Page 14 of How to Say I Do
“Hold up a second, Noël,” Wyatt called. He ducked into the gift shop for a moment, and while I waited, I wondered where at the resort Wyatt was staying.
Wyatt slid up to my side with his dimple flaring. “Got you some things.”
He passed over two tubes of ointment. The first was anti-itch cream. Wyatt had done his best to protect me from the jungle, but the jungle still got a big taste of me, and it must have thought I was fuckingdelicious. I had bites and stings all around my ankles and up and down my calves. I also had a truly impressive red wheal right beneath my collarbone, large enough that I should have seen the fucker that gave me that one.
The second tube was for sunburn relief. As he’d warned me, the back of my neck was hot and stiff. Blithely claiming I was fine, apparently, did not head off sunburn as effectively as hats did.
Here was Wyatt, helping me again.
“I'm not too proud to admit that I'll need these. Thank you.”
Wyatt didn’t gloat. “Meet you down at the beach in an hour?”
CHAPTER4
Noël
Back we wentto the El Amanecer, where a beach party—a nightly happening—was underway. Fire pits dug into the sand threw out soft sparks, a live band played Latin and reggaeton music, and clusters of resort-goers laughed and danced to the steel drums and Spanish guitar. Wyatt and I were led to our table out on the beach, and we both ordered beers and burgers.
I’d gone with the same shirt I'd worn that morning and the other pair of board shorts I'd bought. Wyatt was in Oakley shorts and a Texas-flag t-shirt, and he'd swapped his boots for leather flip-flops. He still wore his hat, and it still held his flower.
Wyatt was quite the mystery to me. Yesterday, he was a cowboy I was drunk and sloppy with, but he’d saved me and poured me from airport to plane to resort with his unfailing kindness. Today, he was tucking flowers into his hat band and protecting me from the jungle, then distracting me from my woes with pretend alligator death throes and hours of conversation. He was as knowable to me as aliens from the fourth moon of Saturn. Or from, well, Texas.
I sipped my beer and studied Wyatt’s profile. He was bobbing his head along with the music, tapping his toes and finger-drumming on his beer bottle. His lopsided grin was out in full force, too, the one that only dimpled his left cheek. A lock of brown hair fell across his forehead.
“Tell me something about you,” I said when the reggaeton song finished.
Wyatt seemed surprised by my question. “What do you wanna know?”
Both of us were facing the band and sharing a corner of the table. I propped up my elbow and balanced my chin in my palm. “Why wine?”
He held my stare long enough that my skin started to peel from the inside. Foot meet mouth,again. Every time with Wyatt. He'd skipped around this at brunch, hadn't he?Back off, Noël.
I was charting an escape route across the sand and trying to come up with the least worst apology to him for being nosy when he spoke.
“Turning the ranch into a vineyard and winery was my dad’s dream.”
Was. I opened my mouth.Don't fuck this up, Noël.“Your father...”
“He's no longer alive,” Wyatt said. His voice had dropped and he leaned in, shoulders curling forward as he twirled his beer.
Our forearms brushed, then pushed into each other. He didn't move. Neither did I. “I'm sorry.”
“It's been a while. Nine years.”
Nine years. He’d said that before. Nine years since he'd had a vacation. Nine years without a day off. “Did you take over the ranch when he died?”
Wyatt nodded. “I had to finish high school first. I was seventeen. Liam was sixteen.”
“And you took over everything?”
“Of course. I mean, it was hard. Losing Mom and Dad hit Liam real bad. He's always been young at heart. The true baby of the family, you know? Losing them both ripped him open—”
“But what aboutyou?” Wyatt didn't talk much about himself, I was realizing. Even now, somehow, the conversation had shifted to Liam, to how his brother had come undone after his parents’ passing. “How did you...”
Wyatt went very still. He didn’t blink. His calloused thumb tapped out a quick rhythm against the long neck of his beer bottle. “My dad was my best friend.” His voice was a whisper, a rumble, more movement than sound. “From the time I was”—he held his hand knee-high between us—”it was me and him. Best friends. Partners in crime. And the ranch, the vineyard… Well, it was supposed to be a father-son vineyard.”
Fuck me. I should have just asked him if he was a Cowboys fan. We needed another round of beers, immediately. I tried to hunt down a waiter. Wherewaseveryone? You usually couldn't raise your head without someone asking you if you needed anything on your chin’s way up. “You said… Your dad was the sheriff. Was it…”
