Page 55 of Protective Cowboy

Chapter Thirteen

Date Night

Thursday, August 20

“Would you like to go on a real date with me tomorrow night?” Matt asked.

It had become their thing over the past few days to sit out on the porch and talk—and kiss—every evening after Jayden went to bed.

The kissing usually led to other things, though after Monday night, Autumn always returned to her own bed afterwards.

She and Matt were careful to keep their interactions completely platonic when Jayden was around.

Privately, she’d started thinking of her nighttime activities with Matt as a “friends with benefits” thing.

Not that she’d ever had a “friend with benefits.” Phillip had been her second serious relationship, and she’d married him the summer after her freshman year of college, when she was nineteen. She’d gone through her remaining college years as a married woman. No wild parties or one-night stands for her.

Not that she’d ever been a party girl. “Homebody” was more her speed.

“I—I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she told Matt. “Can I think about it?”

Matt nodded, his expression understanding but tinged with disappointment. “Sure. I don’t want to pressure you. It’s just that I think we’re really good together. Now that Phillip appears to be behaving himself, maybe it’s time to take the next step.”

He was right. She hadn’t spotted Phillip hanging around town since Matt had served Phillip with the Order of Protection on Monday afternoon. And her ex hadn’t tried to contact her in any other way, either.

Was the nightmare finally over? Had he returned to New Jersey?

Autumn desperately wanted to believe it, but she knew Phillip. When he wanted something, he didn’t give up.

Matt was confident that the Order of Protection would work with Phillip. But she shuddered at the memory of her ex proudly quoting, When faced with a ‘no’, don’t retreat, recalibrate.

She was sure he’d find some loophole to exploit and get his revenge.

“While you’re thinking it over,” Matt said, interrupting her mental doom-scrolling with a friendly leer, “how about we go inside and let me convince you to give me a shot?” He rose to his feet and extended his hand to help her up.

“Oh, it’s not you, it’s me,” Autumn responded deadpan. “But I’m sure I’ll enjoy being convinced.”

∞∞∞

The next day, Autumn took a lunch break from her work and walked over to The Yummy Cowboy Diner.

Jayden was spending the afternoon at the ranch with his cousins, and Matt was working, so Autumn had the house all to herself.

Normally, she liked peace and quiet while she edited photos and composed short but pithy blurbs for her various clients’ social media postings. But today, the silence gave her too much time to think, which resulted in her brain racing through disaster scenarios like hamsters on a wheel.

As soon as she stepped into the cozy diner, the comforting smells of fried chicken and freshly brewed coffee enveloped her.

The Yummy Cowboy Diner had been a town fixture for decades before Autumn was born. All throughout her childhood, it had been the place where the Snowberry family gathered for a hearty breakfast after church on Sundays.

Back then, the diner’s decor had been stuck in the early 1970s, with dingy wood paneling, ugly fake-wood tables, and hideous yellow-and-brown floor tiles.

Then Brock had taken over the place after his mother, the diner’s longtime half-owner, passed away.

Grandma Abigail, who had owned the other half of the business, had brought in Summer to help turn the failing diner around. Autumn’s sister was a trained executive chef, and she’d made a real name for herself on the San Francisco fine dining scene.

Working together—reluctantly at first—she and Brock had given the diner a major facelift, and reworked the menu to offer elevated comfort food. During this time, Summer and Brock had also become an item, and they now ran the diner as a married couple.

These days, the dining room had pale green walls and vinyl floors that looked like weather-beaten wood planks. The breakfast counter was now quartz-topped, and the ratty old red vinyl booths had given way to high-backed padded banquettes built against the dining room wall with long tables.

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