was world-renowned for his ability to establish a rapport with even the most troubled animal. J.P. had