Tripp's Trivial Tie Page 7

  “You’ve already done so much,” she said.

  “Yeah, and yet I have time to waste, eating lunch with you.” He grinned at her, the edits he’d gotten in his inbox that morning suddenly at the forefront of his mind.

  Ivory scoffed, but she didn’t laugh. The moment didn’t lighten. The chime on the door rang, and she got up to attend to her job. Tripp stayed in the chair, out of the way, tapping and swiping on his phone.

  Whitney Wilde had a beautiful website, full of gorgeous brides. Maybe if Ivory saw these pictures….

  She finished up with the customer, and Tripp stood up. “I did get edits on my project this morning, so I have to go.” He swept a kiss across her cheek. “But just look at these for a minute, would you?”

  He handed her his phone, and she sucked in a breath. Her eyes darted to his and back to the device as she started to scroll. Several seconds later, she said, “I can’t afford her.”

  “We can, though.” Tripp gently took his phone from her. “I’d like the photos, Ivory. Think about it.” He held his back straight as he walked toward the exit. “Text me later, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice quiet and far away. Tripp left the dry cleaner and drove back to the ranch, one thing on his mind—talking to Jeremiah.

  Yes, he had work to do on the three screens in his office. But the animation could wait.

  He changed into a long-sleeved shirt, because work on the ranch often caused injuries without some sort of protection, and headed outside. “Where are you going?” Liam called after him. “Your computer’s been blowing up for an hour.”

  “Mute it,” he called back. “I have to talk to Jeremiah.”

  “Whoa.” Heavy scraping followed Liam’s words, and his brother came jogging down the hall and into the kitchen. “You’re going to talk to Jeremiah now?”

  “Yes,” Tripp said, watching his brother. “Why? Did something happen?”

  “Oh, something happened,” Liam said.

  “What?”

  “Simone asked him to be part of the Fall Festival.”

  Tripp wasn’t following. “Okay. We went to that last year. Simone had an awesome booth with all that furniture she restored.”

  “Yeah, and there’s a bachelor auction.” Liam cocked his eyebrows.

  “Oh.” Tripp sighed and removed his cowboy hat. He felt drenched with sweat, and he’d been in the air conditioning this whole time. “Well—”

  “I told Simone I’d do it,” Liam said. “And Jeremiah went muttering outside. He was not happy.”

  “He’s got to get over Laura Ann,” Tripp said.

  “He is over Laura Ann. He just doesn’t want a repeat of Laura Ann, and you setting up an altar where he has to see it every day? Not going to help.”

  Tripp turned and looked out the wall of windows. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Find somewhere else to marry her,” he said. “There’s got to be a billion places.”

  “Maybe you could ask Callie if we can use the Shining Star.”

  “I’m not talking to Callie at the moment,” Liam said stiffly. “Ask her yourself.” He turned and started back down the hallway.

  Tripp twisted to watch his brother go. “Is this how we are now?” he called. “We don’t have crucial conversations?”

  “I guess,” Liam said, disappearing. His footsteps continued until he made it to his desk, and then his chair squealed as he sat down.

  Tripp sighed. Maybe having the wedding here would be too triggering for Jeremiah, who’d been standing at the altar for his own wedding when he’d learned his bride-to-be wouldn’t be coming. Tripp couldn’t go back in time and fix that for his brother, though he wanted to. Just like he wanted Callie and Liam to open their dang eyes and see how perfect they were for each other.

  “You’re already dressed,” he muttered to himself, and he pulled open the back door. Penny panted in the shade, and he said, “Hey, girl. Where’s Jeremiah, huh?”

  The cattle dog just closed her eyes and kept sucking at the hot air. “All right,” he said. “I’ll find him myself.”

  Down the steps and down the stone path through the grass, and Tripp stepped onto the ranch. He’d been helping his brother with the horses, the pastures, the clean-up of troughs. Whatever Jeremiah needed. With Wyatt splitting his time between Seven Sons and Shining Star and Bowman’s Breeds, Tripp had been happy to pick up some of the slack.

