“There’s a lot to do to get ready for a wedding.”
“And you clearly don’t trust anyone else to do it.”
That amused tone again, like he might have laughed at me if his ribcage hadn’t been destroyed this morning.
I shot him a glare that had no effect whatsoever.
“They’re overcomplicating it,” he went on. “Get your license, grab the preacher, find a field somewhere. Boom. Done.”
I groaned at the image of the slapdash ceremony he’d conjured. “Don’t ever become a wedding planner.”
He tried to chuckle, but the sound cut off in his throat. “Don’t worry.”
“Don’t you talk to Booker about this? There’s the final dress fitting, the flowers, decorations, writing up a seating plan for the reception, finalizing the meal count for the caterer—”
“That’s an awful lot of effort for the same outcome.”
I turned up the ash-bordered lane that led to Ty’s ranch. My first trip along it this morning might as well have been days ago.
“Some people are a little more romantic than you are.”
He muttered into his hand, staring out the window. Arguing with him proved pointless. The man was about as romantic as the horse that kicked him, and just as stubborn.
I parked in front of the farmhouse and scrambled around to his side of the car to help him out. The hatchback’s low height made for an awful lot of bending and maneuvering to get such a big man in and out, and every move he made left him groaning and grumbling from pain.
I held a hand out for him at his open door, but he refused to take it, tightening his grip on the door handle instead.
“Mule,” I said under my breath. I swear, I’d developed an eye twitch after just a few hours of his bullheadedness.
He climbed the steps up to his porch, stifling a ragged groan on each rung. He turned to me at the door, his grim face drained of its usual healthy color. Normally, the dusting of stubble on his chin made him look rugged, but now, it gave him the appearance of a man at desperate ends. I wouldn’t want to see this Ty in a dark alleyway.
“Tell me about the other reason you’re here. I missed that part.”
“You know, the bachelorette party, wedding prep. Spend some time with my family.”
It had been too long since I’d been in Magnolia Ridge for more than a weekend, not since my mother’s illness just over two years ago. After she died, I thought staying away from home would help ease the raw grief that lived inside me. The unending busyness of my life in Austin had papered over that ache, but never quite healed it. Weeks had stretched into months, until I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent real, quality time with the rest of my family. Eden’s wedding gave me a good excuse to take a semi-vacation and stay awhile.
“Not here in Magnolia Ridge, here at my house. You said you didn’t want things to be awkward between us.” He gazed down at me with those golden-hazel eyes that bored right into my soul. “Why would things be awkward?”
Right. In all the excitement at the Medical Center, I’d neatly avoided that talk, but I couldn’t keep putting it off. The confidence that had driven me out to his ranch had faded somewhat after the whole horse-kick debacle. Nerves tossed around in my stomach like a ship on stormy waters while I tried to line up my thoughts.
Before I could answer him, Ty pushed open his front door and waved me inside. When I crossed the threshold, air conditioning stirred a draft around me, instant relief from the heat outside.
I stopped just inside the door, staring around. For some reason, I’d expected to find the interior matched the farmhouse’s aging exterior, but everything had been updated. Crisp white Craftsman trim, bright silver-gray walls, oak floors newly refinished. Ty’s brown leather sofa and huge flat screen TV suited the room just right.
“This is nice.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “The horses don’t live in here.”
“I know that. I was just expecting…doilies, I guess.”
“I’m fresh out.”
He stood with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his biceps straining against his sides. Looked to me like he was trying to compress his chest to ease the pain. While he’d been in the ER with the doctor, I’d spent my time googling horse kicks and broken ribs. The articles I read confirmed everything Ty had told me—binding and splinting ribs weren’t recommended anymore. It eased some of the pain but did more harm than good. It looked like he would rather have small relief than none at all.
Gazing up at him, nerves skated through me all over again. Why did he have to be so big? Tall and broad, he made my perfectly average five-foot-seven feel tiny. His bunched eyebrows and deep scowl only added to his imposing aura. Filthy, too, covered head to toe in dirt, and he still managed to be the single most…
Breath stuttered in my chest, but I forced those thoughts to die out. My ex’s older brother was not the man to be havingthosekinds of thoughts about.
