Patrick grinned at her. “Not really. I’d say, more like step six. No offense.”
“Oh, believe me”-Abby rolled her eyes at him for effect-“when I say, none taken.”
She turned and walked out of the room.
“Hey, where are you going? I just proposed to you!”
Patrick got up, grabbed the sock he’d tossed aside, and his shirt and his cowboy boots, and followed her into her kitchen.
“I’m serious, Abby!”
“You’re seriously crazy,” she retorted, without even turning around.
It was still early, not quite 7:30, and the sun was only gently coming in through her white cotton curtains. She and Patrick were both at the start of the busiest seasons in their respective jobs. For Patrick, on most mornings when he woke up at her house, it meant riding back out to his family’s ranch to round up cattle for weaning, vaccinations, spraying, or whatever other spring work needed doing. For Abby, it meant strolling a few yards from her house to her plant nursery. Usually, some of her employees would be driving out to do yard work or plantings for the city, for businesses, or for private residences. A couple of others would stay at the nursery with Abby, to sell the annuals, perennials, seed, fertilizers, pots, saplings, shrubs, and other assorted gardening supplies she stocked there and even sold online.
But this day, a holiday, Patrick was hanging around.
“Okay, let’s back up a minute,” he said. “You said I’ve got a plan to rehabilitate myself and you’re supposedly one of the steps in this grand plan of mine. So if that’s true, then what was step one?”
Abby turned to study him.
Patrick Shellenberger, older brother of her friend Rex, teasing bane of her childhood and now an unexpected swain, had set his boots down, tossed his shirt and sock onto a chair, and leaned his back against the kitchen doorsill, so that he was suddenly all tousled hair, bare chest, and blue eyes.
“Just out of curiosity,” he added, raising his eyebrows, which gave him an innocent appearance that didn’t fool her for a moment.
“Well,” she said, after giving it a bit of thought, “I’d say that step one must have been coming home and taking over the ranch so your dad could quit working.”
When he nodded to indicate she’d guessed right, Abby said, “If step two isn’t me, what is it?”
“Working hard,” he told her, promptly. “Making a go of it.”
“Uh.” Abby voice took on a grudging tone that suggested she had to admit he had succeeded in both of those steps, thus far. “Step three?”
“Not drinking, and making sure everybody knows I’m not.”
“And step four?”
“Not getting arrested for anything.”
Abby shook her head in wonder. “I can’t believe I am actually having a conversation with a man with such a plan. Have I really come to this?”
Patrick laughed as he pushed himself off the doorsill and stood up straight. Suddenly the room seemed much smaller, and Abby instinctively stepped back a little. Patrick reached for the ceiling, stretching luxuriously from his bare toes to his long, tanned fingers, while she watched him.
His jeans slipped down on his hips, revealing the lighter skin where the sun didn’t shine.
He had a great laugh, Abby had to admit, and a sexy, husky voice, and broad shoulders and those blue eyes and in spite of her defenses against him, now and then her body responded to that laugh and those hands in a way that suggested it had a mind of its own. Standing in front of him, Abby concentrated hard on giving none of those feelings away to him. Patrick had taken her to supper in Council Grove the night before, and then he had driven her around his family’s ranch to show her the new cattle pens and other improvements he had been installing there. It had been a beautiful spring night and he’d been sweet to her, especially when he’d nicely asked if he could stay, rather than go home to his childhood bedroom at his parents’ house.
Patrick shook off his stretch and stuck his thumbs in the belt loops at the sides of his jeans. Staring straight at her, he continued his recitation, saying, “Step five was that I would completely foil everybody’s expectations, and not date a skank.”
“Not drink, not get arrested, not date a skank.” Abby ticked the points off on the fingers of her right hand. “Gee, how can any woman resist you?” She gave him a prim look. “I hate the word skank.”
“Why?” Patrick looked honestly baffled.
“Why?” She boggled at him, which made him grin again. “If you have to ask, you’ll never understand, so just stop using it, okay? You could try being nice, you know.”
“I’m nice to you, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but you want something from me.”
“I certainly do,” he leered at her.
Before she could move out of his way, Patrick darted forward, grabbed her, and started tugging her backward with him.
“Let me go! I’ve got to feed the birds, Patrick.”
She not only had a business to run, but also a porch full of pet birds to tend.
Instead of releasing her, Patrick pulled her closer, and leaned down to kiss her again.
“See, Abby?” He nibbled around her eyebrows, kissed her down her nose, and landed softly on her lips. “We have fun together. We’re good together. We need each other. I need you to make me look good. You need me, because, frankly”-Patrick smirked right into her mouth-“with your history, who the hell else will have you?”
“My history?” Abby pulled away from him. “What do you mean, my history?”
He shrugged, all innocence again. “You chase your first love clear out of town so he never comes back. You never date anybody longer than a few months. You can’t find another man…”
“You’re a fine one to talk about somebody’s history!”
Abby placed her palms against his bare chest and shoved him away.
“Exactly!” he said, as she stomped away from him. “My point exactly! We’re made for each other. Hey, Abs, you got a clean towel for me? I’m going to take a shower.”
“Linen closet,” she said, “where they always are if you weren’t too lazy to look for them yourself.” And then on nothing but a wild impulse, and seemingly out of the blue, Abby blurted, “Patrick, what was it like that night you found the dead girl?”
He blinked, frowned, and then he said, casually, and over his shoulder as he walked to the shower, as if it was no big deal, “What, did Rex tell you I was home that night? Nobody was supposed to know that. What do you think it was like? It sucked. I’d just as soon not do it again, thanks.”
Abby stared after him, at the space he had occupied, with her mouth open.
She had expected him to ask her where she’d gotten such a crazy idea. She had never expected him to confirm it! Her question had been all bluff. She had only asked it because she had been confused by what she had overheard in the cemetery that morning. Especially because she remembered something that Rex had said the day they found Nadine Newquist. Or rather, something he had seemed about to say, but then didn’t. “My dad and…my dad was there, too.”
She didn’t know why that had stuck in her mind, but it had resurfaced because of Verna’s…Verna’s what? Slip of the tongue? Verna’s senior moment of forgetfulness? Verna’s lie?
But Abby had never expected Patrick to essentially confirm that Verna really had said “boys,” plural. And now that Abby had that information, she didn’t know what to think about it. Why did everybody think it was only Rex and Nathan who had found the girl, when Patrick had actually been there, too? And why, for heaven’s sake, had Verna lied to her about it?