Chapter 6 #2
Her triplet brother was highly analytical and left-brained.
He could take apart any machine and put it back together again, and if something stopped working in Elaine’s house, she called Easton first. He’d always marched to the beat of his own drum, and the fact that he’d been able to find someone who could love him told Elaine there was someone out there for everyone.
Even you? she wondered as she moved on to her turkey, avocado, and provolone sandwich. She sure hoped so.
“They’re really fun,” Glory Rose said. “We’ve done a few double-dates with them.” She met Elaine’s eyes. “And you know who else we’ve gone out with?”
“Who?” Elaine asked.
“Austin.”
“Mm, yes.” Elaine nodded. “He has a new girlfriend, I think.” She frowned at her cousins and friends.
“I mean, sort of. He told me, and I quote, ‘I don’t like that label.’” She shook her head.
“I don’t get what the problem is with cowboys and adding a label to their relationships.
He’s dating her. He’s holding her hand and kissing her.
He doesn’t go out with anyone else. Why can’t she have the label of girlfriend? ”
“I’m pretty sure he told Conrad she was his girlfriend. We went out with them on Friday.”
“Who is it?” Camila asked, swinging her attention from one end of the table to the other.
“Yeah, I don’t know this either,” Clara Jean said.
“It’s Joelle Stockton,” Glory Rose said.
“Oh, the Stocktons,” Ruby said with fondness in her voice. “I love that boutique on Main Street.”
“No, they don’t own the boutique,” Elaine said. “Taryn is the one who wrote for the paper for so long and transitioned it to the online e-zine, and now writes the articles for Two Cents.”
Ruby snapped her fingers. “Yes, that’s right. I always get them mixed up.”
“But Kenny and Lawrence both work at Three Rivers, right?” Camila asked.
Elaine nodded. “They’re Three Rivers Ranch cowboys, but Andy owns the clothing boutique, and Taryn works in that little office right next to it.”
“Well, I still love that clothing boutique,” Ruby said.
“Joelle is Kenny and Taryn’s daughter,” Glory Rose said. “And she’s really cute, though she is a few years older than Austin, and he seems to think that’s a problem.”
Elaine frowned, as she hadn’t realized Austin was as picky as her about who she dated. “She can’t be that much older. What? Five years?”
Glory Rose nodded. “Yeah, I think four or five.”
“And we don’t all want someone who’s a decade older than us,” Clara Jean teased.
Elaine blinked at her. “I didn’t say a decade was the minimum.”
“No, but you want someone older.”
“Yes,” Elaine said. “I do. I can’t stand the thought of being with someone I went to high school with.” She cleared her throat and balled up the wrapper her sandwich had come in. “So let’s talk about that. I think I might be ready to start dating again.”
“All right,” Glory Rose said with far too much enthusiasm at the same time Camila said, “It’s about time,” and Ruby said, “I have the perfect person for you.”
They’d all spoken over each other, and Elaine looked to each of the wonderful women at the table with her, her heart growing to ten times its normal size with love for them. “Yes, I like someone older, but there’s no minimum. Even three or four years would be great.”
“Have you told Conrad?” Glory Rose asked.
Elaine shook her head. “No. In fact, just telling you guys is maybe a little more than I can handle.” She grinned at them and then ducked her chin. “But if you’ve got any suggestions, I’ll take them and then see if I can figure out how to meet them.”
“You don’t have to figure out how to meet them,” Ruby said. “We’ll set up a blind date.” She leaned forward, grinning at Elaine. “I think you should go out with Brandt Lyman. He is so cute, Elaine, and just your type.”
“Cute?” Elaine frowned down the table toward Ruby. “No one in their thirties should be called cute. And if he’s not in his thirties, then he’s not old enough.”
“I know Brandt,” Clara Jean said. “He is cute, Elaine, and he’s older.”
“I definitely think you can be in your thirties and be cute,” Camila said.
“No,” Elaine said. “He has to be hot or handsome.”
“Or rugged,” Glory Rose said from down the table, her smile absolutely huge.
“Or rugged.” Elaine gestured to her with her plastic fork, because yes, she’d talked more with Glory Rose and Conrad about her love life than anyone else. “Cute? No, I’m not a cute-cowboy girl.”
“Okay, fine,” Ruby said, swiping on her phone in front of her. Chance hit his tray with both hands, and Glory Rose pinched off a corner of her bread and put it in front of him.
“So demanding,” she said to the little boy, grinning at him with all the love a mother could have for her son.
“But look at him.” Ruby slid her phone closer to Elaine, and Camila passed it the rest of the way.
“Why do you have a picture of him?” Elaine asked. “This looks like a professional photo.” She looked at the brown-haired man with the perfectly symmetrical features and the lovely hazel eyes. “Fine,” she said. “He’s cute.”
“He’s totally cute,” Ruby said. “And I have a picture of him, because he’s a client. He owns that well-drilling company, and he needed us to renovate their home office.”
“He works out of his house?”
