Chapter 31
thirty-one
Briar woke up on her birthday, the scent of bacon filling her senses. She’d figured Tarr would help her start her birthday in the best way possible—and that meant breakfast sandwiches.
She opened her eyes to find darkness still covering the windows.
That also made sense, though the days were definitely getting longer and longer.
She noticed that her bedroom door stood more ajar than she usually left it, and she felt around with her feet for Wiggins.
He was gone, and of course he was. The dog loved her unconditionally, and though Briar had been resisting the cowboy’s charms with everything she could, she also knew why Wiggins felt the way he did about Tarr.
Tarr knew how to take exceptional care of those around him, and it helped that he fed Wiggins whatever he wanted.
With a start, Briar realized Tarr did the same thing to her.
She dictated where they went for dinner, and he was currently in her house right now, preparing to feed her exactly what she wanted.
So she and Wiggins weren’t all that different.
Part of her wanted to shower and get dressed before she showed her wild morning hair to Tarr and inflicted her morning breath on him.
But he’d seen her plenty of times in her pajamas—and quite literally at her worst when she’d awakened in the hospital and found him at her side—so she left on her pajamas and padded down the hall in bare feet to the kitchen.
She paused just out of sight so she could drink in Tarr’s tall, dark form as he whisked something on the stove.
In the end, Wiggins gave her away, catching sight of her only a moment later and barking a good morning to her. Bark, bark, bark-bark! he went as he wagged toward her, and Briar imagined him to be saying, Happy birthday, my human.
Briar bent to pat her dog, effectively getting him to quiet down. “Morning, Wiggy,” she said to him, leaning down to scratch along his neck and down his back.
“Hey, there you are.” Tarr abandoned the work on the stove and came to greet her. “Happy birthday, honey.”
She let him wrap her up tight in his arms—something else Tarr was incredibly good at.
“You’re cooking?” she asked. “I thought you said we were going to lunch.”
“We are going to lunch,” he said. “But you have three meals on your birthday, and you gotta start the day strong.”
Briar leaned back in his arms and smiled up at him. “You’re going to be annoying all day about this, aren’t you?”
He chuckled. “You know, some might call it attentive.”
Briar stretched up to give him a morning kiss. “If you get sick of me, you can leave,” she said.
“Don’t worry. It’s not me who’s going to be sick of you, but I’ve built in some alone-time for both of us.”
“You have? Do tell.”
Tarr took her hand and led her back into the kitchen. “I’ve got the schedule right here on the whiteboard.”
A whiteboard? Briar did not own one of those, but Tarr obviously did, as one now stood on an easel at the end of her dining room table, an enormous vase of blood-red roses beside it. His cowboy handwriting was nowhere to be found, and instead Briar recognized the more feminine slant of Bobbie Jo.
She moved to the end of the counter to read the schedule, frowning after only the first line. “Our chores aren’t on here.”
“Nope,” he said. “Because you’re not doing chores today, and neither am I. It’s a day off.”
Briar turned toward him. “The whole day?”
“Just read the schedule, sweetheart.” He flicked off the flame on the stove and moved the pan to the counter. “I’m going to be toasting the English muffins and doing eggs next, and then we’ll be ready to eat.”
“Okay,” Briar said absently, her gaze locked on the schedule once again.
After breakfast, he’d scheduled a pedicure for her. That would apparently take ninety minutes, as their next appointment was lunch sometime between eleven-thirty and noon. After that, he’d put “open first round of presents,” and then by three they needed to be somewhere.
Briar’s breath left her body. “A couple’s massage, Tarr. You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I don’t think any man is stupid enough to be kidding about something on their girlfriend’s birthday.” He grinned over at her. “You said you used to like massages when you were stunt riding.”
“I did. I do.” She gazed at the board. “I just haven’t had one in so long.”
“It’s just laying there,” he said. “I think you’ll remember how to do it.” He grinned at her. “And I’ll be in the room too.”
“Yeah?”
“They assured me we could be as private as we wanted. You can go in first, for example, and get situated under the blankets, and I’ll come in after you. We have access to a swimming pool, sauna, and hot tubs afterward,” he said. “So we can take our swimming suits and stay until they close.”
“What time is that?” she asked.
“Mm, I think they’re open until ten,” he said.
Briar knew they would not be staying until ten o’clock, because the next thing on Tarr’s schedule read “dinner with Wiggins.” She reached down to pat Wiggy, who stood right at her side. “Where’s dinner?” she asked.
“Right here,” he said. “Back at your place. There will be a choice menu, and you’ll tell me what you want and I’ll make it.”
“You didn’t plan the meal?”
He’d returned to the stove and was cracking eggs into a sizzling pan. “I planned three of them,” he said.
Of course he did.
“Because I knew what we were having for breakfast, but I don’t know what you’ll choose for lunch, and I know you’re a mood eater, so I wanted to make sure I have different options for dinner.”
“This looks like a lot of eating and pampering,” she said.
“Which is all anyone should ever do on their birthday,” Tarr said without missing a beat.
She looked back at the schedule, her eyes quickly spinning through it again. She did love to eat. And to get her toenails looking good again? She was all for that, because it had been far too long.
