Braydon (15 page)

As she inhaled deeply, she scanned the room, but Braydon wasn’t there. She was both relieved and disappointed, but she immediately turned her attention back to Kylie and Gage, realizing Travis had disappeared.

“How about I get the first round?” she offered.

“Too late,” Kylie interjected. “Travis is already getting them. Come on. Let’s go sit down. And you,” Kylie said to Gage, gripping the front of his shirt gently and urging him down to her level, “you behave tonight.”

“Always, baby.”

Gage kissed Kylie as Jessie watched. It wasn’t one of those simple, understated pecks on the lips either, so Jessie jerked her head away.

That was when she made eye contact with Brendon. He forced a smile her way and Jessie did the same.

She hated this. Hated the tension between them. But they could get through this. She knew they could. She doubted they would ever get to a comfortable place where they could be friends again, but it was worth a shot.

Kylie took her hand, pulling her from her trance, and led her toward the tall tables that circled around the pool tables in the back.

“Did you talk to Braydon?” Kylie asked, her voice lowered to a whisper. Well, not quite a whisper, because with the jukebox blaring and the chatter from the people around them, Jessie wouldn’t have been able to hear a whisper.

“Only for a minute,” she said, her eyes locked with her sister’s.

“He stopped by?” Kylie asked, sitting up straight, her surprise etched on her face.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Jessie said seriously. “Drop it, Ky. I can’t do this tonight.”

“Okay,” Kylie said softly. “I’ll do my best.” When Kylie reached out and touched her hand, Jessie fought the buildup of emotion that was under a significant amount of pressure already.

She should’ve never agreed to go out tonight. It was Sunday; she had to work tomorrow, so she didn’t have the option of drinking until none of it mattered. She should be in bed or at the very least reading until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. But no, here she was, immersed in the middle of the Walker family. Again. And for the first time since she’d met them, she actually felt like she didn’t belong.

“Hey, woman. Where were you tonight?” Sawyer asked as he sauntered up to their table and placed his arm around her shoulder, squeezing gently. “We missed you. Ma said to let you know that tonight was your only free pass. Next time, she’ll come pick you up herself.”

Jessie laughed. She could practically hear Lorrie’s voice in her head. And she believed that Lorrie would show up on her doorstep and insist that she join them. The woman was known for getting her way. After all, it was hard to tell the sweetest woman in the world no.

“I’ll stop by and talk to her this week,” Jessie told him.

“No need to explain to me,” he said quietly, with another brotherly squeeze that jarred her. “I get it.”

“You get what?”

Sawyer leaned in, his mouth close to her ear. “Love, darlin’. You’re in love and you don’t know what the hell to do about it.”

Jessie pulled back and glared at Sawyer. He didn’t look at all disturbed by her reaction. In fact, he laughed.

“Don’t worry, honey. You’re not the only one.”

“You’re in love?” she asked doubtfully.

“Hell no!” he exclaimed, choking on his beer.

“But you said . . .”

“Read between the lines, Jess.”

Jessie studied Sawyer for a moment. The man was the wild card in the entire bunch. There was no telling what he would do or say next, nor did anyone know what sort of mood he would be in. Although he attempted to always paste on one of those panty-melting smiles, Jessie had been around him long enough to see through them.

“You doin’ all right?” she asked him as he released her from his embrace and stood next to the table. He tipped his beer back and eyed her sideways as he grinned.

“Yup.”

Sawyer didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. That smirk said it all. Whatever he was up to was probably going to get things riled up. And Jessie kinda hoped it would.

chapter
EIGHT

B
raydon was strolling across the parking lot of a recently demolished building. Well, it was partially demolished. The company that had hired Walker Demo was looking to add on, and a section of the previous building needed to go in order to accomplish that. Jared had assigned the follow-up to Braydon, although Brendon had managed the job during demolition. It was an easy stop, probably the only one of the entire day, but Braydon was okay with that.

