Her Four Cowboys

So, the time that I spent with my baby brother’s little friend had been negligible at best.

I remembered her. She’d been at the ranch all the time from the time she and Adam had been in first grade up through the end of high school. Molly had sometimes joined them, but she’d been busier doing whatever extracurriculars she’d been interested in rather than accompanying Lucy and Adam. Not only that, but Lucy had been way more into the ranch than Molly had been, which had incentivized her to come hang out. I could still see Lucy and Adam studying at our dining room table, with Lucy tutoring Adam to the best of her ability in biology and chemistry and then breaking for a ride and some fresh air.

I remembered the little tomboy who came to hang out at the ranch. She stuck around for dinners three nights a week, her teeth completely encased in metal for two years to fix her overbite. It never made her less cute or less intrepid, but I did remember that her smiles had been a lot less common during those two years.

She’d been a fixture within my life until ten years ago, even if I didn’t really take the time to talk to her on a day-to-day basis.

So, one might imagine how jarring it was for me to remember that skinny little nerd, zipping from one end of my parents’ ranch to the other, and be seated in front of this striking, grown woman.

It was funny to hold the two images in my mind. I pictured her in the thin plaid shirts that hung on her skinny shoulders the way it might on a hanger with jeans that hung low on her thin frame, which was comparable to her current self.

She still wore the plaid, jeans, and boots that had practically been her uniform when she was a kid, but it was almost as if she’d grown into them, filling them out in a way she never had before. Now, she wore the clothes instead of being worn by them. It took all of my concentration to keep my eyes off of the curves that I could see peeking out.

Now, sitting in the corner of the booth and taking a pull of the cold, crisp beer, I had to flex my fingers a little bit as I remembered the way she’d felt when I’d pulled her in for that hug when she’d first approached the table.

Yeah, she was still small—significantly smaller than me, in fact—but her petite frame was softened by those curves, which were accentuated by the tight jeans that were wrapped around her like a second skin. Her intoxicating scent seemed to cover me like a blanket, and even though I was sitting across the table from her, as far from her as I could possibly get, it felt like I could still smell her on my skin when I breathed deeply after each sip of beer.

Listening to each one of my brothers asking her approximately ten thousand questions while the five of us sat there, it was one of the many times when I was grateful to have so many siblings. I’d never been much of a talker, and I couldn’t deny that it had sometimes shot me in the foot when I’d tried for relationships here and there. Complaints from my exes had included a lack of communication; girls always attempted to get me to engage with them on a conversational level.

Having the whole rest of the A-Team—as Molly called us—there, it lessened the pressure that I usually felt to ask questions and provide some of the conversation starters. I was content to just sit back, listening to her recount the last ten years of her life and allowing myself to drink her in.

All the same, when the conversation lagged, I leaned in, pressing against Austin a little bit as I tried to gauge Lucy’s reactions. “So, do they have you do any crazy veterinary procedures on animals while you’re training, or is it just examinations? I’d think your professors would have you get some hands-on experience.”

“Oh God, you guys have no idea,” she said, leaning her chin into her hand as she seemed to start sinking back into the events of the last few years. “Especially when you’re specifically going to specialize in live animal care. A lot of my textbooks had some pretty ridiculous stuff that I thought I would literally never have to deal with.”

“Like what?” asked Adam.

“There was this one diagram that I had a huge quiz on about emus,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I was super annoyed by that one. I mean, I was going to school in Utah. If I ever go to Australia, it definitely won’t be for work, so I didn’t think there was any reason I should learn about emu anatomy.”