  He found Dicky with the goats, holding a nursing button for one of the new babies. “Hey, Dicky,” he said. “You seen Jeremiah?”

  “He’s with Orion in the south corn field,” he said. “Something about pests.”

  “Great,” Tripp said, though it was anything but. If there were pests in their corn, Jeremiah wouldn’t be in a good mood. He went that way, though, the sun beating down on him. Sure enough, he saw Orion and Jeremiah standing on the edge of the field, pulling down ears of corn every few seconds.

  “Hey,” he said as he approached. Jeremiah looked over his shoulder and went right back to work. “Need some help?”

  “Nope,” he said. He peeled down the silks on another ear of corn. “This one’s fine. Maybe it’s isolated.”

  “We can still call the dusters,” Orion said.

  “Yeah, all right,” Jeremiah said with a sigh. “But I want a new company. Not the same one. They obviously don’t know what they’re doing, and we don’t need to double-spray our crops.”

  “It’ll be hard to get on someone’s permanent schedule. They’re full-up by now.”

  “I know someone,” Tripp said, and that got both cowboys to look at him. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Her name is Marcy Payne. She just took over the crop dusting business for her father.”

  “A woman flies the plane?” Jeremiah asked.

  “Yeah, that’s what Ivory said.” Tripp looked at Orion. “Payne’s Pest-free, or something?”

  “I know ‘em,” he said. “I’ll give Martin a call.” He nodded at Jeremiah, took the ear of corn he holding, and walked away.

  Jeremiah nodded to Tripp and tried to follow Orion. “Hey,” Tripp said, putting his hand lightly on Jeremiah’s arm. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  His brother stood statue-still for a moment, and then he only moved his eyes toward Tripp. “All right.”

  Tripp braced himself, hoping he didn’t get slugged after he spoke. “Ivory would like to ask you if we can have the wedding here.”

  Jeremiah’s eyes widened. “Here?”

  “At the ranch.” Tripp thought it was a good idea, especially considering her financial situation. “And I’d like to ask you to cook for the wedding. There’s no one who does smoked meat better than you, Jeremiah. It won’t be a big affair.”

  His brother’s jaw worked against itself, and he looked away. “Have her ask me herself,” he finally said. “And yes, I’ll cook for the wedding.” He walked away then, and Tripp let him go, because his agreement to cater the wedding was as good as an acceptance of Tripp’s engagement. Probably better.

  Sighing, he pulled out his phone and texted Ivory. Hey, I need you to text or call my brother and ask him to host the wedding at the ranch.

  Just as quickly as his thumbs had been moving to type out the message, he held one down to delete it. He couldn’t send her that in a text.

  Best thing to do?

  Get her out here to meet his brothers. After all, in six short weeks, they’d be her family too.

  “Only on paper,” he told himself, facing the corn again.

  He lifted his phone to call her and invite her to the ranch for Sunday lunch after church. He’d have to talk to Jeremiah about that too, but now that the ice had been broken, the conversation would be easier.

  Before he could dial out, a call came in. From Rhett.

  “Hey,” Tripp said after swiping open the call.

  “You’re engaged to Ivory Osburn?” he demanded. “Oh, and you’re on speaker with Evelyn.”

  “Hey, Tripp,” Rhett’s wife said. “Is this a real engagement?”

  Tripp sighed, because he didn’t want to admit that the engagement and subsequent wedding would be fake. Not real. Trivial.

  So he said, “Yes, I’m engaged to Ivory Osburn.”

  “How did that happen?” Rhett asked. “Last I knew, you weren’t even talking to her.”

  Tripp really didn’t want to tell the story, because he’d have to leave so much of it out. So he blurted, “Fine, it’s a fake engagement so her ex-husband can’t get custody of her son.”

  Only silence followed, and Tripp hated that more than the thought of lying to his oldest brother. “Say something.”

  “We all do what we think is right,” Rhett said quietly. “Right, honeybee?”

  “That’s right,” Evelyn said. “We’ll be home in a couple of weeks, Tripp. When’s the wedding?”

