Chapter 17
“ S he said they were happy tears ,” Arizona said, whipping her words toward Brandon at the end of the table.
He’d gotten Lenore into her cabin, and she’d disappeared down the hall to “clean up.” He wasn’t sure what that meant, as she didn’t have cold water she could splash on her face. He’d let her go, and then he turned his fury on Arizona, who’d followed him into the cabin.
Lenore had said her tears were happy, as well as something else about how she’d been researching planting strawberries to harvest in the spring months. They hadn’t talked about that, and Brandon actually appreciated her initiative.
“Can you just…?” He paused, not quite sure how to finish. “Tone yourself down? Would that be too much to ask?”
He turned away from Zona, sighed, and rolled his neck, meeting Dawson’s eyes. “This is why I don’t tell y’all about the women I date for months and months.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who brought strawberries,” Dawson said.
“I thought it would be a nice gesture,” Arizona said. “For those raised beds she’s worked so hard on.”
“It is nice,” Lenore said.
Brandon whipped around to find her standing there. How long had she been there, and had she heard what he’d said about dating?
“Hey,” he said, hurrying toward her. He drew her into his arms to shield her from his overbearing family. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about the strawberries. I didn’t know about them.”
“It’s fine, B,” she said.
He froze and looked at her. B?
That felt intimate and wonderful, and Brandon wished his family was anywhere but here with him and Lenore.
She didn’t seem to realize what she’d said, as she stepped around him and smiled at Arizona. “Really, it’s great. You have no idea. I just started researching planting strawberries in the fall to harvest them in the spring, and I was going to look into getting some plants on Monday.”
“Well, now you won’t have to,” Arizona said with a wide smile. “And me and the girls would love to help you plant them.” She cut a look over to Brandon.
He gestured for her to go on, because Zona clearly had more to say.
“When Brandon sent us a picture of all the work you’d done on your garden, I thought strawberries would be perfect for a couple of your beds, because they are a winter crop.”
“I don’t even know what else to plant outside,” Lenore said. “Will they need covering? Brandon and I were going to do plastic sheeting over some wire, but we haven’t gotten to it yet.” She cut him a look, but this was the Zona-Show, and he wasn’t going to wade into the fray unnecessarily.
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Arizona said lightly, and Duke started to laugh.
Brandon looked from him to Dawson and folded his arms. “What’s so funny?”
“She’s got sheeting and wiring for the hoops in the back of the truck,” Dawson said in a deliberate monotone.
Brandon rolled his eyes and tamed the swears running through his head. Instead of letting them out, he said, “Holy horses , Zona,” and led the way back outside.
Sure enough, Shiloh and April had unloaded plastic sheeting and wiring that they could bend from one side of the raised bed to the other to create what looked like the covering on an old-fashioned wagon.
In fact, they had already started assembling the hoops by laying the plastic sheeting out flat and putting the wiring over it, then folding the edge around and stapling it together.
“Lenore will want to see how you do this,” he said. “Could you let her do one, please?”
“Sure, Uncle Brandon,” Shiloh said. “We figured we’d just get started.”
“It’s fine,” he said, though he was ready for his family to leave, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. He’d like to use his brother’s manpower to finish the barn, but he didn’t dare leave Lenny with Zona.
Lenore arrived and immediately dove into the conversation with Shiloh and April as they showed her how to construct the coverings. Then Duke and Arizona erected one over the raised bed where they’d plant the strawberries, as they tag-teamed the explanation of how to do it.
Brandon stood there and glowered while Lenny worked with the girls to do the second bed, and then the four women dove into the dirt and started planting strawberries.
Lenore seemed so happy, and when she finished planting and hugged Arizona and then April and Shiloh, he decided he couldn’t be unhappy about this.
“So, I’m going to say something,” he said as they all turned to face him, like he had a schedule and they needed their next task given to them.
“You don’t have to invite Lenore to Thanksgiving.
I already did it, and she’s going to come with me.
