Page 45 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

He looked up at her. Maybe, he signed. Kaytee didn’t know sign language, but they’d gone out a few times, and he could generally get the gist across for simple things. He took his phone and let his fingers fly as he answered her below her text in his notes app.

Maybe. My cousin is moving out this weekend, and I’m helping him with that. If we get done in time, I could come.

He gave her the phone and watched her face light up. So she still liked him. Mitch could read facial expressions and body language extremely well, and the interest in Kaytee’s expression sure wasn’t hard to find, even as she looked down to type him another message.

If it’s Link, he could come too, Kaytee said, and Mitch nodded.

She kept the phone and typed some more. Would you come pick me up? If you can come, that is. Text me and let me know. We aren’t meeting for dinner until seven.

Mitch read her message as he took the phone back. He looked up at her while keeping his head down. He liked Kaytee just fine. She was incredibly pretty. He’d kissed her before, and they’d been out a few times. He’d stopped texting her when he’d decided to move back to Virginia, but he hadn’t told her that.

I’ll text you, he typed out. But Kaytee, I’m moving to back to Virginia and Whispering Paws at the beginning of August. He read over the message once, and then again, and then gave her the phone.

She read it quickly, and she looked up with a measure of surprise in her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “That’s too bad.” Then she moved into his chest, her hand with the phone sliding around his waist and slipping his phone into his back pocket. She kissed his cheek, then moved her mouth to his.

Surprised, but knowing what to do, Mitch kissed her back. Probably a mistake, but she’d surprised him. He loved Link, but he wasn’t a whole lot like him. Link wanted serious and long-term, and while Mitch did too—eventually—he didn’t mind having more of a summer fling.

Moving Link out of the cowboy cabin where he’d been living for the past few years took about thirty minutes, and most of that was the drive up to the Top Cottage. He didn’t own his own bed, dresser, couch, nothing.

So moving turned out to be furniture assembly and positioning those pieces where a suddenly indecisive version of Link wanted them. Plenty of people had come to help, and Mitch did recognize the passive, stands-back man Link became when his daddy and uncles showed up to get a job done.

Mitch knew, because he did the same thing. He didn’t know how to be like Uncle Bear or his own daddy, so full of life, confidence, and experience. Mitch supposed that was why he, Link, and the other Glovers coming up worked alongside their fathers and uncles, but he still always felt vastly inferior to those older than him and everyone who could hear when he couldn’t.

Finally, everyone left but Mitch, and he stood in a new, updated interior of the Top Cottage. Link’s new house. He faced his cousin and started talking. How are you feeling?

Weird, Link signed back, and he looked a little disheveled, a little uncertain. I’ve never lived alone before.

It’s nice, Mitch said as he looked around again. Really big. New everything.

The Glovers certainly had resources to furnish a house on a moment’s notice, put together a huge spread of food for whoever needed it, and more. They’d done just that for the victims of the electrical outage and fire down in town, and only Janie and Misty still lived at Shiloh Ridge. Everyone else had either been able to get back into their apartments or find other housing.

He looked back to Link, who said, It’s too nice. I feel kind of awkward here. Like, where do my dirty boots go? Why do I have that empty bedroom? His chest rose and fell, and Mitch imagined the frustrated sound his cousin might make.

You’ll get used to it, Mitch said.

Enough about it, Link said. Tell me what you decided to do at Whispering Paws.

Mitch made his own version of a frustrated sigh. I’m not sure yet. Daddy and I are flying there next week to actually look at places, at the faculty lodging. Talk about feeling stupid. Why can’t I just decide?

Everything had become harder after Mitch had decided to leave Three Rivers. He felt like things should be easier, but nothing was.

Link clapped one hand on Mitch’s shoulder, and they stood nearly toe-to-toe, looking at one another. “You’ll figure it out,” Link said without his hands. “Because you’re smart, and you’re capable, and you’re Mitchell Glover.” He grinned, and Mitch’s emotions pitched left and right and up and down. He couldn’t leave Link here at Shiloh Ridge. What had he been thinking?

“Don’t ever forget that,” Link said. “You’re my best friend, my brother, and Mitchell Glover.” He brought his fist to his chest in the same way their daddies and uncles did. In a display of family and camaraderie. “That means something.”

Mitch nodded and said, Yeah, it does, wishing he could use his voice to get a point across, the way Link did. Thanks, Link. He pulled him into a hug and held on tight. They stood there for a few seconds, and then Link stepped back and ran one hand through his hair.

Well, he signed. Should we head to town for that picnic and the fireworks?

Mitch grinned and said, Yeah, we should. I’ll let you go pick up Misty.

She’s coming here, Link said. So you better head out. He grinned. We’ll come pick you up in twenty minutes.

Mitch nodded, and with his emotions still a bit raw, he left through the front door. Link had been at his side for seventeen years now. He translated for him whenever Mitch didn’t understand. He described the music in movies, so Mitch could imagine the big horns and trumpets that played during the biggest moments of the plot. During the emotional reunions. All of it.

He’d never have a friend as good as Link, Mitch knew that, and he smiled and saluted to Misty as she pulled up in her SUV. Link would want to show her around the house and talk about how it was too big, with too many nice things in it, by himself.

So Mitch headed back to the bedroom he’d once shared with Link, and with every turn of the wheels, he felt more and more confident that he was ready for the next phase of his life too.

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