Chapter 35 #2
They ate through the main courses, and The Oaken Barrel had sent three chicken choices, two vegetarian choices, and three surf and turf choices.
“I think the salmon,” Ronnie said. “It was definitely the best fish.”
“Shrimp and salmon do go great together,” Reeves said.
Bailey noted it, and then looked up. “So we can have the stuffed chicken breast or the chicken piccata, or a more standard, cowboy-style barbecue chicken with a baked potato.” She looked at the remnants of each dish, knowing which one she wanted.
Momma shook her head. “That one’s too plain, Bailey. If we’ve got these fancy small bites, we need a higher-end chicken dish.”
“My vote is the stuffed chicken,” Reeves said. “I loved that one.”
“I did too.” Bailey smiled at him, noting that he was giving his opinion just fine.
“I think it’s the best option,” Momma said, and Bailey circled it on the paper. They moved on to the vegetarian options. With the eggplant Parmesan decided, Bailey cleared the table, and Momma started setting out the desserts.
“I honestly don’t know how we’re going to decide this,” Ronnie said, eyeing the cakes, tarts, cheesecakes, and pastries. “I basically just ate four meals, and I want all of them.”
Bailey laughed and cleared away their forks and handed everyone a spoon. “They gave us one of everything,” she said. “But only one. So you only get a couple of bites. Let’s dig in and each make a list of our top five.”
“We’re doing five desserts?” Momma asked as she forked off a bite of the multi-layered chocolate cake with deep, dark, chocolate frosting.
Bailey nodded. “Yes, the buffet we chose has five dessert spots.” She looked at Ronnie, and then Reeves. “It shouldn’t be too hard to come to a consensus on five. Right, boys?”
Bailey only smiled and dipped her spoon into the closest dessert to her—banana pudding—because she knew this was going to be a drag-down fight.
A couple of hours later, Bailey ducked under the same fence rung that Reeves had, then reached for his hand. “Thanks for coming to do that.”
“Of course.” He looked over to her and pressed a kiss against her cheekbone. “It almost came down to a fistfight over the desserts, but it was really fun.”
Bailey sighed into the twilight quickening around them.
Her momma and Ronnie had left a couple of hours ago, and she and Reeves had been working in her garden, which he’d tilled for her and helped her plant.
She really did want Hydrangea to meet Sir and Pansy, and they’d just crossed from her property to his to make the walk next door.
She prayed that he’d make her coffee and hold her on the couch in his loft, and they could talk more about marriage and kids and their life here in Coral Canyon.
“I really like your family, Bailey,” Reeves said, his voice barely louder than the crickets starting to chirp.
“I’m glad,” she said. “Would you invite your dad down here for anything?”
Reeves didn’t immediately object, but a storm rolled across his expression. “I don’t see why I would.” He sighed, and it didn’t sound happy. “I’ll probably just invite my best friend and maybe his parents, if anything big were to happen.”
“Like a wedding.”
“Yeah, wildflower,” he whispered. “Like a wedding.”
They strolled along his well-kept roads while Bailey enjoyed the night around her. “My life is so different now,” she said.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes, so much better.”
His house came into view, and Pansy came tearing down the back steps of the deck, barking. Hydrangea started barking as well, and Bailey quickly pulled on her leash and kept her right at her side. “Hey, you’re fine,” she said. “Hush. No barks. You’re fine.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Reeves said, and he took a couple of steps in front of Bailey to slow Pansy down. He got the blue heeler to calm, and he made her lay all the way down before he turned back to Bailey.
“All right, you may meet her now.” Bailey brought Hydrangea forward to greet Pansy.
Sir’s more booming barks sounded in the night beyond them, and Bailey bent to pick up the little white dog she was fairly sure she would adopt. As Sir came bounding in, he jumped up on Reeves, who pressed against his chest. “No, you don’t get to do that.”
He got his boxer calmed, and with both of his dogs sitting after being so clearly excited to see him, Bailey allowed Hydrangea to go meet them. Much sniffing ensued, and Bailey stood there and grinned at the canines. “They like each other,” she said.
“Looks like they’ll get along just fine.” Reeves grinned at her. “Maybe I should do some dog-training videos.”
Bailey smiled at him, though a pinch ran through her chest. They rarely had a conversation where he didn’t mention something about a video he could make, and while Bailey normally didn’t mind, she still didn’t really want to be in any of his videos, and she was glad he’d stopped asking.
“Hey, did you ever get in touch with Luke?” she asked.
“Uh, no,” Reeves said. “He texted earlier today, but I was out on the tractor, and I didn’t reply.
” He pulled out his phone as they started a slow stroll along the edge of his backyard.
“Yeah, here it is,” he said. “He said he’s planning a camping trip with some of the older male cousins, OJ included, and he’d love to have me come along and teach the boys how to start fires and cook. ”
“That’s great,” Bailey said.
“Yeah, let’s see….” He slowed to a stop as his attention remained on his phone. “He says school starts August seventeenth, and he was planning to go out the first weekend. It would be the second.” He looked up at Bailey, the glow from his phone illuminating his face. “Would that work for us?”
Bailey sure liked that he was checking with her, and that there was an ‘us’ between them, but it also sent a sting of surprise through her. “Reeves, it’s your schedule. If it works for you, it’s fine.”
“Okay.” He started tapping out a message for Luke. “This will get OJ out with me,” he said. “And I can have him come over and learn a little bit about the camera equipment before we go.”
“It’s not for another week and a half,” Bailey said. “There should be time.”
“Yep,” Reeves finished up on his phone and tucked it away in his pocket. The dogs had gone ahead to the back deck, leaving Reeves and Bailey alone on the edge of the yard, where the motion sensor lights didn’t quite reach.
Reeves gathered her into his arms. “It’s okay with you that I’m doing something with them, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Bailey said, though she could hear the forced quality of her voice in even that short word.
“You’d tell me if it wasn’t, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said again. Something wiggled through her, and Bailey finally realized what it was. “I’m just worried that you’ll like them more than me.”
“Impossible,” he whispered.
She raised her eyebrows. “You think so? You think Luke Young became a world-famous country music star because he has no charm or charisma?” She tilted her head and studied him. “And you’ve met OJ. He’s everyone’s BFF within the first five minutes that he meets them.”
Reeves grinned at her. “Well, if you weren’t so salty, it wouldn’t be a competition, would it?”
A scoff fell out of Bailey’s mouth, and then Reeves tipped his head back, and laughter filled the wide Wyoming sky. She pushed against his chest, but he held her fast, and in fact, kneaded her closer.
“I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you, Bailey,” he whispered. “You don’t need to worry about anything.” He touched his lips to hers in a sweet, beautiful kiss, and with the moonlight bathing them, Bailey felt herself falling and falling and falling.
Reeves deepened the kiss, then pulled away before they went too far. “Come on,” he said huskily. “I’ll make some coffee, and I just put a new hammock in the trees back here, and we can maybe try to see some stars through the leaves.”
Bailey didn’t believe for a moment that they’d be able to see any stars through the leaves of the two tall trees where he’d strung a hammock. But it didn’t matter, because she simply wanted to lay in his arms and listen to his heartbeat as she fell even further in love with him.