Chapter 23
“So he said I can come?” Lila Mae looked across the table to Trap, her eyes wide. “Really? You think it’s a good idea?”
“We have vets who come,” Trap said. “Heck, I run a construction company, and I go.” He picked up a fried mac-and-cheese ball, put it on his plate, and then pushed the remaining one toward her.
“We talked about farm and building preparedness at this last meeting. You need that as much as anyone else there.”
“So you asked Finn.”
“I asked everyone,” he said. “And no one has a problem with it.” He smiled at her.
“Really, I think it would be great for you. We’ve talked about water management, which is something you’ll have to deal with.
We’ve gone over local resources for hay and supplies, and it might not be exactly pertinent to you, but close enough.
You have to manage supplies and inventory, and we’ve talked about staffing, taxes, all kinds of things. ”
“I have to handle all of that.”
“Exactly.” He nodded to the southwest eggrolls. “You’re not eating, sweetheart.” His dark eyes found hers. “This is just the first place we’re going, but if you’re not hungry….”
“I’m hungry.” Lila Mae reached for the bowl of edamame she’d ordered and cast a smile over to Trap. “Thanks for asking for me. I’d love to come to the meeting next month.”
“Third Thursday,” he said. “Eleven o’clock. There’s always a coffee cart, and someone brings lunch. You’ll probably be paired up with someone.”
“I can provide lunch,” Lila Mae said. “One of the first things my mother taught me was how to order catering.” She flashed another smile and then lifted a soybean to her mouth.
Trap chuckled, though surely he knew Lila Mae wasn’t kidding. “Mitch brought up a neighbor of his,” he said, his voice just a little too casual to actually be casual.
“Yeah?” Lila Mae took the last mac-and-cheese ball and another stuffed mushroom.
If she ate much more, though, she wouldn’t be ready for their main dish, which Trap had planned at a restaurant that primarily served soup and salads.
As those were two of Lila Mae’s favorite foods, she’d readily agreed to his progressive dinner idea.
He wanted to try a new Greek doughnut place that had just opened up in town for dessert, and Lila Mae never said no to tiny doughnuts covered in chocolate and cookie crumbs.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m going to go look at it with my father on Tuesday.”
Surprise moved through Lila Mae. “You are?”
He looked at her, having eaten all of his appetizers already. “Yeah,” he said slowly. He tilted his head. “Do you think I shouldn’t?”
Lila Mae didn’t know what to think. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. “Do you want a farm? It seems to me that you’re so busy that you don’t have much time for…extraneous activities.”
He sighed and reached for his diet cola. “I am pretty busy, but I can’t live in a free cowboy cabin on my cousin’s ranch for the rest of my life.”
“It wouldn’t be for the rest of your life,” she said. “You won’t always just be taking over your daddy’s construction firm, and you won’t always be the only one working there, training everyone, taking on more jobs just to build a clientele.”
“Do you think we take on too many people?”
Lila Mae noted the hint of coolness in his tone. “Yes,” she said honestly. “I think you, Jason, and Sawyer are afraid to say no.”
“Huh.” He fell back against the booth and folded his arms.
“I’m not telling you what to do or how to run your business,” she said. “But you’ve signed what? Four more projects this month, and you keep meeting with people.”
“We’re going to bring on more people,” he said.
“Right, but you don’t have them yet,” she said. “And all that means is more training.” She cut into the ooey-gooey mac-and-cheese, enjoying the crunch of the breading.
“I worked for a long time in a role that had to balance our impact on the environment and community, legal issues, ethics, and expansion. I’m just saying—it’s very easy to spread yourself too thin and not even realize it until it’s too late.”
Trap’s jaw jumped as he watched her, and then he sighed. His arms loosened, and he leaned back up to the table. “I am pretty tired all the time.”
She smiled at him. “I know you are, baby. Tomorrow’s your day of rest, though, so hopefully you’ll get some rejuvenation.”
He reached across the table and took one of her hands in his. She picked up the mushroom with her free hand and popped it into her mouth. He smiled, and Lila Mae liked how easy it was to be with him.
Nothing felt too tight, and no topic was taboo. Even when she said something he didn’t like, they had a conversation about it. Not a glare-fest, and then a walk-out, which was how her family operated. And in the end, whatever Momma wanted was what everyone did, no conversation needed.
Donovan wore that hat now, and Lila Mae was so glad she didn’t have to bow to him, even when she’d done the research, attended the meetings, and written up a detailed report contradicting his idea.
“So…listen.” Lila Mae cleared her throat as she pulled her hand out from under his. “I was thinking, to help you with your day of rest, that I would make lunch for you tomorrow.”
He brightened. “Out at the tiny house?”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him. “At the tiny house, and since the weather has cooled off a little bit—”
Trap started to laugh, and he shook his head. “Sweetheart, the weather has not cooled off.”
“Well, comparatively,” she said. “I’ve been sitting on the back deck in the evenings, and with the fan running, it’s pretty cool.”
Trap still wore a dubious look, but he gestured for her to go on as he took a drink of his diet cola.
“We could spend the day in the house and then move outside to the back deck,” she said. “I feel like I haven’t enjoyed it enough this summer.”
“That’s because your outdoor living area is definitely more for winter and spring,” Trap said.
“And I have a surprise,” Lila Mae continued undaunted.
His eyebrows went up, and that playful, teasing glint entered his expression. “A surprise, huh?”
“Yes, and don’t ask me what it is, because that just ruins the surprise.” She gave him a mock glare and finished her mac-and-cheese ball. “I think that’s all I’m going to have, so I have room for soups and salads at the next place.”