” He looked around at everyone in his family. “As my girlfriend.”
He couldn’t quite meet Lenore’s eyes, because they hadn’t really defined their relationship yet. Nor had he checked with her before calling her his girlfriend. Nor had he truly invited her to Thanksgiving. He simply didn’t want Arizona to be the one who did.
“Oh, that’s great,” Arizona said easily, as if she hadn’t bullied him into this position. Of course, she didn’t see it that way, and even when Brandon tried to explain things to her, she didn’t get it. She was wonderful in so many other ways, though, that Brandon had to overlook this one.
“And now I have one obvious question for you.”
Arizona met his gaze with a coolness in her own, but Lenore watched him with open vulnerability and hope.
“Strawberries require a lot of water,” he said.
“Everything we’ve done this morning requires a lot of water.
” He spread his arms wide. “You now have fifteen chickens that need water, and I don’t know how many strawberry plants you just put in, but I think it was close to two dozen. And you have no water here.”
Lenore’s eyes burned with blue fire, and she settled her weight on one hip too.
He gestured to Arizona. “There you go. I opened the door for you.”
Arizona swallowed and cleared her throat, then turned toward Lenore.
At least she had the decency to look a little afraid.
“Duke and I want to schedule the drill truck to come and see if they can find water here. Then you’ll have a well, and it won’t be a problem at all how many strawberries or chickens you have.
” She shot a glance to Brandon. “You’ll be able to get water for your house, the chickens, and easily run pipes to everything going on out here in the garden. ”
Lenore nodded, but Brandon knew that wasn’t permission for Arizona to schedule the drill truck. “It’s something Brandon and I have talked a lot about.”
To Arizona’s credit, she didn’t immediately jump in with a rebuttal. In fact, no one said anything. The tension rose through the air with every second that passed.
Brandon wanted to shout at Lenore that she needed some sort of water system here—be that a well, or a five-thousand-gallon tank, or a rain catchment system off the roof. Something. She had to have something more than buying ten-gallon buckets at the hardware store.
Chickens didn’t need artisanal water, after all.
“Can I think about it for a little bit?” Lenore finally asked. “I want to explore some other options before we go straight to the most expensive one.”
“Of course,” Arizona said, and she moved in to hug Lenore. She looped her arm through Lenny’s and towed her back toward the house. “Now, I typed up a quick reference sheet for how to take care of these strawberries….”
The girls followed in her wake, leaving Brandon with his brothers. He sighed, though he wasn’t truly upset. More like irritated, and yet grateful too. He honestly had no idea how to feel and how to process those emotions.
“Come on,” Dawson said. “Let’s finish the barn.”
“I’ll send Zona to town for hamburgers,” Duke said. “She means well, brother.”
“Yeah.” Brandon sagged into his oldest brother’s side. “I know she does.” He cast one final look toward the cabin where Lenny had gone with the other females. “Can you just tell her…I really like Lenny, and I don’t need Zona to be the hero when I want to be the hero.”
Duke’s eyes filled with fire. “I’ll talk to her, B .” He grinned at Brandon as they left the garden behind. “Yeah, I heard that.”
“I heard it too,” Dawson said, almost under his breath, the way he usually did to throw in that last jab.
Brandon smiled with his brothers, because he knew they’d champion him as much as possible. He could only hope when Lenny thought of the person who’d helped her the most, his name would be at the top of the list.
Brandon accepted the brown bag of fast food from the woman leaning out the window and passed it to Lenny. “Thanks,” he said before he eased away from the drive-through. “I want one of the bacon ones, please.”
Lenny opened the bag. “Let’s see….” She pulled out a couple of the hand pies he’d just ordered. “This one is bacon.” She handed him the white-paper-wrapped package with a smile, and Brandon really enjoyed this part of a relationship.
He could be himself, and he’d shared an intimate thing or two about himself, and he’d already broken the physical barrier between them.
He didn’t have to fill every moment with conversation to learn about her, as she’d ordered the raspberry cheesecake hand pie—something he would never eat for breakfast. Savory all the way for him.
