A splash of cold water to the face.
“Well, thanks for…that. I always knew you were more of a hangout friend.” I patted his cheek with gusto before sliding out from between him and the wall, finally feeling grounded againfor the first time since we’d stepped out onto the porch. Needing the distance between us.
And what we’d just done.
The Hot Housewives of Eugene and their husbands
Tessa: We’ve been played. I repeat. We’ve been PLAYED.
Kelsey: What?
Tessa: Jake was only giving Shelby lessons on flirting. They wanted us to THINK they were into each other so we’d stop trying to set them up.
Kelsey: WHAT?! How do you know?
Tessa: I went on a walk with Shelby the other night and she said something that confused me. I couldn’t rest until I had weaseled more information out of her. They were just messing with us.
Logan: Freaking Jake.
Tessa: They had a contract and everything. Brought back a few memories.
Cade: I’m guessing he did better with those lessons than he bargained for.
Tessa: I agree. He wants us to think they’re into each other? Great. We’ll raise you one overnight backpacking trip.
Kelsey: Let’s try offering a discount to guests over the next few weeks and see if we get any takers.
Logan: I will hire actors to make this happen if we need to.
19
SHELBY
The next fewweeks flew by, keeping us both busy fishing, and horseback riding, and, if you’re Cowboy Jake, entertaining the guests. Late June became mid-July. Similar to our first-kiss disaster, Jake and I avoided each other, all the while pretending we weren’t. But I wasn’t in any danger of losing my heart to Jake Evans. Jake had put me under contract to be his friend, according to the infamous paper I had stuffed in a drawer in my kitchen.
We were friends. We’d always be friends.
But I was a safety net first.
And I most definitely always had that in mind and never allowed myself to think about him or our kiss at all. At night, when I was trying to sleep, my mind absolutely never revisited the softness in Jake’s eyes just before he kissed me. I never replayed the moment he pressed me against the cabin wall. And the way he held my face in his hands? Those rough, calloused hands that felt so addictively manly against the softness of my skin. Nope. Never thought about it again.
But like any tortured artist, I seemed to do my best creative work while in this state of inappropriate agitation.
One night, not long after our kiss, a storm had rolled in across the ranch. Though it was only seven in the evening, the clouds were much darker than they should have been. Lightning and thunder crashed all around us, and I heard a horse sounding miserable outside my cabin. I opened the door in time to see Jake attempting to pull his stubborn horse into the corral. He must have just gotten back from a ride. Almost without thinking, I grabbed my camera sitting on the couch and crept onto my porch.
It was a one-in-a-million shot.
From my quiet perch on the bottom stair, I angled the shot that caught the lodge stables in the background, a darkened image of Jake and his horse, his back to me, leading Jimmy to the stables. On its own, the image would have been compelling. The rain, the darkened sky, Jake’s cowboy hat dripping with rain. But there had been a lightning strike just as my finger touched the shutter, capturing instead a dark and moody image of a cowboy and his horse caught in a storm.
He was going to kill me when he found out I had snuck so many photos of him, but I would be adding it to my collection for my portfolio.
A week later, we received word that Logan and Tessa had a beautiful, blonde-haired baby girl, named Evelyn. When the happy couple finally came to visit the ranch and we were all crowded around the baby outside Jake’s cabin, while the kiddos played at the playground, Jake couldn’t help but pipe up.
“You didn’t even name her after me?” he questioned, holding the little chub in his arms, unable to resist kissing her little cheeks. “I bring you and that idiot”—he motioned to Logan—“marital bliss and this is the thanks I get? Evelyn? Did you ever think about Jakelyn?”
Tessa took Evelyn back in her arms and smiled at Jake. The kind of smile that held secrets. The kind of smile that was about to get me in big trouble.
“Ask us her middle name, Jake.”