“Of going out with me?” he asked, and he seemed genuinely surprised.
She reached for her wallet, as she didn’t own a purse, and nodded. “I haven’t been out with anyone in a while.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine,” he said. “I go out all the time, so I’m excellent at small talk.” He grinned at her, but she didn’t think he was kidding.
A new pit opened in her stomach because she was absolutely sure hewasn’tkidding, which meant he absolutely went out with a lot of women and had plenty of them to compare her to.
“Who’s the last woman you went out with?” she asked.
“Let’s see,” he said. “I think the last one was this lady named Lucy?” He phrased it like a question, which so wasn’t good. “She was a dog walker.”
Lenore nodded and got into the passenger seat of his truck. His was about ten times nicer than hers, and she swallowed nervously while he rounded the hood and got behind the wheel.
“How long ago was that?” she asked.
He cut her a look out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t know, May or June.”
“Oh wow. That’s not that long ago,” she said.
“We only went out five or six times,” Brandon said. “It wasn’t a serious relationship.”
Lenore nodded and decided this conversation could be over. Thankfully, Brandon seemed to agree, as he didn’t bring up anything else about who she dated and when that was. Lenore might honestly have to get out a calendar to know.
She appreciated that Brandon could exist in silence, and though he claimed to be great at small talk, he didn’t say much on the way to the restaurant. He pulled into a little bistro that Lenore had never seen before and asked, “Is this okay? They serve all kinds of stuff—pasta and chicken sandwiches, pizza, steak, kind of whatever.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Lenore said, giving him a smile.
He didn’t return it, and something felt off about him. Lenore let it all go until they’d been seated and put in their drink orders. Then she asked, “What’s going on with you?”
He looked at her—maybe for the first time that night, or at least since he’d drank her in in her first-date outfit. “I wanted to go over my schedule this month,” he said. “I feel like I’ve got a lot going on, and part of our deal was that I would tell you so we could plan.”
Lenore nodded, every muscle in her body suddenly tight. “Let me get out my calendar.” She swiped open her phone and tapped. “All right, what have we got? I know the funeral is on Thursday.”
She had already put that in her calendar, and she expected Brandon to be gone all day.
“Yes, the funeral is on Thursday,” he said. “I’m fine to work on Sunday to make up for it, or somehow squeeze in more hours somewhere. My friends Paul and Brielle are due next week,” he said. “With their first baby. I’m pretty sure I’m going to want to go see them when they have it.”
Lenore kept her eyes on her phone, because how did one schedule the birth of a baby? Surely Brandon wouldn’t have to be there the moment it was born, either. “Okay,” she said.
“We can play that by ear,” Brandon said.
And that was definitely a game that Lenore was not very good at.
“Remember Alex at Coyote Pass?”
“Yes,” she said.
“His twins are having their birthday party next week, on Friday. And that’s after the ranch owners meeting on Thursday, which we absolutely need to go to.”
Lenore did her best not to roll her eyes or her neck. Instead, she just raised her gaze to Brandon’s. “Do we really?”
“Yes,” he said.
It took almost forty-five minutes to get to town, as there was no direct route the way there was from Coyote Pass.
“Where is it this month?” she asked.
“Finn’s been holding it at the IFA,” Brandon said. “I’ll double-check, though.” He leaned toward her, his eyes bright. “I really think we can get a lot of help there, Lenore. And I want to come back to this in just a second.”
