Page 21 of Oops, I Fell For The Town Bad Boy!

“You said yourself that he wasn’t your friend,” Taylor reminded her. “Do you need to see him?”

“I guess not. But make sure you tell me everything you find out.”

“I’ll do my best,” Taylor promised, wondering if she really would. She had called Maddie looking for someone to gossip with, but now that she’d had the opportunity, she found herself less interested in gossip. She felt genuine concern for, and interest in, Kane’s well-being, and her conversation with Maddie had revealed that her friend didn’t feel those things.

Probably no one in Miller Creek did. Kane wasn’t popular here, and Taylor knew it.

It would be the best thing — for both of them — if he got out of town quickly.

So why was she finding it so difficult to want him to go?

CHAPTER 11

TAYLOR

“I’ll take Toby for a walk, if you’d like,” Taylor said.

Kane looked up from the novel he was reading. He had been at the house for a week now, with no sign of readiness to leave, and Taylor had noticed that he rarely went out of the house. He’d been into town a couple times to meet with Thomas Greely, but mostly the two men conducted their business over the phone.

Despite knowing that she had no reason to be, that they had had no assurance that Greely would have been able to track Kane down, Taylor couldn’t help but feel guilty that Jason’s funeral had already taken place by the time Kane learned of his death. She had assured Kane that it had been a beautiful service, that they had followed Jason’s wishes to the letter and that the town’s love for him had been clear, but she knew it was a cold comfort to have missed that opportunity to say goodbye.

While there wasn’t a great deal she could do to help Kane in his grief, one thing she could do was help with the dog. Kane hadn’t been willing to take Toby out on long walks, and it was obvious that the dog was used to that sort of thing. Taylor had taken him out a few times, but it clearly wasn’t enough — Toby’s runs around the yard had taken on a frantic nature, as if he had so much pent-up energy that he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“You don’t have to do that,” Kane said. “Take him for walks all the time.”

“I feel like someone should.” She hesitated. “I don’t mean that in a harsh way. You know what your dog needs better than I do. I just worry, seeing him all cooped up like this. He seems like he’s going a little stir crazy.”

Kane sighed. “You’re probably not wrong,” he said. “I thought it was going to be a relief for him, being somewhere with a big yard so that he could run free a little more than he has in the past, but he’s more used to the prolonged exercise periods than I realized. He’s not enjoying this.”

“Let me take him out.”

“You really don’t mind doing that? You shouldn’t feel like you have to.”

“No, I know I don’t have to,” Taylor said. “I like Toby. I have a good time with him. But only if you don’t mind.”

Kane sighed and set his book down. “I’ll go with you,” he suggested.

“Wait, really? You never leave the house if you can help it.”

“We won’t be going right into the heart of town or anything like that.”

“No. We can stick to the country roads.”

There was a moment of silence between the pair of them, and Taylor wondered whether he was thinking the same thing she was — that the shortest and most accessible country road from here would lead right by the Chesterfield farm. She wondered whether there might not be a part of him that would want to see it, even after everything that had happened — but she wasn’t going to be the first one to raise that question. Let him bring it up, if that was something he wanted.

“We can walk down Highway Nine,” she said.

The look of relief on Kane’s face made it clear that she hadn’t been the only one thinking about the farm. “Sounds good,” he said. “I drove in that way. It still looks just the same as I remember it from when we were kids.”

“Yeah, not much has changed out that way.” She grabbed Toby’s harness and fastened it onto him.

Kane shook his head. “I can’t get over the way he just stands there and lets you do that.”

“Why shouldn’t he let me put his harness on him?”

“It isn’t that he shouldn’t,” Kane said. “He just usually wouldn’t. He doesn’t like anyone putting his harness on. He puts up with me doing it, but if it’s anybody else, he usually just runs away and acts like he thinks it’s a game. He’s great at playing innocent. You can’t let him trick you with that. He knows exactly what he’s doing when he pulls those tricks. But he doesn’t try with you. You two get along really well.”

“Well, he’s easier to get along with than you are,” Taylor noted.

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