“They have sandwiches too,” he said. “And Colt can’t stop talking about the Reuben.”
“How’s he getting along with Sariah?” Lila Mae asked, then she held up one hand. “Wait. You never said if you’d come for lunch and a surprise activity tomorrow.”
He grinned at her. “I’m totally down for lunch and a surprise activity tomorrow.”
“Great,” Lila Mae said. “Wear your best resting clothes.” She tilted her head. “Now tell me about Colt.”
Trap sighed, and that didn’t sound good. Lila Mae knew his cowboy friends were extremely important to him and had been a great support to him over the years. He and Colt and Tyson were especially close, and Lila Mae loved seeing the fiercely loyal friendship side of Trap.
“Well, he sure seems to like Sariah, but I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she asked. “Do you not like her?”
“I like her fine,” Trap said, emitting another one of those sighs.
“It just feels like…I don’t know how to describe it. Like…he thinks he should like her, and so he does, but he doesn’t actually like her as much as he claims to.”
Lila Mae frowned and waited while Trap paid their bill and then slid out of the booth. She tucked her hand in his, so they could walk to their next restaurant on this progressive dinner.
“But we haven’t even been out with them,” she said. “How do you know?”
“Just the way he talks about her,” Trap said. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing, because you’re right. I don’t go on their dates with them.”
He moved the conversation to something else, and though that forced Lila Mae to talk about her family and how her mother wouldn’t allow any pets growing up—despite the fact that they owned a pet food company—she didn’t mind so much.
She wanted to tell Trap all the intricate details of her life, so she could continue getting to know him, and so she wouldn’t find herself in a situation like Colt—where other people thought she liked him more than she actually did.
Lila Mae whisked the country gravy on her stovetop vigorously. “It’s almost ready.”
“All right,” Trap drawled from where he sat on her couch. He tucked his phone away and got to his feet. “What can I do to help?”
“We’re taking everything on the end of the counter there out to the back deck.” She nodded to the picnic basket where she’d put cups, silverware, plates, the imitation crab salad she’d bought yesterday, a bag of fresh sourdough rolls, and the butter.
“You can take that right now,” she said. “And set it all out.” She exhaled and wiped her hair out of her face. “Then we just have to take out the chicken fried steak, eggs, and gravy.”
He grinned at the spread on her small countertops. “You really can whip up a feast in this place.”
She smiled at him and leaned one hand against his chest. “Only because I had the best master carpenter in the state of Texas design and build the house.”
He grinned at her with the wattage of the sun.
“I’ll be right back.” Trap picked up the picnic basket and left through the only entrance and exit of the house—the front door.
He had built a complete wraparound deck with room to sit out front, and a big outdoor living area that doubled Lila Mae’s living space around the back.
She had outdoor patio furniture for a living room on one side and a dining nook on the other. Trap had put extendable awnings over all of it, and included insect screens she could pull down to make an entirely screened porch, should she want to.
He’d installed a powerful fan that blew both heated and cooled air, and Lila Mae wanted a peaceful, easy afternoon with the sounds and sights of nature to help Trap achieve his day of rest.
She finished up the gravy and poured it into a plastic container. She balanced that on top of the chicken fried steaks she’d just finished, and stepped to the second and final burner to collect the eggs.
“These might be a little bit past over-easy,” she muttered to herself, but she picked up the pan, intending to take the whole thing outside with her.
Trap re-entered the house, and Lila Mae met his eyes. Something electric swam in his dark depths, and she tilted her head to try to figure out what it was. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“I think I may have seen the surprise.” A smile graced his handsome face, and Lila Mae could get used to the sight of this in her tiny house.
“Oh yeah?” she asked. “Were you snooping around?”
He chuckled and shook his head. He moved over to her and took the frying pan from her in one hand and slid the other along her waist. “Lila Mae, you have a hammock hanging from the trees back there.” His eyes searched hers. “It’s not exactly hard to see.”
“Hmm.” She pressed into him and tilted her head back, hoping that would be invitation enough for him to kiss her.
“We’re eating first,” she said. “And lounging second.”
“A lazy afternoon in a hammock is my dream rest day,” he said.
“I know,” Lila Mae said simply.
A puzzled look crossed over his face, drawing his eyebrows down. “How do you know? I never told you that.”
“When we were building the house,” she said.
“You told me this would be a great spot, because I could extend my living from indoors to outdoors if we built close to this part of the forest. You said you’d put hammocks back there and maybe an outdoor shed, as everything would be shaded, and it’s only twenty paces from the deck. ”
He blinked at her, surprise continuing to tumble through those gorgeous eyes. Lila Mae wasn’t sure why, but her heartbeat accelerated, and she jumped a little as Trap set the frying pan back on the burner with a metal-on-metal clack!
“You remembered something I said from months ago?” he asked. “When I was designing your house, and we’d never even met in person?”
Lila Mae pressed her lips together, her pulse thundering through her body now. “It’s a special skill of mine,” she said, hoping to make light of the moment. “Momma taught us all to remember little details about people, because when we could recall them, it made them feel special.”
A puff of air left Trap’s mouth, almost in a scoff, but not quite. Then he moved his hand up the side of her face and down into her hair at the base of her neck. He leaned closer, oh-so-slowly, and Lila Mae let her eyelids flutter closed and all of her senses come to a heightened awareness.
It seemed to take an eon, but finally his lips touched hers, and fireworks blazed through her bloodstream, all sparking and exploding to the big booming beat of her drumming heart.
She’d kissed Trap before, of course, but when he did it with this level of care, tenderness, and urgency, it became a whole new ball game—one that Lila Mae wanted to play in for a very, very long time.