“That’s what friends do, dumb ass. And you’re welcome. Now get crackin’ out to Bran’s place. Let me know next week how it goes.”
“Next week? Why can’t I call you later tonight?”
“Because Tanna’s folks’ ranch is out in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. I don’t know when I’ll have cell service, so it’ll be best if I call you. Later. Good luck.”
“What does luck . . .” And Harper was speaking to the dial tone.
No matter. It’d take a solid thirty minutes to drive out to the Turner place, so she’d better get a move on. She changed into her “lucky” interview outfit—a pin-striped pencil miniskirt, a white silk blouse, a Western-cut bolero jacket embroidered with tiny gold guns, and her black patent stiletto boots, which came up just over her knees.
The Dodge Neon didn’t warm up until ten minutes into the drive. January in Wyoming was always cold, but this year seemed colder than years past.
She shivered. She’d never had a job working outdoors. She’d worked in food service, either as a waitress or as a cocktail waitress, and during her last semester of college she’d scored a part-time job in a Western retail store.
Harper’s thoughts drifted to the summer before her senior year in high school, right after she moved to Wyoming from Montana. She’d befriended Celia Lawson and they’d clicked immediately, which was odd because Harper was a girly girl, Celia a self-professed tomboy. They spent most of their time at Harper’s cramped rental house in town rather than at the Lawson ranch because Harper’s mother didn’t care if they were out all night at the local “field” parties, whereas Celia’s brothers, who had been raising her after their parents had died, had been very strict.
But once in a while they’d crash at Celia’s house. Harper loved that Celia’s older brother, Abe, got up and cooked a big breakfast. She loved time spent outdoors in the sun, staring at the big sky and the endless horizon. She loved the normalcy of their family. Of their life.
Over the course of the summer, when Hank and Abe learned that Harper had never been fishing, they organized a fishing party with all their buddies at the closest lake. It’d been an ideal day. Frolicking in the sun. Splashing in the water. Floating on inner tubes. Surrounded by hot, shirtless cowboys. Good tunes on the radio.
One by one, all the guys—Hank, Abe, Kyle, Eli, Devin, Ike, and Max—tried to show her how to cast a line. Harper was hopeless, constantly snagging the hook in the tree above her, or the grass behind her, or, once, in Devin’s skin. They ribbed her endlessly about how a Montana girl didn’t know how to fly-fish.
Before the journey to the lake, Harper had braced herself for lewd comments and sexual innuendos, because in her past experience, that was what guys did when faced with a woman wearing a bikini. But these men’s actions never veered from gentlemanly conduct, although she’d been aware of the appreciative glances sent her way from time to time. Any teasing had been done in good humor, until Kyle suggested that Bran, the fishing “expert,” take a crack at showing her how to fish.
Harper still remembered Bran’s leisurely perusal as she’d stood before him. Those dark eyes were shadowed beneath his cowboy hat as his gaze started at her toenails. It inched up her bare legs, taking in every curve of her thighs and hips. Flickering across her belly and the long line of her torso, resting briefly on her ample chest, stopping at her mouth. Bran never looked into her eyes. He scowled and chugged half his beer and said, “She surely don’t need to know how to fish. That body of hers is already quite the hook.”
The guys had pelted Bran with empty beer cans for the comment, calling him an ass**le, knocking his hat off his head. Celia even slapped his sunburn. But he hadn’t apologized.
Yet Harper knew he’d watched her closely the rest of the night. While they’d roasted marshmallows and made s’mores. While she sprawled on a blanket next to Celia, laughing and studying the stars. While Devin McClain sang cowboy tunes by the bonfire. While Hank and Kyle talked about life in the rodeo arena. While Abe and Max yammered about local politics. But Bran never said a word.
So maybe Celia’s comment about her not being Bran’s type was dead-on. Harper was fully aware that she embodied society’s idea of a dumb blonde. Fluffy hair, big chest, curves from her lips to her calves—plus she would never turn the academic world on its ear with her intellect. From the time she was ten years old, her mother called her “the pretty one.” Competing in local beauty contests reinforced the stereotype of her being attractive packaging and no substance, even when the only reason she entered the pageants was for the prize money.
“Former beauty queen” on a résumé only got her first in line for a job at a T & A sports bar. The lower the cut of her bra, the higher her tips. Truthfully, Harper didn’t know how long she would’ve lasted at that gig. She’d hated dressing in the skimpy uniform the first night. By the end of her two-month mark of jiggling her butt and her boobs for cash, her mother had taken off, forcing Harper to quit both jobs—and community college—to return to Muddy Gap to become Bailey’s legal guardian.
Over the years, after the fishing hole incident, she’d occasionally run into Bran. He’d never said a whole lot. He just studied her from beneath the brim of his Stetson, looking like the rugged, one hundred percent Wyoming cattleman that he was. They’d both danced at Buckeye Joe’s, but never together. They’d both gone out drinking at Cactus Jack’s in Rawlins, but never together.