He pulled up to the IFA farm supply store and parked so they could finish their second breakfast. Brandon didn’t normally arrive early to the small ranch owner’s meetings, but when he’d proposed they get breakfast beforehand, Lenny had seemed excited about it.
Perhaps she liked to get off the homestead more than she’d ever admit.
He finished a second hand pie and nodded toward the door as Finn Ackerman arrived. “That’s Finn.”
Lenny nodded and turned toward him in her seat. “I just—are you going to tell everyone I’m your girlfriend? Or your boss?”
Brandon looked over to her, trying to contain his smile. He couldn’t quite do it, and he chuckled as well. “You tell me, Len. What do you want to be?”
Her jaw jumped as her expression stormed.
“I kinda liked how you told your family you’d invited me to Thanksgiving as your girlfriend.
I haven’t been anyone’s girlfriend for a while.
” She pointed sharply at him. “Though, I have to say, you have never actually asked me to come to Thanksgiving dinner with you.”
“Mm, haven’t I?” He opened his door and dropped to the ground. Link and JJ had just arrived, and Brandon didn’t want to be the last one into the meeting this time. He went around to the passenger side of the truck and opened Lenny’s door.
Instead of offering her his hand and letting her slide to the ground, he crowded into the opening, sliding one hand across her lap to her opposite hip.
“Lenny, my sister-in-law can be a bit much, but she’s a great cook.
She and Duke have four amazing kids, and they keep bugging me about having you come to Thanksgiving dinner at my family ranch.
My parents will be there, and my other brother and his wife and family too. ”
He shook his head as Lenny’s smile curved those pretty, pink lips. “It’s going to be nutso, but we’re trying to live on a piece of land without water or power, so…I think we’re kind of used to nutso.”
She giggled and reached up to tuck her ponytail back over her shoulder.
“Would you come to Thanksgiving dinner with me?”
“I suppose I could,” Lenny said. “I mean, I don’t have anything else going on.”
“Great.” Brandon leaned in and touched his lips to hers. He let his eyes drift closed and truly take a moment to experience her. He’d never fallen in love before, but his feet slipped a little, and he caught himself the way he did when he’d started to fall asleep and got jolted awake.
He pulled way, this warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest. “You ready to go in?”
“Just waitin’ for you to get out of my way, cowboy.”
He chuckled and stepped back. “No more B , huh?”
“What?” Lenore caught his eye and held it as she got out of the truck.
“You called me B last weekend.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, and I liked it.” He swung her door closed and took her hand in his. “I just—this is a big deal for me. You know that, right?”
“I do not know that,” Lenny said. “What do you mean?”
Brandon reached to open the side door that led into a hall that fed into the conference room. He paused, though the winter wind had decided today was a great day to blow out of control. It threatened to take his hat, and he braced the door with one leg while he pressed his cowboy hat to his head.
“Normally, I don’t even tell anyone who I’m dating until I’m eight or nine dates in.
So…bringing you to this is a big deal.” He glanced into the dimmer depths of the building.
“These are my best friends, and I can’t remember the last woman I introduced any of them to. I guess I’m a little nervous about it.”
He looked at her, feeling like he’d just split open his chest and let her see everything.
Lenny watched him for a moment, and then she reached up and cradled his face in one palm.
“It’s so nice to know you get nervous about things,” she said with a soft smile.
“I’m nervous too, and you know what’s better than being nervous alone? ”
Brandon simply waited, because he didn’t think she really expected him to answer.
“Being nervous but having a partner with you. A friend.” She dropped her hand and looped her arm through his, facing the open doorway. “So let’s do this, because they’re your best friends, and of course they’re going to support you no matter what.”
Lenny looked up at him. “Right?”
Brandon grinned, his anxiety dissipating in that moment. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.” He let her enter the IFA first, and he followed, wishing the nervousness didn’t rush right back in and try to make a nest in the middle of his chest.
But it did.