Page 41 of Beehives and Broken Heroes

Plus, the three-dates rule left him able to spend time with his friends in town, like the Westbrooks. He’d had Sunday dinner with them a few times over the last couple months. She hadn’t particularly loved it when he missed family dinners at her aunt’s, but she liked him entrenching himself into Harvest Ranch.

The barn doors stood open, and voices wafted out toward where Allie stood in the driveway. She hitched up her purse and headed toward the barn, but she didn’t make it more than a couple of feet before the front door to the house cracked open. Brandon peeked out from behind the navy-blue door, glanced at her, then toward the barn, then at her again.

“What are you—” she asked, grinning at his antics.

“Shhhh,” he whispered. Then he crooked his fingers at her, underhanded.

She lifted a brow but slowly crunched across the driveway.

“Brandon?” called Hunter Westbrook from the barn. Hunter was a handsome twenty-something man who worked hard with many of the other Westbrooks on their cattle ranch. He was good-tempered and friendly. He also shoed horses and made a pretty good living at it too.

Brandon dropped his head to his hand. Allie froze, one foot still suspended in air. Brandon stepped out the door and waved for her to hurry. She chuckled and raced forward. He stood back to let her in, slammed the door behind her, and set the dead bolt for good measure.

“What on earth—” she started, but her words were cut off. Brandon grabbed her, pulling her flush against him. Her purse dropped to the floor, contents scattering with several clunks—she didn’t care one iota. His lips were on hers immediately, and he pushed her back against the wall next to the door, knocking into that old coatrack in the process. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hung on for dear life.

This was what she’d been missing since their last date. She loved talking with Brandon, playing B.O.T.s with him, watching him with the horses, and holding his hand, but she craved this closeness. In all her kissing career, which was nothing to blink at, she’d never once felt like this—like how she did with Brandon. Like she was the most important thing in the world to him and he was the most important to her. It was terrifying and liberating all at the same time.

Their first kiss out in the grove had left her weak in the knees and full of longing—it’d been beautiful, and she’d wanted nothing more than to kiss him again. She’d thought then that no kiss would ever be able to compete with that first one. She’d been wrong. Their kisses got better with each one. One thing was for sure: he’d ruined her for other men.

She ran her hands through his silky locks as he peppered butterfly kisses up her jaw.

“How are you?” he crooned near her ear.

A deep warmth unfurled in her tummy. “I’m good.” Really, really good now. “How are you?”

He dropped his hands to her hips and pulled back to look at her. “I’m good. I’ve missed you.”

The new cynic in her, the one that appeared for the first time after everything with Tony, laughed at the idea of missing someone after only a couple days apart, but without even trying, Allie managed to squash her flat in the recesses of her mind. In past relationships, she’d always loved the drama and free tossing about of emotions. Case in point: when she’d first met Tony, there had been a thunderstorm that sent streams of water running down Main. Tony had picked her up and carried her over a puddle and into the honey shop. It had seemed so romantic, but it’d all been for show. That’s just how Tony was.

She was pretty sure deep down she’d known that all along. That was why with him, and with every other guy she’d been with, she’d throw herself totally into being with them when they were there. On the days they weren’t, she hardly thought of them, if she thought of them at all. It wasn’t like that with Brandon. No matter how hard she tried, even before they were together, he’d constantly been on her mind and she’d wanted him there.

Going up on tiptoe, she gave him another quick peck on the lips. “I missed you too.”

He grinned, but there was a little shyness behind it that Allie found irresistible. “What have you been up to the last couple days?”

He knew; they texted throughout the day and they talked last night for an hour, like they did every night since they’d started dating. But she wouldn’t waste the opportunity to bring up the town cleanup again. It’d already been going on for a week, and they had one more week to go. “Helping spruce up Main Street. Allie, Cash, a bunch of townsfolk, and I went up and down the street sweeping, cleaning the gutters, wiping down the benches . . . you know.” She so wanted him to jump in and help. Not just because she loved the town, but she just knew that the more he participated, the more he’d become deep-rooted in the town.

“Cash is back from California?” Brandon asked.

Cash had been gone for a couple weeks taking care of stuff with his restaurants in Santa Clara. It was nice of Brandon to ask, but she was a little disappointed he’d not been more interested in the cleanup. “Yeah, he got back a couple days ago.”

“I need to call him. He wanted help with something in his restaurant,” Brandon said.

Okay, he’d moved on. She wasn’t going to drag the conversation back to the cleanup—at least right now. She pointed back to the front door. “What was that about?”

Brandon rolled his eyes, then picked up her bag, unceremoniously shoving her stuff in it, and handed it to her. He took her hand and led her toward the living room. “Hunter’s here putting new shoes on the horses. Maverick’s helping.” Maverick was Hunter’s older brother. Also a cattle rancher, also handsome, good-tempered, and friendly. Though he didn’t normally shoe horses. He was typically too busy at the ranch.

“Okay?” She didn’t get it; her family had used Hunter to shoe the horses for the last couple of years. She shrugged.

“My sister called while I was out there with them.” He stopped outside the living room. “They saw her picture on the caller ID.”

“So?” Allie asked.

“So they won’t shut up about her. I just spent the last half hour answering all sorts of stupid questions. Does she have a horse? Does she rodeo? What are her events? Does she rope? Does she have a boyfriend? How’s it possible she’s related to you?” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Why is your ringtone for her ‘Bad Liar’?”

His ringtone was “Bad Liar”? How had she not known that? And seriously, why? Allie would have to circle back to that later.

“I’m just glad I had the good sense not to answer the call while they were standin’ right there,” Brandon said.

---