“No, he just calls it a home office,” Ruby said with some level of exasperation seeping into the words. “It’s like the home office for the company. Apparently, they have several branches all around northern Texas and into New Mexico.”
“So he travels,” Elaine said.
“Oh, my word,” Ruby griped.
“Maybe it would be prudent,” Clara Jean said slowly. “If you gave us a list of what’s okay and what’s not.”
Elaine blinked at her. “You think I’m too picky?”
“No, I don’t think you’re too picky,” Clara Jean said quickly. “I think you have an idea of the kind of man you want, and it would help if we knew what that was, so we don’t waste your time or ours.”
“He travels a little bit,” Ruby said, frowning as Camila passed the phone back.
“But he has other people running the offices.” She looked at Elaine with earnestness and hope.
“He’s super-cute in a cowboy hat. He wears a big belt buckle, because he rode in the rodeo for a year, and he’s a small-town guy. I think you’d really like him.”
“All right,” Elaine said, because she didn’t need to shoot down every opportunity. In fact, if she didn’t take shots at all, she would never find someone.
“Yeah? So I can talk to him about you?” Ruby asked. “I’ve got a meeting with him this week. I can just see if he’s single.”
“You don’t even know if he’s single?” Elaine asked.
“I can find out,” Ruby said. “And if he is, I can say, ‘You know who you should go out with? My amazing sister-in-law, Elaine. She’s awesome.’”
Elaine rolled her eyes and looked at Camila. She shrugged and said, “He is really cute.”
“Oh, I hate that word,” Elaine said. “But yes, if he’s single and interested, you can give him my number.”
Ruby whooped, her joy infecting Elaine.
“Let’s see how things go with Brandt,” Glory Rose said. “Then I have someone in mind for you.”
“Who is it?” Clara Jean asked.
Glory Rose shook her head. “I don’t want to say yet. If things don’t work out with Brandt, then I’ll bring him up. Elaine already knows him.”
Their eyes met again, and Elaine tilted her head. “I already know him?”
“Yeah, he’s one of Conrad’s good friends.”
Elaine scoffed. “Well, that could be anyone, Glory Rose. Conrad knows everyone in town.”
“Yeah, and so do you,” Glory Rose shot back. “You Walkers all do. She gestured to Camila. “And we Glovers do too, and everyone knows Tate and Clara Jean.”
“Well, then, who is it?” Elaine said.
“It’s no one,” Glory Rose said. “Go out with Brandt first. But I know this guy is dating and looking for someone, but I’m not sure he meets your qualifications.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Elaine asked, hoping to get Glory Rose to slip a little bit and tell her something that would help her figure out who she was talking about.
“Well, he’s got a little boy, for one,” Glory Rose said. “And I don’t know if a single dad will make the cut on your list.”
Elaine’s mind went into overdrive. She looked around at the other ladies at the luncheon, and she could practically hear their minds working too.
“The only man I know who has a little boy,” she said, slowly. “And who isn’t married, is Colt Franklin.”
Glory Rose grinned at her and gestured at her, as if to say, There you go.
Elaine scoffed. “Colt is not interested in me.”
“How do you know that?” Glory Rose asked.
“Because I’ve known him for years, like you said,” Elaine said. “And he’s never once asked me out. In fact, I talked to him yesterday at the church potluck, and he acted like a psycho.”
“A psycho?” Clara Jean asked. “What happened?”
“Oh, it was just this thing with his son,” she said, waving her plastic fork again.
“But he just stared at me like I was speaking another language, or I’d grown a second head, or something.
” She looked at Ruby and Camila, and then finally Glory Rose again.
She was the only one smiling. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Colt’s a little bit awkward,” Glory Rose said. “Especially around really pretty women who he likes.”
Elaine could only stare at her sister-in-law.
“Oh, I see what’s happening,” Clara Jean said gleefully. “Colt already likes you. That’s why he was acting a little weird.”
“She said he was acting like a psycho,” Camila said. “That’s different than weird.”
“I guess it was just weird,” Elaine said. “He, like, barked a few words and said he had to leave, and then tried to go the wrong way, and then practically steamrolled me and Lila Mae. It was like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.” She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t like me.”
“All right,” Glory Rose said airily. “Try Brandt. If he doesn’t work out, maybe we just try to get Colt pinned down a little bit more.”
“I don’t know,” Elaine said. “I don’t want a man who’s tongue-tied around me.
I want someone to say, ‘You’re being headstrong and stubborn, or you’re being too loud, baby, or you’re being rude, or you’re being unreasonable about this.
’ I don’t need someone who’s just going to bow to everything I do and say. ”
“I’ll add that to the list,” Clara Jean said, and they all laughed, even Elaine.
The interaction with Colt yesterday had been a little bit weird, and she’d never once thought he was looking at her with any sort of desire at all. So either he was really good at hiding it, or Elaine had lost the ability completely to tell if a man was interested in her.
She hoped the first one, because while she did have a very specific idea of who she wanted to be with, she didn’t want to miss out on a perfectly good cowboy prince because she couldn’t tell if he was interested in her.