He had just located the general contractor and was making his way over when his cell phone rang and vibrated against his side. In a move that was second nature, Braydon retrieved the phone and continued on his trek. He hit the Talk button on the screen.

“Hey, Mom,” Braydon greeted his mother, slowing his pace so he could manage the conversation without having to let her go.

“I was wondering if we could have that lunch you promised,” Lorrie replied sweetly, getting right to the heart of the phone call.

Promised? Braydon fought the urge to laugh. He loved the way his mother put things. He recalled mentioning it . . .

“Sure,” he answered hesitantly, glancing at his watch. “Now?” It was only eleven o’clock, which was a little earlier than he was used to taking lunch, but he had “promised” his mother. Although the invite was a little unexpected today, he was more than willing to have lunch with her, and his schedule allowed him to do so. “Want to meet somewhere?”

“The diner works for me if it works for you,” she answered quickly.

“I can be there in half an hour.”

“Perfect. It’ll give me time to make sure your father has something for lunch.”

“Does he want to join us?” Braydon offered.

“No, he said he had to meet with Travis later. So it’ll just be you and me,” she said in a rush.

“All right. I’ll see you there. Or do you need me to stop by and pick you up?”

“Nope, I’ll meet you there.”

Braydon ended the call and glanced at his phone. Something seemed off about that. He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but if he wasn’t mistaken, his mother was up to something. He’d seen it enough times with his brothers, he wouldn’t put it past her.

The strange part was that Braydon didn’t know exactly how he felt about that.

Knowing he’d be cutting it close if he didn’t get out of there, Braydon double-timed it over to the general contractor. They walked the area quickly, Braydon rattling off a couple of things they needed to address before Walker Demo would sign off, and then he was once again heading for his truck.

The heat of the day was already barreling down on him, and he looked forward to the air-conditioning, which he set on full blast. Tossing his hard hat into the backseat, Braydon glanced at the clock. Yeah, he was definitely going to be late, but hopefully not by much.

As he drove toward Coyote Ridge, he replayed his conversation with his mother over in his head. Not that it helped. He still wasn’t sure if he was just making shit up because he held out hope that someone would intervene and he’d have a chance to talk to Jessie. Clearly she wasn’t going to initiate any sort of reconciliation between them and she’d already shot down his attempt once.

Since their conversation at her place last night, he hadn’t seen or heard from her. Although he had requested that they get a moment to chat, he expected her to try to avoid him if possible. Last night, as he lay in bed alone, listening for the sound of Brendon coming home, he had decided to give her a few days before he tried again.

What were a few more days when three months had passed since they’d actually had a real conversation? Granted, even before then they’d been slowly drifting apart, but that was more his fault than anything. He was the asshole who had gone and made things complicated between them. Leaving well enough alone would’ve been the best plan, but he’d skated right on past that idea and moved in another direction altogether.

And that had led to the downfall of his relationship with Jessie.

And Brendon.

It seemed as though Brendon was avoiding him. Not that he blamed him. Their first real conversation after three months apart had involved Braydon getting up in his face because the man had left Jessie to her own devices for the entire time Braydon had been gone. If he’d known that Brendon and Jessie had called it quits, so to speak, he would’ve come back.

Maybe.

The time that he’d been away had been good. He was tortured by a significant amount of regret, but there was no doubt that he’d needed it. Everything had been coming to a full, rapid boil, and he knew in his heart that if he’d stayed, things would’ve gotten way out of hand. At least now, all three of them had had time to put things into perspective. Thanks to his time away, he somehow managed to see things without the fog of his emotions. At least a little.

Not that everything had changed. Braydon knew that his feelings for Jessie hadn’t diminished, and the jolt that he’d experienced seeing her last night in nothing but that skimpy towel, her skin still damp from her shower, had sealed it for him. His feelings for her certainly hadn’t changed. Not even a little bit. And when she had told him they had nothing to talk about, he knew she was lying. To herself
and
to him.

But he still didn’t know how to go about fixing that.