“This looks like the perfect day,” she said.
That caught Tarr’s attention. He stood at the stove, the spatula frozen above the pan, everything about him warm and wonderful and quiet and good.
“Yeah,” Briar said. “It’s pretty much all my favorite things, Tarr—bacon sandwiches, a pedicure, lunch out, time with my dog, a massage….”
Tarr expertly slid his spatula under the eggs in the pan and flipped them. “And time with your favorite person, right?”
“Oh, did I not mention that?” Briar teased, though she knew Tarr needed reassurance from her from time to time. Heck, probably more often than she gave it to him.
“No, I didn’t hear that part.” He grinned.
“Yes,” she said. “A perfect day includes time with my favorite person.”
“And that’s me, right?”
“Would you just let me finish a thought?”
Tarr glanced over at her, his expression open and vulnerable. “I’m sorry, honey.”
She moved into the kitchen with him. “Of course it’s you, Tarr. I haven’t spent my birthday with anyone in years, and I certainly wouldn’t do it now if I didn’t like you.” She met his eyes. “Really like you.”
“As much as Wiggins?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Don’t press your luck, cowboy. Wiggins is one of a kind.”
“Oh, boy, I know it,” he said.
She linked her arm through his, though he still needed the use of it to scramble the eggs. “Thank you, Tarr. This looks amazing in more ways than one.”
“Do you approve the schedule?” he asked.
“Does it matter if I don’t?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m not going to make you do something on your birthday that you hate.”
“Well, I definitely don’t think there’s anything there that I hate,” she said. “I’ve never done a couple’s massage, and maybe I’m a little nervous about it, but….”
She drew breath, glad when Tarr gave her a moment to finish her thought. “It’s me and you, so what could possibly go wrong?”
He grinned at her. “Exactly. And don’t worry, sweetheart; I’m not expecting anything out of it. It will be dark and soothing, and I won’t peek at all.”
Briar didn’t think he would, but she still said, “That sounds great, Tarr.”
“Do your parents attempt to talk to you at all on your birthday?” he asked.
Briar shook her head. “They haven’t.”
“Do you check their social media or anything? Maybe they post?”
Briar turned away from him, but not because his questions irritated her. Fine, they did a little bit. She took a moment to think through them, and then said, “I’ve checked in the past, and when there was nothing, it hurt too much to keep doing that. But I guess anything is possible.”
“I just don’t get it,” he said. “How do you have kids and then just not talk to them?”
“I don’t know,” Briar said. “Have you ever heard back from Wayne?”
Tarr’s jaw hardened and he shook his head. “Nope, nothing. My momma keeps me up-to-date with him, so I know what’s going on with him, and I assume she does the same and tells him about me too.”
“Yeah, probably,” Briar said. “Does that bother you?”
“Yeah,” Tarr said. “But I think it makes my momma feel good, and I don’t want her to be upset about anything.” He once again flicked off the flame. “All right, sweetheart, you’ve got to let go of me so I can put together your sandwich.”
He grinned at her, and Briar backed up to give him more room behind the counter. She took a seat at the dining room table behind the whiteboard and waited for Tarr to bring over the two immaculate plates of her favorite food: a toasty breakfast sandwich with cheese on a toasted English muffin.
He put one plate in front of her and slid the other one across the table. Then he swept his arm around her and leaned down. “Happy birthday, Briar,” he whispered.
Oh, how she loved hearing him say her name in his sexy cowboy tenor.
When she first met him and he’d called her sweetheart, she’d found it demeaning.
Then she realized he was as Texan as anyone she’d ever met, and he called everyone sweetheart, including goats, sheep, and sometimes Wiggins.
Having him use her name felt significant.
Briar definitely felt the loss of his presence at her side as he moved around the table and took his place across from her.
“Can we pray?” he asked.
Briar immediately folded her arms and bowed her head, though the call of the delicious salty bacon tempted her to skip prayer for once.
She and Tarr had prayed together many times now, but she still appreciated the sound of his voice saying, “Dear Lord,” and the sentiment with the words that came after that.
“I’m sure glad to be here celebrating with Briar today on her birthday.
Thank you so much for opening her heart and allowing me to have a chance to be in her life.
It has been a blessing to me for these past few months, Lord, and please bless us both that we’ll be able to have a good day today—especially Briar, as it’s her birthday and she deserves everything good in the world to come her way. ”
Tears gathered behind Briar’s eyes, because she had never heard herself described as a blessing in someone’s life. She almost wanted to scoff and remind Tarr that he shouldn’t tell lies, but he spoke with such sincerity that she believed he truly found her to be a blessing to him.
Briar wasn’t sure she’d ever been a blessing to anyone, and a warm, bright feeling filled her from head to toe.
“Amen,” Tarr said.
She’d missed the rest of the prayer, but it didn’t matter.
She’d heard the part her heart needed to hear.
She glanced over to Tarr as he picked up his breakfast sandwich and took the first bite.
He moaned the way Tarr always did, and Briar shook her head at the way he patted himself on the back—the way she always did.
She giggled, this birthday off to a perfectly salty, delicious, cowboy start.