  “July fourteenth,” he said, missing his brother keenly in that moment. “You won’t miss it.”

  “We’d come home from the honeymoon if we had to,” Rhett said. “Who else knows?”

  “No one,” Tripp said.

  “Even Liam?”

  “I told him the wedding would probably be like yours the first time.” Tripp shrugged, though Rhett wasn’t there to see. “I did take her to a fancy meal and ask her properly, though. We aren’t going to City Hall. Everything thinks it’s real.”

  “How’s Jeremiah handling it?”

  “He’s the one who told you, right?”

  “He may have texted,” Rhett said. “Said you want to get married at the ranch?”

  The more Tripp thought about it, the more he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t need to be reminded of how trivial this wedding would be every time he went to saddle a horse. “I don’t know,” he said. “There are a lot of mov
ing parts.”

  And he’d never spoken truer. He was glad for Evelyn and Rhett’s support, and he finished his conversation with them before turning to face the homestead again. He could see the front porch and the back deck, and he suddenly didn’t want to be behind walls.

  He headed for the stables, though he had messages to read and scenes to fix for his bosses at Pixelate. But they could wait another hour or two. Tripp needed to clear his head, and the best way to do that was on horseback.

  Chapter Ten

  Liam Walker sat at his computer station, the four screens in front of him sending light right into his brain.

  He could not believe he’d asked Callie out, and she’d told him no.

  No.

  I’m sorry, Liam.

  Sorry. Right.

  He scoffed though he really should be doing something to finish the CGI his boss had sent over yesterday. If only he could get the gorgeous woman at the ranch next-door off his mind.

  And now Tripp wanted him to talk to her about using the Shining Star for his wedding. Liam felt knotted from top to bottom, and he practically ripped the headphones off his head and tossed them on his keyboards.

  He couldn’t work right now, and it wasn’t like his boss had given him a deadline. If he had, Liam would meet it.

  Instead, he went out to the stables, surprised to find Tripp there, saddling Lightfoot. “I thought you were going to talk to Jeremiah.”

  “I did.”

  Liam should’ve known. Conversations with Jeremiah didn’t last long, especially if they were about something his brother didn’t want to talk about.

  “Not going to use the ranch, then.”

  “No, probably not.” Tripp finished with the reins. “You’re riding?”

  “Yeah. Wait for me to saddle Pretzel?”

  “Yeah, because I want to hear why you’re not talking to Callie.”

  “It’s not that interesting,” Liam said, though the silence between him and Callie had been torturing him for a week now. He worked quickly to get his horse ready to go too, and then he swung up into the saddle.

  “Where to?” Tripp asked.

  Liam looked west and then east. “Not west.”

  “Oh, so it’s bad.”

  Liam didn’t want to confirm what his twin had said. He and Tripp had always had a special twin-thing, and he’d be able to feel what Liam felt anyway.

  “You said you asked her out,” Tripp finally prompted.

  Liam reached up and adjusted his cowboy hat. “I did. She said no. Didn’t want her feelings to get all confused.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “How should I know?” Liam sighed. “I mean, I apologized for offering to buy the ranch. We were fine.”

  “You just need a new plan.”

  “Nope,” Liam said. “I’m not asking her out again. She knows how I feel.”

  “Does she? How did you ask her?”

  Liam really didn’t want to relive this. He sighed in an exaggerated way so Tripp would know he was asking a lot. His twin just waited, his horse plodding along with a steady clip-clop of horse’s hooves.

  “I said something like, maybe we could go to a movie together,” Liam said. “Get away from the ranches.”

  “And she said no.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dude, that doesn’t sound like you told her you like her.” Tripp looked at him openly, and Liam stared right back.

  “Do you do that? Just blurt it all out?”

  “Sometimes,” Tripp said. “And it sounds like you just offered her an afternoon off the ranch, like you know, what a friend would do.”

  “We are friends.”

  “Yeah,” Tripp said. “And she wants to keep it that way, and you don’t.”

  Liam winced, though his brother was right. “So I wasn’t clear enough.”