It wasn’t that Braydon didn’t have experience with relationships, because he did. It didn’t matter that he didn’t have one-on-one relationships with women when it came to sex. He still spent time with them without Brendon. Granted, most of the time Braydon took on the role of friend.

For whatever reason, he’d always been dubbed the good guy. The guy all the women wanted to be friends with. Where Brendon was usually standoffish and detached, Braydon tried to be a friend. That was a no-win situation he’d found himself in starting back in high school.

Brendon seemed to be the reckless one. The bad boy, so to speak. And Braydon, although just as mischievous as Brendon, managed to get away with so much more because people saw him differently than they did his twin. That had worked for both of them growing up. Brendon would generally take the fall and Braydon would find a way to get them out of it. On and on the cycle went over the years until people started believing that Braydon was the good one, the sweet one.

Right.

If they only knew.

But they didn’t know. No one did. Not even Jessie, a woman he’d become close to over the past year. A woman he’d been intimate with in ways that she probably had never imagined when she willingly walked right into their waiting arms. Braydon still managed to keep himself in check when she was around, never letting himself get too lost in the moment or too out of control where she was concerned.

Everyone probably assumed that his greatest desires were tapped because he was involved in threesomes.

Not even close.

And a lot of that had to do with the fact that he held so much back. He allowed Brendon to take the lead, to control things, because Brendon had a strong desire to always be in control. Braydon’s backseat stance had always worked for them, and it was easier to not rock the boat.

They’d fallen into the same tried-and-true method with Jessie. The sex had been phenomenal, even if he hadn’t exerted his true dominance like he’d wanted to time and time again.

Fuck. The thought of sex with Jessie nearly had him running off the road.

It had been three fucking months since he’d been laid. By a woman, anyway. As far as he was concerned, his own hand didn’t qualify, although he’d spent countless hours trying to relieve the ache. Never had it worked though. Usually he was left still thinking about Jessie, still hard, still aching.

The population sign for Coyote Ridge passed him by in a blur and Braydon knew he needed to get his mind out of the gutter. He was going to have lunch with his mother, for fuck’s sake.

That thought did it.

When he pulled into the parking lot, he noticed his mother’s car was parked right up front.

Well, there went the idea that she might’ve been trying to set him up. As he pulled into a parking spot toward the back, since all the others had been taken, Braydon tried not to be disappointed by that fact.

A minute later, Braydon was stepping into the air-conditioned diner, the sweet smell of fried foods making his stomach growl. His eyes had barely adjusted to the dim lighting when he was greeted by Rachel Talbott, her eyes wide and her grin just as big as she looked at him. She wasn’t subtle about the way her gaze raked him from head to toe. Considering the woman was known to do the same to all his brothers, Braydon didn’t think anything of it. Despite her incessant flirting, Rachel was harmless.

“Have you been working out?” she asked him sweetly as she led him through the restaurant.

“Not more than normal,” he said, thinking back to Sawyer’s comment. Was it that obvious?

“You’re lookin’ good, sugar,” she told him, letting her arm brush his as she stopped in front of a table in the back.

Braydon’s gaze slid down to see his mother sitting in a booth, her face downcast as she studied the menu. She didn’t look up at him, which was surprising.

“Mom,” he greeted her, nodding his head to Rachel in a gentle dismissal.

“Hey,” she answered, peering up at him briefly. “What sounds good to you?”

Okay, yeah, she was acting strange.

Braydon slid into the booth across from her. He didn’t bother with the menu that Rachel had placed on the table for him. He knew what they had to offer. He’d been coming to this restaurant all his life. During his time away, he had realized just how much of a creature of habit he had become. The same restaurants, the same bars, the same type of women . . . Up until Jessie.

Braydon shrugged off the thought as he watched his mother. Now was not the time for him to get all introspective. He should’ve been more focused on what his mother was up to. Or whether he’d just become paranoid in recent months.

Or maybe just overly hopeful.

“How’re you?” Braydon asked, trying to make conversation with the woman, who looked like she was ready to bolt out the door.