He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Any emergencies?” Tessa asked calmly, as if it wouldn’t faze her if there was one and it called him away.
“No emergencies. Just my brother being . . . himself.”
“The corporate-attorney-turned-clown brother?”
“That’s the one. He’s coming to Cobbler Cove today, actually. To look at the alleged letter from Fern. Should be at my place by three.”
“You called him?”
“I told you I would. I talked with him the same day you found out about the challenge to Fern’s will and the fake letter. He said it sounded like you needed a good lawyer and he’d get here as soon as possible.”
She nodded slowly, taking that in.
He should leave. He had a full schedule of animals to see today. Supplies and medications to restock. Any last minute emergencies to squeeze in.
He didn’t move.
“Dillon,” Tessa said gently, “go take care of your day. Whatever this is—” she gestured at the small gap between them, “we don’t have to figure it out before lunch. We’ve got time. I’ll come over to your place tonight and we can all talk about the will and letter from the oil company then.”
He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Okay.”
She smiled then. A real one that communicated her total lack of problem with him going forth and doing his job. He did what he always did when he left her: he tipped his hat to her. But this time, before he turned away, he brushed his fingers across her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw. The gesture was light and brief, but she closed her eyes, obviously relishing the contact.
He nearly kissed her again. But duty called. And they were both adults. They could be patient and take whatever was happening between them slow and easy.
He made it almost a mile down the road from her house before he had to pull over onto the shoulder. He sat with his hands on the wheel, and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against his knuckles.
He said out loud, to the dashboard and the empty cab and Lexi’s voice in his head and the good Lord if He was listening, “I am in so much trouble.”
Reno was on Dillon’s front porch when he pulled into the driveway just after three o’clock.
His brother looked the way he always looked these days, which was nothing like the goofy kid Dillon had grown up with in Texas and or the sharp attorney he’d become. Reno wore jeans, a faded red T-shirt, and a straw cowboy hat that looked like more than a few bulls had stomped on it. Reno’s duffel bag was at his feet beside a battered nylon computer bag that looked like it had been through a serious shipping mishap.
“You look like death warmed over,” Reno said by way of greeting. “What did you do last night?”
“Nothing.” Spend it thinking about a girl and her horse and all the fun they’re going to have over the next half-dozen years. “Thanks for coming, Reno.”
“Seriously. What did you do?” Reno repeated. He was using his lawyer voice now — quiet, sympathetic, faintly amused, the kind of voice that made witnesses tell on themselves before they realized what they were doing.
“Seriously. Nothing.”
Reno tipped his coffee cup at him. “You’re doing that thing with your jaw.”
“What thing?”
“The Steele-men-do-not-feel-feelings thing. The thing you’ve done constantly since Lexi left.”
“Reno—”
“I know. Let it go.” Reno stood up and stretched his back. “I’m hungry, and a lawyer should never bring up his client’s love life on an empty stomach. But fair warning, brother. Eventually we are going to talk about whatever this is.”
“There is no this.”
“Mm-hm.”