“Maybe?” Harper repeated. “Are you doing more than ranch work over there?”
“Not much more.”
That prompted a round of whoops from my cousins.
“Fill us in,” Eliza said. “I want all the details. I didn’t realize you were actually getting down with the hottie rancher, not after everything with Bret.”
“That has been a bit of an issue,” I admitted. “I don’t know if he’s trying to protect me from himself, or if he just feels bad about kissing his brother’s ex. Maybe both.”
Eliza slapped my hand. “I need to know about the kissing. Is he good? He’s good, right?”
Toe-curling, knee-weakening, mind-numbingly good. “He’s basically the best, yeah.”
“I thought there was something going on with you two after the bachelorette party.”
I tried not to groan at how obviously I’d mooned over him even then. “Nothing was going on at the bachelorette party.”
“I still shipped it.”
“But it’s more than just that, isn’t it?” Eden asked. Pragmatic to the core, Eden would know there was far more going on with me than just the rush of kissing a man, no matter how rancher-hot. “You skipped unemotional and went straight to France, didn’t you?”
I laughed at our terrible nationality metaphors. I’d been a downright lousy unemotional robot.
“I care about him a lot. I think I love him.”
Saying it out loud in front of my cousins touched on all those sweet, growing emotions like plucking a guitar string. A comfortable warmth seeped through me as though Ty were right here with me in the room. I had only just left him, but I missed him like he held a piece of my heart inside him.
“But?” Eden prompted.
I sighed, and that warmth dissolved. “But I’m not sure where I stand with him.”
She made a face. “Strong, silent types can be hard to read.”
“Look at it this way,” Eliza said. “Either he’s madly in love with you and doesn’t know how to say it, or he’s not and doesn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Was that supposed to make me feel better?” I tried to play the tremor in my voice as laughter, but worry coiled in my chest.
She shrugged. “It’s a fifty-fifty chance, right?”
I took a long pull from my beer, hoping against hope I had better odds than that. I thought I did, but until Ty actually said something, I couldn’t know for certain. In that light, fifty-fifty didn’t sound so bad.
“You need to just have it out with him,” Eden said. “Tell him how you feel. Directly ask him how he feels about you. Then you’ll have your answer.”
The worry in my chest hardened into a spike of fear. “Is that what you did with Booker?”
“Are you kidding? He saidI love youfirst.”
“Must be nice,” Harper said with a wistful little sigh. “You’re really lucky, you know that?”
Eden nodded. “I do know.”
The smile she wore was full of such pure love, I couldn’t help the twinge of jealousy rippling around inside me.
“This is your last chance.” Eliza’s teasing tone butted into the moment. “I could call a stripper. I bet I could get one to come right here to our table.”
Our collective groans made heads turn around to look at us.
“You’re stupid, but I love you.” Eden spread her arms as though she could hug all three of us at once. “I love all of you.”
