True-Blue Cowboy - Vicki Lewis Thompson Page 0,62

the door partway, went to the front of the truck and propped up the hood. “Appreciate you coming out here, bro.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.” Rafe attached jumper cables to his truck’s battery and handed the cables to Nick. “Didn’t realize I’d be getting a show.”

“For the record, I had on my pants and boots when I left the house.” He hooked the cables to his battery. “I just didn’t take time to put on my socks, and since I had to wait for you, I—”

“Say no more. I hate the feel of boots without socks. You hooked on?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll start ’er up.” He returned to the driver’s seat of his truck and switched on the engine. Hopping down, he walked back and leaned on his front fender. “How bad is it?”

“Not too bad. The terminals look fine. It just needs—”

“Not the battery.”

“Oh.” He sucked in a breath. “Bad. She told me to go fall in love with someone else.”

Rafe blinked. “Are you telling me you deployed the L word?”

“Yep. Got to thinking about your two-year wait and decided to take the bull by the horns.”

“Damn, Nicholas.”

“Dumb, huh?”

“Yeah, but you’ve got solid brass ones, bro. What you lack in smoothness you make up for in cojones.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Try to start your truck.”

Nick swung into the seat and turned the key. The engine caught. “That should do it!” He climbed down, walked to the front of the truck and leaned against the fender. “We just need to give it a couple of minutes.”

“Yep.” Rafe scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Were you asleep when I texted?”

“Lucky for you I was lying there thinking about Kate. I wouldn’t have heard your text if I’d been out.”

“That was only my first move. Next I would’ve called. I don’t like hauling you out of bed, but I purely hate the idea of asking Eva.”

“Understood.” Rafe hesitated. “So it’s over between you two?”

A knife twisted in his gut. “Has to be, now that I’ve said my piece and she threw it in my face. There’s no coming back from that.”

Rafe nodded. “Same with me and Kate.”

“Now what?”

“I wish I knew, Nick.” He sighed. “I wish I knew.”

Chapter Thirty

When Nick and Rafe drove away, Eva left her spot by the window. With no other noise to interfere except the rumble of Rafe’s truck, she’d picked up most of their conversation. When Nick started his truck, she’d heard Rafe’s question about whether things were over between them, but not Nick’s answer or any of their final words to each other.

But Nick’s answer was a foregone conclusion. Their hot affair had flamed out. Fun while it lasted. Hell when it was over.

Coming down from that high would give her the bends. Nick, too. They’d both pay dearly for their thirty-six-hour adventure.

After putting on a bathrobe, she reached under the bed and grabbed the box the candles had come in. She blew out the flames, still flickering merrily, and tucked the votives inside the box. Throwing them away was wasteful. Keeping them would break her heart.

Without the candles, the room was very dark. She couldn’t see the nightgown hanging on the closet door, but it had to go, too. She didn’t judge the width of the dresser correctly and banged her knee against it when she walked over to the closet.

Fumbling around, she grasped a piece of the material and followed it to the straps so she could lift it off the hook. She wadded it up and got most of it in the generous pocket of her robe.

With the candles and the nightgown in her possession, she headed downstairs. The nightgown would be trickier to ditch than the candles. Beth would never ask about it, but tucking her generous gift into a bag for charity would suck, anyway.

The Tiffany lamps gave her enough light to navigate toward the kitchen, where she’d left a light on over the stove, the way Aunt Sally always had. The contents of the cupboards were arranged the way they’d been in Aunt Sally’s house. A bowl of apples sat on the counter because Aunt Sally had always had an apple bowl.

But it wasn’t her aunt’s influence that dominated the space, now. Nick’s presence was everywhere—overfeeding him at the kitchen table, sharing food prep last night, sneaking down here at three a.m. to finish off the cinnamon rolls. He’d said it was a point of honor. They wouldn’t go stale on his watch.

She’d taken the cinnamon roll run as a sign that his appetite was back in