CHAPTER 6
Phoebe
I’m a Grade-A loser.
I let myself get so distracted with the fantasy—how my fancy-schmancy dress will seduce my make-believe Evander—that I almost crashed head-on into the real one!
And now he thinks I can’t drive. And that’s just not true. I’m a very good driver. My dad taught me how to deal with any condition, in any vehicle.
Ice. Snow. Rain. Flood. Landslide. Mudslide. Blizzard. Avalanche. Dust storm.
Car. Pickup. Tractor. ATV. Flatbed. Snowplow. Combine. Hay baler. Snowmobile.
After all, I’m a freaking rancher’s daughter!
Evander just laughed at my costume. I can’t say I blame him. Sporting a head-to-toe reindeer ensemble screams, get a load of the goofy neighbor girl!
That’s not exactly part of my plan.
Because I want him to look at me and think, How can I resist this beautiful woman? I must make hot, passionate love to her immediately!
Or something.
Maybe my fantasizing still needs some work.
“Ugh, Phoebe,” I say aloud. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
I turn down the state highway and toward home, suddenly perking up.
Wait.
Maybe that was a laugh of appreciation from him. Maybe Evander’s got a thing for fuzzy costumes. I’ve heard some people do. I can’t imagine that’s the case, but how can I be sure?
I’ve known about Evander MacLaine all my life, but the truth is, I don’t really know him.
Except that he’s honorable. Stubborn. Decent. Smart. Hard-working. Loyal. Prefers fancy clothes. And has a high pain threshold.
Also, he’s as hot as Satan’s six pack.
“Phew!”
It may be cold as a meat locker outside, but I’m sweating inside my fake-fur prison. I crack the driver’s side window as I make my way into the valley and toward Travis Ranch.
I eventually pull into the ranch lane, smiling to myself. I see there are some recent additions to the giant decorative blow-up wonderland my mother has created at the intersection. Swaying in the breeze is a new stack of festively wrapped gifts and yet another Frosty the Snowman.
I think my mother is singlehandedly responsible for the success of the inflatable décor industry.
Which reminds me… shoot!
Before we broke up, I’d invited Rick to come to the ranch for Christmas. But I never uninvited him! And knowing the kind of black-and-white thinker that he is, I should make certain he knows it isn’t a standing invitation.
I make a mental note to take care of that as soon as I get inside. I’ll send him an email. Or maybe a text would be more polite. Actually, I might call him, though I don’t want to give him any false hope that we might get back together.
Ugh. Seriously. Being polite is freaking exhausting.
I pull up to the main house, seeing that Jake has been roped into helping my mother string more garland along the porch railing. He turns to me, his eyes flashing, help me!
Jake Travis is a star NHL center. He can defend himself just fine, on and off the ice.
He meets me at the bottom of the porch steps and loudly says, for our mother’s benefit, “Let me help you carry everything in, little sis!”
I roll my eyes, grabbing my boutique garment bag from the backseat hook. Jake snatches my coat, purse, and antlers from the front and follows me up to the porch.
“What happened to your car?” Jake asks.
“Nothing. Just scraped the curb. Hey, Mama!” I say.
“How was the party, sweetie?”
“Great!”
“Jake, get your butt back here,” Mom says. “Once we’re done with this, you need to hang more of the solar-powered lights along the roof of the west loafing shed and fence.”
“Ryder can do it.”
“Ryder, Bo, and Mason are hanging lights along the east property-line fence.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right back.”
I smile to myself. I always find it funny how Jake can start bloody brawls in a hockey rink but surrenders whenever Mom tells him to do something. All my brothers are like that, actually.
We walk into the foyer and Jake shuts the front door behind us. We stomp on the waterproof rug, knocking off old snow and slush from the bottom of our shoes before we step inside.
“Their electric bill must be thousands a month,” Jake mumbles.
“Good thing all of their sons are well-paid professional athletes.”
I hang the garment bag on the coat tree and start peeling off my reindeer suit.
“Did the kids like your costume?”
“They loved it. Seems I was very entertaining.”
Jake gestures to the dress bag. “What’s in there? Another costume? Mrs. Claus, maybe?”
I decide to tell Jake the truth, even though I know I’ll be stepping in it. “It’s the dress I’m wearing to Finn and Emma’s wedding next week.”
“You spend too much time over there.”
I turn to him and sigh. “It’s been months since I even set foot on Yosemite Ranch.”
“I just don’t think it’s smart to be around the MacLames.”
“First of all,” I smooth down my nursing scrubs. “I’m a grown woman. And second of all,” I pause to take off my nursing clogs. “Two of the MacLaines are married or are about to be and the others aren’t even aware that I exist. Happy?”
Jake scowls at me, his dark eyes serious. “It’s Evander I’m most concerned about.”