  “I wasn’t there,” Tripp said. “But it doesn’t sound like it.” He took a deep breath. “So you just need a new plan.”

  Yeah—step one: Get Callie to talk to him again. Even as Liam put that on his to-do list, he knew he was the one who’d initiated the silence between them. Whenever Callie came over to the ranch, he disappeared. He made sure his headphones were on and the music loud, or he physically went down the hall to his bedroom. He knew she wouldn’t follow him down there.

  “I may have done something else stupid,” Liam said, wishing some of his intelligence with computers had been tact or street smarts.

  “Oh, boy,” Tripp said. “As dumb as asking Jeremiah to host a wedding here at the ranch?”

  Liam burst out laughing, glad when his brother joined in. “I think you win that one, bro.” Still chuckling, he added, “But I did ask her if she’d go out with Jeremiah if he asked.”

  Tripp sucked in a breath, his laughter getting cut off. “Oh, boy,” he said again, an awed quality to his voice. “No wonder she’s not talking to you.”

  Liam pressed his teeth together. “You have to admit, they spend a lot of time together for two grown adults who don’t have any romantic feelings for each other. It’s a little…weird.” Misery filled him. “I may have told her that too.”

  “You told her her friendship with Jeremiah was weird? Holy heaven, Liam.”

  “It is,” Liam insisted. “I don’t get it.” Out of everyone, he’d expected Tripp to agree with him.

  “Well, maybe it is,” Tripp said. “I don’t know. But I do know they’re just friends.”

  “How do you really, though?” Liam asked. “They’re out on the ranch half the time they see each other. He could be kissing her behind the barn, and we’d never know.” The very thought had Liam’s fingers tightening around the reins, and he really didn’t like this jealousy surging through him.

  Tripp laughed again, the sound so carefree. “Trust me, they’re not doing that.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Liam said. “Miah’s a mess. He needs a friend. Blah blah blah. That’s what she said.” He hated that nickname of hers, as literally no one else on the planet called Jeremiah Miah—except Callie.

  “You’ve got to get over this if you have any chance of being with her,” Tripp said. “I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

  “I have no chance with her anyway,” Liam said.

  “You never know,” Tripp said. “Ivory’s broken up with me three times now.” He shrugged. “We’re not home-free yet, but I have a good feeling about us.” He looked at Liam. “And a good feeling about you and Callie. You’ll find a way.”

  Liam snorted, because he didn’t want to “find a way.” That sounded almost creepy, like he was some sort of stalker who couldn’t take no for an answer.

  But maybe he could send a quick text and open the channels of communication again.

  That wouldn’t kill him—he didn’t think so, at least.

  Before he could change his mind, he hurried to type out the two words and send them to Callie.

  I’m sorry.

  He wanted to add sweetheart or an invitation for her to meet him at the fence where they talked sometimes. He didn’t. If he was going to send her a text, that was all it was going to say.

  In the end, he didn’t send the text. Help me, Lord, he prayed as he and Tripp turned their horses around. Help me move past these jealous feelings. Help me find the right words to say. Help me to forgive her and..whatever else I need to do to have a chance to be with her.

  Now that Tripp had said he had a good feeling about Liam and Callie, Liam wondered if his brother was right. Maybe he shouldn’t give up yet.

  He brushed down Pretzel and put the horse back in the pasture. He went back to his office and worked for the rest of the day. He went through the next several days with Callie lingering in the back of his mind.

  He ate Jeremiah’s cooking, and laughed with Wyatt when he told stories about breaking wild horses out at Bowman’s Breeds. He caught sight of Callie out on her ranch, working against that fence where they’d talked, and he really wanted to go out there and say something.

  I’m sorry.

  She came over on Sunday afternoons and ate with him and his brothers. Well, not really him, because she still wouldn’t look directly at him. He said nothing to her.

  Finally, he realized the giant hole she’d left in his life, and he got down on his knees. He hadn’t even started praying yet when he had the very strong feeling that he better get next-door and apologize.

  Now.