“Zach is a good man. He—he’s a great brother and a great business partner.”
“But he’s shitty to women?”
Jesse was quiet again, thinking about what he wanted to say next. Maybe it had something to do with her grandmother and why she didn’t see Zach and Evie together. Maybe . . .
“You’re—I just think you deserve the world, and I know Zach could never put you first because the ranch comes first. It’s why we’re both single. It’s our curse, I guess. We love Big Rock more than anything, but you deserve better than that. You deserve the best,” Jesse said.
Evie felt herself frown. “I wish—I wish I believed that.” She wanted the best for herself, but she couldn’t picture a scenario where she was too good for Zach. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something felt really off about that.
“You don’t?”
“I want to believe it, but, Jesse, I still don’t know who I am. What if I was some asshole after I moved away?”
“You weren’t.”
“But, what—”
“You weren’t. You’re still the first person to reach out to me on my birthday every year. At midnight, wherever you are, you text me or call me.”
Evie wanted to ask Jesse to take her off whatever pedestal he’d put her on, but that wasn’t the problem. He sounded like he was trying to protect her in a very specific way, from Zach and maybe even from herself. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at his handsome face.
“You weren’t talking to me a whole bunch in the hospital, but we were really friends, weren’t we?”
“Yeah.”
And then Evie realized. She’d been so flustered about how Zach and everyone else had been so warm to her, she never considered that Jesse’s hesitation to get close to her could be about something else. Yeah, she had it bad for one Pleasant brother, but this Pleasant brother, this quiet mountain of a man, cared about her too.
“You’re worried about me, huh?” she asked.
“I was. I am.”
Evie couldn’t stop herself. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Jesse’s waist. His big arms came around her shoulders and squeezed her tight. They held each other for a moment before she stepped back.
“You’re a sweet guy, Jesse.”
He shrugged. “It hit us real hard when Nana Buck died, and when Nicole called, my damn heart stopped. I really thought we’d lost you too. I wasn’t ready. And then I thought of all the years without you because you and Zach had been fighting—”
“Wait. I get why Zach and I were fighting, but you’re a grown man, you could have come to see me. Why didn’t you?”
“I—I guess—shit, I don’t know.”
“Some friend,” Evie teased, giving his arm a little shove. “Well, I’m here and I want us to still be friends, if you’ll give me a chance to get to know you again.”
“Yeah, I think that works.”
“Good. But you still don’t trust me with your brother?”
Jesse shrugged again. Maybe he’d run out of steam. “That’s not the problem. Sorry for bringing this up.”
“I appreciate your apology, but we’re working on twenty years of history between the three of us, four if you include your brother Sam, and a lot more if you include our grandparents. I’ve been back in your lives a week, and surprise, still no memory. We were bound to hit some speed bumps, but I still want to know. What does it matter if I kissed Zach first?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Apparently it does if you guys had a fight about it.”
Jesse sighed, then gave in. “I came running back to the house because I didn’t believe Zach, you know, about what happened between you two, and he said I could ask you for myself. He wasn’t being serious, but I called his bluff. Saying it out loud though now, I see how ridiculous this all sounds.”
At least he was smart enough to sound embarrassed. She didn’t have siblings, but it sounded like they could drive each other crazy for no good reason. “Okay. That sounds so silly, but I don’t want you two fighting about me. Let’s finish up here and go back to Miss Leona’s.”