Page 60 of Bailey

He chuckled. “It is when you’re a hermit.”

She laughed then. “I’ll tell OJ not to bombard you with questions.”

Reeves shook his head. “I don’t mind, Bailey.”

“He’s really…exuberant,” Bailey said.

Reeves watched her, wondering what she was really worried about. “Would you be this anxious if I wasn’t here?”

She shook her head.

“Bay, you don’t need to protect me.” He ducked his head as he tried to maintain eye contact with her, but she looked away. Reeves reached out with his free hand and drew her face back to his. “Okay? I’m a grown man, and it’s going to be fine.”

“I just want you to like them,” she said, her blue eyes earnest and searching his. “Because I really like you, Reeves, and you’re the first man I’ve been serious with—probably since Bryce—in fifteen years.”

Reeves heard all the things in the spaces between her words that she didn’t say. He leaned forward until his forehead touched hers, and he let his eyes drift closed. “Yeah, I know,” he said just as earnestly as she had. “I’m falling in love with you too.”

Bailey pulled in a tight breath, but she didn’t move away from him, and Reeves tilted his head at a different angle so he could kiss her. She kissed him back like she was falling in love with him too, and he wished she’d said that instead of I really like you, Reeves.

He heard and felt and internalized it all. He pulled away sooner than he would’ve liked and looked out his side window toward the lodge. “Come on,” he said. “We’re already a couple of minutes late, and it’s just hamburgers and hot dogs.”

He opened his door and unbuckled as he started to slide out, and he swore he heard Bailey say, “Hamburgers and hot dogs with vipers,” before he slammed the door closed.

He watched the lodge as he rounded the truck, and he reminded himself that he’d met Graham and Laney Whittaker before, and no, they weren’t vipers. Bailey was just nervous because she hadn’t brought anybody home in so long. Reeves honestly understood, as it felt like the ground might shatter beneath his next footstep, and a bit of surprise moved through him when it held. He opened Bailey’s door, and she slid out and put her hand in his.

“So are Otis and Georgia going to be here too?” Reeves asked.

“No,” Bailey said quietly. “My daddy picked OJ up on the way home from the grocery store this afternoon. He’s been here for a few hours, probably taking care of the horses, maybe doing some trail riding, and we’ll be lucky if we make it to the door before he comes out.” She smiled at Reeves, but he only looked back to the huge wooden doors of the luxury lodge.

They had to pass underneath an overhang where cars could drive, which looked very much like a valet circle, and then up a few ornate stairs to the front entrance. He could barely believe someone actually lived here, but Bailey had already told him that her daddy was a billionaire and that she’d borrowed money from him to buy her clinic and get started.

He had just put his boot on the first step when the door opened and OJ himself filled the frame.

“It is her!” he screamed over his shoulder.

He faced Bailey and Reeves again. “Hey, Bay.” His smile didn’t diminish one bit, but his voice went down in pitch slightly as he added, “Hello again, Reeves,” as if he’d been coached to do so. Of course, he probably had been, and Reeves grinned at the teenager.

“Howdy, OJ,” he and Bailey said together, and he glanced over to her and chuckled.

She moved up the steps slightly faster than him and took OJ into an embrace. She whispered something to him, and OJ nodded as he stepped back. Reeves was sure she’d just told OJ something about how to act toward him. He stepped forward and extended his hand toward OJ. “It’s good to see you again, bud.”

OJ shook his hand and pulled him into his chest, where he bumped him and clapped him on the back before letting go.

“Now you tell me straight, what are we walking into in there?” Reeves asked, trying to peer past the tall teen and into the lodge.

OJ blinked for just a second, his hazel eyes wide and electric. “Well, first off,” OJ said. “They just got a new cook here at the lodge, and wow, she likes spi-cy-food.” OJ turned and led the way inside. “So we’ve been taste-testing all afternoon, and she thinks she’s finally got the barbecue sauce where we can tolerate it.”

Reeves chuckled as he entered the lodge behind OJ, guiding Bailey in first with his hand on the small of her back.

“And Grandpa Graham has a horse right now who won’t stop biting at his legs,” OJ said, and Reeves wondered what monster he’d unleashed by asking him a question. “So Uncle Eli’s been out there all day, and even I tried to fix it, Bay, but I think some of the spicy stuff that Rosa puts in the food needs to go on those wraps, because he just keeps biting them right off.”

“He does?” Bailey asked. “My daddy didn’t say anything about that.”

“He said he didn’t want to bother you with it,” OJ said.

Reeves glanced over to Bailey as OJ started talking about something else. “Does he always tell you what everyone says?”

Bailey grinned and nodded.