They’d cried together when their dad died and again when their grandpa passed away. They’d moved away to the Rockin’ B Ranch right out of high school to work with a couple of their friends, Tag and Hud Baker. Then when Tag and Hud bought a ranch of their own halfway across the state, they’d gone with them to help out. After Mam moved into an assisted-living facility and left Pax and Mav her ranch, he’d come back home, and they’d worked side by side to restore the place.
“We had to stop sometime and see if any of the vibes we’ve felt for the past ten years are real or if they were a flash in the pan,” Pax said, trying to skirt around the issue.
“So why didn’t you tell me that y’all were dating?” Maverick asked. “I thought you were still enemies.”
Pax raised one shoulder in half a shrug. “We were what they call frenemies, I guess. That’s somewhere between friends and enemies, and then somehow the enemy part kind of went by the wayside, a little at a time, and we became friends. We started talking, and then it led to more.” That much wasn’t a lie. After he had come home from Sunset in the winter, they had begun to talk about ranching stuff when they’d meet at the feed store or the burger joint. Then they’d started calling each other a couple of times a week to talk about other things.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Mav asked.
“Things were going so well between us that we didn’t want to jinx it,” Pax answered. “We talked about eloping to Las Vegas, but Matt has always had this dream of walking her down the aisle.” That part was true, so he looked his brother in the eye and smiled. “Be happy for me.”
“Happy for you?” Maverick raised his voice. “You don’t even say the word marriage out loud, and you’ve been running from Alana since y’all were kids. Now you tell me you’ve proposed to her?”
“Marriage,” Pax said with a grin on his face. “There I said it.”
“All right.” Maverick narrowed his eyes. “Now you said it, but when you even mentioned settling down, it was always after you were thirty.”
“I’m almost twenty-nine,” Pax shot back at his brother. “That’s pretty damn close.”
“I think you’re rushing things because you think you want what we’ve all got,” Maverick said.
Pax shrugged. “Maybe so, but it is what it is. I’m going to marry Alana, so get used to it. Will you be my best man?” Pax asked. “It’s going to be a real small wedding with family and very close friends with a little reception in the fellowship hall.”
“Of course.” Maverick finally smiled. “But why the rush? Is she pregnant or something?”
“No, she’s not pregnant and the rush is that we want to get married. God!” He raked his hands through his hair. “Geez, with this kind of interrogation, maybe we should’ve eloped to Las Vegas like we talked about doing.”
“I don’t know her so well,” Bridget said, “but she seems like the type who’d want a big wedding. She’s lived in this place all her life, and knows everyone. I’d think she’d want the big dress and all the frills.”
“You got her pegged wrong. She’s pretty down-to-earth once you get to know her. She didn’t even want me to buy a ring. She’s so sentimental that she wants to use her mother’s wedding rings.” Pax pushed back his chair, stood up, and refilled their coffee mugs, then helped Bridget bring breakfast to the table.
Maverick said a short grace, and Bridget passed the platter of biscuits to him first.
“So from what I’ve heard, you and Alana have had some chemistry between you and you’ve been running from each other for a while?” Bridget asked.
“Since they were big enough to walk,” Maverick answered.
“Why would you do that if you felt something for one another?” She handed the bowl of scrambled eggs to Pax.
“She’ll be the sole owner of the Bar C when Matt passes away,” Pax explained. “Until Mam deeded this place over to us, I had nothing to offer her, and besides once you’ve been runnin’ as long as we were, it was kind of hard to stop and admit defeat. And”—he paused and decided to tell the truth—“it all started when we were thirteen.” He went on to tell the story of their first kiss. “I decided right then I wasn’t going to give her the time of day.