Page 92 of The Lies We Told Ourselves

It was possibly the best time I’d ever had in my life and the perfect way to push the memories of Camden aside.

All of Booker’s stories were about the trouble he got into with his brothers, and we both pretended to ignore the sad look he got in his eyes whenever those stories involved Gage.

He hadn’t responded to the message I’d sent him on Facebook, and I was thinking he maybe wouldn’t. But we at least had a link to him now, and as soon as he was active on his accounts, it would be up to Booker to decide if we wanted to go to his brother and have a conversation that was long overdue.

For now, we had the ranch expansion to keep us busy and another Farrington brother who Booker was building a relationship with again.

Xander had been disappearing, working on something he said he wasn’t ready to discuss yet. But when he was on the ranch, he was doing his best to fill in where Booker couldn’t with his broken arm. And day by day, the city doctor image was slowlyslipping away, and the boy who’d grown up in a small town was coming back.

“What have we got on for the rest of today?” Xander asked, striding into the dining room, which had turned into a full home office now.

I pulled up the calendar on the computer and checked our appointments. “The building inspector is coming to check the first two cottages that have been completed, hopefully, to sign them off. We have Cole stopping by later in the afternoon to check on Spirit and the foal, and the contractor wants to talk to you and Booker about the next projects that are on the board.”

Booker had pushed up the timeline for the ranch. I didn’t think it was a good idea at first, but everything was running so smoothly that we might actually be ready to open in the next three months.

“I’ve got a delivery coming at two as well that we all need to be here for,” Booker said, wiping his hands on a towel as he came in from the kitchen.

He tossed it over his shoulder and then grabbed some papers from the desk to look through.

“I don’t have that on the calendar,” I said in confusion, shuffling through the stack of things that I still had to do.

Had I forgotten something? Damn it, it was all going so smoothly in a slightly chaotic fashion, and it would only take for one piece to crumble, and this shaky stack of organization I had was all coming tumbling down.

“It’s something I arranged,” Booker said evasively, turning to look out the window like he did when he was trying to hide something.

Xander looked between the two of us like he was getting ready to referee an argument, and then his shoulders visibly slumped when I just went, “Okay.”

“Ugh, come on, guys. It’s gotten so boring around here. Can’t we have a little drama? Something to give the rest of us to gossip about in town?” he asked, looking between us.

Booker glared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“No,” he said, and then he stalked out of the room.

“Awww, I’d almost missed that,” I said dreamily. “Say it again!” I shouted out of the office.

Booker grumbled. “No.” Then he sighed when he realized what he’d done, and I sniggered.

Just like the good old days.

“Ugh, that’s not interesting. That’s you two being all lovey and crap.” Xander sighed and slumped down into the chair on the other side of the desk. “I’m bored,” he said dramatically.

“Oh, I know what. You could meet the building inspector. That sounds exciting, right?”

Xander rolled his head to the side to look at me. His nostrils flared as he rolled his eyes at me. “Sure, Reece. That’s super exciting.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of mature city slicker doctor? What’s gotten into you today?”

“Nothing,” he huffed, scuffing his boots across the floor as he refused to meet my eyes.

“He’s lovesick,” Booker shouted from the kitchen.

Xander glared at the door, but then, when he didn’t deny it, a grin broke out across my face.

“Xanderrrrrr, do you have a secret?” I asked, leaning forward and putting my elbows on the desk so I could prop my chin in my hands. “Is it a juicy one? Who is she? Ooooh! It’s Blake, isn’t it?”

“What! No! Have you met her? She’s the most annoying woman I’ve ever come across. Did you know that she actually asked me if she could paint me naked this week? In the middle of the bakery! Like it was a normal conversation. I saw Marielooking at my ass then like some kind of sex-starved predator. I’ve never been so objectified in my life.”

Booker barked out a laugh from the kitchen, and Xander picked up the stapler from the desk, leaned to the side, and threw it out the door at him.

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