I ignore him and head into the kitchen. He follows, watching me while I put the kettle on for tea and get out what I need to make myself an omelet. I’m starving. All I’ve had to eat in the last twelve hours is candy canes. Too many of them.
“I’m worried that you spent too much time with him after he broke his leg. I remember how giddy you seemed when I visited in early summer.”
I open the bread bag and shove two slices into the toaster, then I slam my hand against the lever.
“I just don’t want you to get your heart broken. Evander is--”
“Good heavens!” I cut him off and spin around, seeing that he’s perched at the kitchen island, scowling. “We certainly can’t have Phoebe being too happy, can we? Or giddy, for crying out loud! Absolutely not!”
“That’s not what I—”
“You don’t approve of me attending our neighbor’s wedding while wearing a nice dress, is that it?”
“That isn’t—”
“Oh, so you’re opposed to me providing medical aid to a man with a compound fracture of the femoral shaft?”
He winces. “All I’m say—”
“Well, listen up, Jake Travis. You are hereby officially released from your duties as protector of my womanly virtue! You no longer have to worry about what I’m wearing or whose injury I’m treating or what names are on my dance card. Sound good?”
I turn my back to him and crack two eggs into a bowl. I grab the whisk and go to town. The kitchen is silent except for the clicking of the toaster timer, the hiss of the tea kettle, and the swirl of the whisk.
I’m not ignorant. Despite my fantasies, I know that Evander MacLaine is out of my league and out of my reach.
And, according to my brothers, he’ll forever be out of the question.
They’ve been warning me about him since I was twelve. Thinking back on one particular conversation still makes me laugh.
I was fourteen, which meant I’d had two solid years of Evander-induced daydreaming under my belt by that point. I must not have been hiding it as well as I thought, because one day, all five of my brothers sat me down on a barn bench and stood over me, very serious.
“Evander MacLaine is a player,” Jake said.
I nodded, scanning their faces, wondering what the big deal was.
Of course Evander was a player. Everyone around here played sports. Evander had been on varsity sports teams with Jake, Kyle, and Ryder. If Bo and Mason hadn’t still been in junior high at the time, he’d be on a team with them, too.
“You mean football?” I’d asked.
Everyone doubled over laughing and then staggered off, their howls carrying through the horse barn. Everyone but Jake, anyway, who’d either taken pity on me or drawn the short straw. He sat down on the wooden bench by my side.
“He plays the field, Pea. The field of girls.”
“Oh.” I thought about that for a moment. “With the girls soccer team? On the school practice field?”
Jake blinked at me. He tried again. “What I’m saying is that dating is just a game to the MacLaines, and girls are their playthings. That makes them players. And Evander the biggest player of the bunch.”
I remember shrugging and saying something along the lines of, “Makes sense. Evander could have any girl he wants.”
Jake had placed a hand on my shoulder and got very serious. “That is not true, because he can’t have you. Never forget that. Stay away from that dude, do you understand?”
My brothers have revisited that topic with me over the years. Once, just before I went off to nursing school in Arizona and when Evander was home on shore leave, Bo and I ran into Evander at the feed store. When we got back in the truck, Bo laid into me.
It was ridiculous.
“Steer clear of Evander? Really?” I yelled at Bo while driving us back to the ranch. “He’s a Navy SEAL headed off to yet another dangerous foreign country. I’m a recent high school graduate picking up fifty pounds of chicken feed! What’s there to steer clear of? He doesn't know I’m alive!”
Bo is a sweet guy, maybe the sweetest of all my brothers. He hadn’t expected me to lose it like that. It surprised him. He apologized.
The truth is, my brothers’ warnings were pointless when I was twelve. Pointless when I was sixteen, eighteen, and again when I was twenty-two.
Their warnings are still pointless.
Because it doesn’t matter what anyone says about Evander or how unlikely it is that he’ll ever notice me. I’ve been in love with him forever and probably always will be.
And it’s high time I did something about it.
Besides, this virginity farce is getting old. I’m the designated innocent of the Travis family. They think I’m unsullied, pure as the new-fallen snow! They’re wrong.
As if it’s any of their freaking business.
But I sure hate hearing them talk about me like I have no first-hand knowledge of the ways of the world. I’ve meant to correct them for a long while now, but at this point, it’s probably too late.
About nine years too late.
Maybe I should say something right now.
“Yo, Pea,” Jake still uses the nickname Ryder gave me when I was four. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, why?”
“Because you’re beating those eggs like they owe you money.”
My hand stills. I burst out laughing. Jake does, too.
I spin around to face him. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I’m going to inform him that I’m not a virgin and he doesn’t need to protect me. Not from Evander. Not from anyone.
What comes out of my mouth instead is, “Are you hungry? Want some eggs?”
“I’d love some, thanks,” he says.