Her Four Cowboys

“Okay,” Adam said, wheeling the cart over to the same Chevy pickup that he’d been driving since high school. “I’ll see you on Wednesday, if not before, right?”

“Wednesday?”

“Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, right.”

He grinned at me, leaning forward, and giving me a hug. “It really is great to see you back here, Luce.”

I breathed him in and hugged him back, trying to get the feelings in my belly to calm down once again. “It’s great to see you too.”

7

ADAM

“What are you so happy about?” my mom asked as I walked into the house, raising an eyebrow as she came forward to take the grocery bags from me. “I’ve never known you to look this happy when coming back from the grocery store.”

Seeing Lucy at the market had kept me riding high ever since I’d left the parking lot, and I felt like I could see her behind my eyelids every time I blinked; standing in front of the potatoes with that frown on her face that made her look like she’d accidentally taken a sip from a glass of lukewarm beer that had been sitting out in the heat for the last five hours.

I blinked a few times, bringing my attention back to my mother who was still standing in the kitchen and staring at me expectantly. Shrugging a shoulder, I simply went to the counter and started unloading one of the grocery bags. “It’s nothing huge. I just ran into Lucy Oliver at the market, and we wound up doing our shopping together.”

“Oh! Well, that’s nice,” she said, looking up at me as she took the turkey out of its bag and put it aside to prep. “Did you guys have a lot to catch up on?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was happy to hear that she and her parents are coming over for Christmas Eve. I hadn’t known that you’d invited them.”

“Well, you know that Marge and I have coffee a few times a week,” she said, and I nodded. “She and I were talking about how Lucy’s come home from Utah, and how she’s been settling in. They usually do their big celebration on Christmas Day, so I suggested that they come over for Christmas Eve.” She raised her eyebrow at me once more as she dumped the potatoes unceremoniously into the sink. “Why? Are you disappointed?”

“No! Not at all,” I said hurriedly. “It’s going to be great to have more time with her to catch up.”

“I know. Andy told me that you and your brothers ran into her when you boys went out to Spurs the other night,” she said, smiling as she turned on the water. “It’s good that you’re so excited to catch up with your old friend. She’s such a sweet girl.”

“Yeah, she is.” I turned back to the bags hurriedly so that my mom couldn’t see the way that my face had flamed up, turning redder than some of the twinkle lights that we’d draped over the tree currently standing in my parents’ living room.

I knew that my mom loved Lucy and her parents, which was partially why it had been so easy for both sets of parents to be easygoing about a teenage boy and a teenage girl hanging out together at pretty much every hour of the day and night. That had been especially true when both of us had turned out to be painfully shy nerds as teenagers, more comfortable around horses than we were around other kids our age.

None of that had changed the fact that I’d had a crush on her; it had just thrown up several barriers of me not asking her out and making things official. On top of which was the fact that I knew her future lay in college and veterinary school, and I refused to be one of the obstacles that held her back from that dream if I knew that I was never going to leave Rock Ledge. The result was that we’d never been more than friends, even though I knew that neither set of parents would have been likely to object to us getting together.

In fact, they probably would have thrown a preemptive engagement party.

Well—now, we were both a decade older, with a decade more of life experience and understanding of the world. And she was still my friend, but my feelings toward her were decidedly more than friendly.

I didn’t want my mom to find out that I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and it was in a much more intense way than most friends did.

“Honey,” my mom said, and I turned to look at her, blinking a few times as she waved in my face to get my attention. I looked at her with interest, and she thrust the boxes of cereal into my hands. “Will you please take these into the hallway pantry?”