Page 27 of Make Me Whole (Oil Barrons 1)

She flashed a grin.“Ma isn’t nice to anyone.Don’t take it personally.They’ve tried to hire on help, but she’s not the type to be patient and teach someone how to do things her way.She just unleashes hell and storms away.”Her mouth flattened.“Yet she’s surprised at what happened.Go figure.”

“How’s Kane doing?”I asked about her brother with as much sincerity as possible.Kane was a couple years older than me.Good at everything.Football.Women.Ranching.The whole town had been stunned to learn that he’d shot himself.Laney’s parents would’ve preferred no one had learned what had happened, but between the ambulance, a small-town ER, and the Life Flight helicopter landing in the middle of the highway, it would’ve been impossible to keep it a secret.

“He’s alive.Beyond that, anything else is a bonus, I guess, right?”She couldn’t hide the stress wavering under her expression.“I mean, it was a miracle the bullet didn’t penetrate his skull, but I guess it happens.Low caliber whatever.Anyway, he’s got lingering…issues.He wants to do something besides ranching.I’ll see to it he gets where he needs to be.”

“How are you doing?”

Her quiet chuckle was full of scorn and resignation.“I’ll tell you a secret.”She tapped the bar between us.“And I’m only telling you because you and Derek were ride or die and he trusted you with everything.”When I nodded, she licked her lips and glanced around.“If my life had been twenty-four-karat gold in Texas, I wouldn’t have come home.But when Ma called to tell me about Kane, I dropped everything.It was then that I realized how little I really had.Ugh.”She flicked the tab on her can.“I wish this was stronger than pond water.”

“I’m sorry.”The leg brush, the way she was sitting…I had worried she was hitting on me.But they hadn’t been practiced calls for attention.She sounded like she wanted someone to talk to.I had Kenny.Who did she have?

“Well, I brought it on myself, so…”

“You know, when you first asked me out, I wasn’t sure why.You were usually irritated that I took your time with Derek.”

She put her head in her hand and swiveled close to me.“You thought I wanted to fuck you?”

Her purr should’ve gone straight to my groin.She was in tight white bottoms that stopped below her knees to show off defined calves.Her pink top fit her slender body and accentuated her breasts without showing one inch of cleavage.

“Honestly?I am quite a catch.”I cocked a brow.She laughed, an easy sound that reassured me that she had been looking to mine an old acquaintance for more, but not to the point where clothes came off.“But I think you and I both want an ally in a town that seems to judge us harder than anyone else.”

She snorted softly and straightened on her stool.“You win the lottery for being my only friend.Ever think that would’ve happened?”

She didn’t clarify that I was her only friend in town.What had happened to her in Texas?Or had she been surrounded by fake people, and, when tragedy struck, they’d scattered?

“A lot has happened since we graduated that I wouldn’t have imagined.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.“You and me both.”

Our hands weren’t close together, but I stretched a pinky out and aimed it toward her left ring finger.A fading tan line circled the digit.“That bad?”

She held her hand out as if the ring were on it.She closed it into a fist and glanced around, like she was worried someone had noticed.“It wasn’t as good as I thought.”

Or she wouldn’t be here alone.

Beckoning the bartender, she asked, “You want to stay and talk and have another?I really don’t want to go home yet.”

I wanted to go home.Kenny was there.The kids were probably in bed.We could actually talk without being interrupted with arguments or show-and-tells.

“I’ll have one more.”Then I was leaving.Would Kenny still sleep over or head home?It’d be fun to have her there in the morning.Chat while I was making breakfast.Play with the kids together.Try out the chalk paint and see if I could get more items together for the farmers market.

“Is your sitter old enough to drive, or is your grandma watching them?”

“Kenny’s staying over.”

Laney stared at me.“Kennedy?”

I nodded.

“Staying at your house?”

I nodded again.

“Does she know you’re out with me?”

“Why would she care?”I was asking more to see what Laney thought about Kenny all these years later.

“Because I dumped my soda all over her new winter jacket, which was actually an accident, but no one believed it.I backpack whacked her at least once; that wasn’t completely an accident.And I told her that Derek likes girls with brains, not girls who can’t decide which shoe to tie first without a man to tell them.”

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