Page 87 of Talulah's Back in Town

Brant: Because I don’t know the answers.

Ellen: You’re acting strange. How can you not know what’s causing your obsession?

Brant: The only thing I know for sure is that I wasn’t ready for what we had to be over—and I want more carrot cake. Lol

Every beat of Talulah’s heart seemed to reverberate through her body as she reread Brant’s last text. She hadn’t been ready for what they’d had, however brief it was, to end, either. But what’d happened so far had all but destroyed her relationship with Paul.

No way could she see Brant again.

“Paul’s gone,” Kurt said. “You know that, right?”

Brant was in the barn, oiling a new saddle, and refused to look over at his brother, who’d just finished brushing down the horses and mucking out the stalls. “So?” he said. It’d been four days since Paul went back to Seattle. Brant knew because Ellen had sent him a message when Paul left last Sunday, and Brant had spent every day since then watching his phone, hoping to hear from Talulah.

But she hadn’t been in touch. That right there told him she wasn’t feeling the same thing he was. And if she wasn’t feeling the same thing, he had to let her go. Otherwise, he’d only get himself in deeper. Then when she went back to Seattle he’d feel even worse than he did now.

“I just thought you’d want to know.” Kurt tossed the brush he’d been using onto a shelf. “You haven’t been yourself since he came into town. I thought if you knew he was gone, maybe it’d help.”

“I’m fine,” Brant insisted.

His brother responded with a skeptical snort. “If that’s the case, why are you acting like a bear with a thorn in its paw?”

Brant straightened. “I’ll get over it, okay?” He was trying to make that happen sooner rather than later, but it wasn’t easy with Talulah still in town. Knowing she wasthatclose kept him hanging on to the possibility that he’d see her again, even if he only bumped into her somewhere.

“Turns out I have just the thing to help,” Kurt said.

Brant could hardly imagine what his brother was about to suggest. “I’m not interested.”

“You’d rather keep sulking?”

Was that how he was coming across? Brant didn’t want to be as annoying as Charlie. “What do you want me to do?” he asked grudgingly.

“I told Kate I’d take her and some of her friends to the lake on Saturday. I was hoping you’d come along.”

“You need a wingman?”

“Sort of. Ranson’s going to that bachelor party, but Miles will be joining us.”

“Then why do you want me to go?”

Kurt grinned. “There’ll be more girls than even I can handle, bro.”

Brant couldn’t help laughing. He considered Kate and her friends too young for him. But he figured waterskiing would be better than moping around the ranch, continuing to hope he’d hear from Talulah. “Okay, I’ll go.”

It was Friday afternoon when Jane came over to help Talulah pack up Phoebe’s house, but they’d stopped working over an hour ago, prepared a big salad for dinner and were now sitting on the porch swing, enjoying the sunset with a glass of wine.

“You’re really not going to call him?” Jane asked.

Talulah puffed out her cheeks before letting her breath go. Jane had been trying to get her to open up about Brant for hours. Although Talulah had been able to dodge those questions so far, they weren’t busy anymore, which meant she couldn’t act too preoccupied to answer. “No.”

“Why not? Kurt told Kate he’d never seen his brother quite so down. Brant cares about you, Lu. You’re breaking his heart.”

Talulah rolled her eyes. “That’s a little dramatic. Are you forgetting that this is a man who’s never had a steady girlfriend?”

“You’re saying he doesn’t have a heart?”

“I’m saying he guards it far too well to give me even a small piece of it. He’dneverallow himself to fall for the woman he calls the runaway bride, because then the joke would be on him.”

“I get the impression he’s as surprised as we are—and that he knows the joke is on him.”

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