Page 3 of Nashville Cowboy
“Get washed up for dinner,” Mima said. “Jackson is on his way. Ought to be here any minute.”
Crowding Eve at the sink, Daisy elbowed her. “Betyou’renervous.”
“You could say that.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let him kill you.” She put her hands out, karate chop style. “If he tries, I’ll git him for ya.”
“Ha, ha. That’s funny.” Eve hip-checked Daisy.
Daisy was one of several auto mechanics down at Lou’s Auto forty minutes away in Kerrville. With a shortage of jobs in Stone Ridge, most taken up by the men in town, some women moved away. But Eve moved back after college and she and her partner, Annabeth Dantzer, were the only vets in the area.
Eve would have preferred fading into the background, but the men of Stone Ridge made that difficult.
Chapter 2
Minutes after the plane taxied to a full stop, Jackson Carver unbuckled, pulled the brim of his black Stetson low, and stood to grab his carry-on from the overhead compartment. Lincoln would pick him up in baggage claim and drive him the sixty miles home.
Two weeks before the wedding day, time he planned to use unwinding. Fresh off a fifty-city tour, he needed a long break. More like a hibernation. His last recording contract fell apart in a mix of creative differences and management issues. The producer they’d hired walked off, and all contracts were dissolved.
“Welcome to Texas,” the pilot said over the intercom and then went on to offer today’s temperatures.
Ah, Texas weather. There were only two seasons in Texas: winter and summer. They both often happened in the same week. To hear the pilot describe it, today was winter even if the calendar said June. Tomorrow, eighties were forecasted. No, Jackson wasn’t exactly astrangerto Texas, but for the past several years he’d resided both on a tour bus and in Nashville.
But he would have preferred a vacation on a deserted island. He wasn’t thrilled to be going back to his hometown and there was little else that could have brought him back other than Lincoln’s wedding. He would have preferred to return once his career took off but that hadn’t happened in eight long years. It was said that an overnight sensation took ten years, so he should be in the seventh inning stretch. Right.
He’d come home for the wedding, but it was also a good chance to unplug. With little to no cell phone reception on their ranch and spotty downtown, he’d be relegated to the home landline. He’d left the number with his manager and musician friends, for emergencies only.
The bright June sunshine pooled over the brim of his hat, casting his view in shadows. His boots thudded across the cement tarmac toward the small building of the regional airport. He followed the crowd to baggage claim, grabbed his guitar case and one other bag, then walked to the curb and scanned the horizon.
Lincoln stood just outside the driver’s side of his truck, wearing a dark leather jacket, Stetson, his long legs spread in a stance. Arms crossed. Big brother smirk firmly in place. Jackson might be known as Nashville’s cowboy among his friends and band members because of his ranching roots, but Lincoln Carver was the real deal.
Jackson stopped short of the truck, his gaze sweeping over the red four-wheel drive glimmering in the sun. Lincoln must have taken it through the car wash recently, because new or not, a truck that lived on their ranch was never this clean. He slid his hand down the hood in admiration.
“You dare pick me up in this piece of shit?” Jackson asked, sarcasm heavy.
Lincoln burst into loud peals of rich laughter and a moment later, he hauled Jackson into a bear hug. A bear hug because the manwasa bear. Huge, even to Jackson’s six feet. He’d put on weight, too. And thisbeforehis wedding day.
“Missed you, little bro,” Lincoln said.
“Same.”
Jackson wasn’t much of a hugger anymore. He regularly hugged three people in his life: Lincoln, their younger sister, Daisy, and their grandmother, Mima.
“Guessing Sadie’s still a real good cook. You’ve put on a few since I last seen you.”
Linc pulled back to pat his belly. “Guessed right. Enjoyed every last minute of it.”
“Heard you were supposed to gain weightafterthe wedding.” He snorted.
Lincoln cleared his throat. “Lookin’ on the thin side yourself.”
“Mima will fix that in no time, I’m sure.”
Jackson expected a laugh, but when he didn’t get one, the small icicle that slid over his heart the second he’d heard who the maid of honor would be spread like tentacles. His family, doing their “Carver thing.” Keeping him in the dark like a mushroom. Feeding him just the same. Something was wrong.
“Yeah,” Lincoln said without looking at him. “Uh-huh. She will.”
They grabbed his luggage, threw it in the back, and climbed into the truck for the drive through Texas Hill Country to the small town of Stone Ridge. Their town was unique for a handful of reasons, one of them being that they were so far removed from everything that they tended to rely on each other. Now that he’d traveled all over the country and seen his share of mountain peaks and valleys, he appreciated the big Texas sky far better. The view was at times so open and unobstructed you’d swear the land went on forever. But it only seemed that way.
