Page 3 of Hometown Cowboy

She hurried over to grab her wrap from the coatroom. On the way back she stopped behind her mother, who was speaking with one of her friends from the local CWA, and tapped her shoulder.

Mary turned to look at her daughter, one eyebrow raised. “Going so soon?”

Darby laughed. “Yes, considering I’m the one who drew the short straw to open the bakery in the morning.” She leaned up and kissed her on her cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow sometime.”

Darby looked around as she headed out the back door. The crowd had thinned significantly since Gabe and Emma had left. A few stragglers were left dancing on the parquetry dance floor. Catering staff were cleaning up, towers of glasses and plates stacked precariously in their hands.

Darby walked through the narrow hallway near the kitchen and yanked open the smaller back door. She dug her keys out of her small clutch and headed toward her car, where a relaxed-looking Ryan leaned against it.

He smiled her way, the smile of someone you’d known forever, someone you could trust.

Her stomach tangled in a knot just looking at him. She really had to get over this nonsense. Yes, Ryan was good-looking—very good-looking—but it wasn’t just that. Even though he was a complete tart, he was a good man. You knew what you were getting into with him. He was very clear about it from the beginning, no matter who it was he dated.

No entanglements, no permanency.

He never dated more than one person at a time, and never cheated, but that those dates never lasted more than a few weeks at best.

His friends meant the world to him. He’d do anything for you if you were in his inner circle, a group that was quite small.

He and Gabe had been friends since before she could remember, their mothers having been friends themselves. She’d been included by default at first, until she’d gone from being Gabe’s annoying twin sister to friend in her own right.

Fast forward almost thirty years and here she was—a single woman with a massive crush on her brother’s best friend.

“Oh, how cliché, Darby,” she muttered to herself as she smiled at the man in question andblippedthe car door so he could get in.

She dumped her wrap and clutch over the driver’s seat and into the back, then grasped the flowing skirts of her bridesmaid dress and settled herself behind the wheel.

Ryan nodded at her dress. “I’d have offered to drive since you’re enveloped in that mass of material, but I know you’d say no.”

Darby laughed and gunned the engine. “And you’d be right.” She patted the steering wheel. “You don’t like anyone else driving you, do you Boy?”

Ryan shook his head in mock disgust, his grin betraying him. “You couldn’t even be bothered with a real name, just Boy. That’s plain sad, Darb.”

She shrugged. “He likes his name. Who am I to contradict him?”

Ryan leaned back and closed his eyes. “True enough. It was a good night, don’t you think?”

Darby indicated and checked the empty street, then pulled out onto the main road out of town. The little car beetled over the wide bridge and on through the forest on the other side of the lake, huge trees looming either side of the highway enhanced in the moonless night by her bright headlights.

At least it was too late for most kangaroos. They were worst around dusk and dawn, particularly through this section, happily nibbling at the freshly mowed grass on the roadsides.

“Yes. I can’t believe the whole ceremony went off without a hitch! Isn’t it an unspoken law or something that at leastonething has to go wrong?”

Ryan chuckled, his eyes still closed. His face was lit in surreal green from the dash lights. “I was waiting for it. I’m glad nothing did, though. And I even managed to not lose the rings.”

Darby glanced at him again. He’d opened his sexy hazel eyes to look at her, his hair all messed up and his shirt now open at the neck, his bow tie hanging undone either side of his chest. She looked away quickly, pretending to be focusing on the road, when in reality all she could think was that this would be one of the rare chances she’d get to study his face in detail, unobserved.

“Your mum went home early,” she said, to take her mind away from ideas best left buried.

“Yeah. She’s not really the night-owl type. She had a good time though. That’s all that’s important.”

“And also why you were stuck without a lift.”

Ryan’s grin widened. “Exactly. This being part of the wedding party is a terrible burden, you know. No autonomy. Tied to what someone else wants, when they want. No transport of my own, being forced to ride in a limo. It’s all terribly exhausting.”

Darby turned the corner onto Ryan’s road. His driveway wasn’t far from the turn-off.

“It must be awful being in such demand. I mean, if you weren’t so pretty you’d have far more time to yourself.”

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