Erik went over to his folks’ place for Sunday dinner the next afternoon. His dad wasn’t one much for the ranching life he’d been raised with, but they still lived on a spacious property out near the Double-C where he’d grown up. The place was crowded and boisterous. This wasn’t unusual when the Clay family got together, as it did every Sunday, what with uncles and aunts and cousins and their spouses and their kids.
Erik sometimes showed, sometimes didn’t, depending on how busy he was at the Rocking-C. And while he was keeping a pretty close eye on those mama cows, today he was restless enough to want a change of scene. The fact that Lucy and Beck might be there as well was incidental.
When they weren’t, though, he just had to lump it. He could have called ahead to find out for sure, but he wasn’t willing to raise any particular questions over why he was so interested. So he tucked into his mom’s tender pot roast, stayed through blueberry cobbler, then headed out with the excuse he wanted to get in a few hours of fishing.
Because it was one of his favorite ways of relaxing, he figured he wouldn’t arouse his family’s perpetual curiosity. So when he made it all the way out to his truck, he thought he was home free.
Until his mother, Hope, trotted from around the back of the house, carrying a covered dish and calling his name.
He waited, knowing there wasn’t much else he could do.
“I’m so glad I caught you,” she said and held up the dish. “You skedaddled out so quickly.”
He took the dish from her. She’d wrapped it in a towel, and even through that, it still felt hot. He looked under the lid. Leftover pot roast nestled in mashed potatoes. “Looks like I’ll be eating well this week. Thanks.” He brushed a kiss over her cheek and pulled open the truck door.
“Honey, you’re not still worried about the church getting that window, are you?”
He shook his head. He was resigned to contacting Jessica again. He also knew it’d be smart to give her more time to cool down first before he did. “I warned Reverend Stone it’d be a while before they’ll be able to install it.” Since the church hadn’t expected a new stained-glass window until Erik had needed to get rid of one, they’d only gotten as far as calling meetings to discuss where it should be installed. But still, Erik felt honor-bound to deliver one at some point.
He’d cooled off enough since that ball had flown straight at his truck to appreciate the irony of his situation.
Behind her stylish eyeglasses, his mother’s gaze was sharp. “Then what’s bothering you?”
“Nothing, ’cept I got a rainbow waiting on me.”
She just lifted an eyebrow. “That old trout you keep trying to catch doesn’t bite a lick after seven in the morning and I know you’re not pining away for Jessica. Perfectly nice girl, but you were no more in love with her than you were with Sally Jane Murphy in the tenth grade.”
And this was what he got for not heading straight to the fishing hole and bypassing dinner altogether. Sally Jane had been the first girl he’d ever slept with. Even then he hadn’t mistaken her definite appeal for something it wasn’t. “That kid who broke my window is named Murphy.”
She nodded. “I’d heard that.”
He expected she had. Nothing happened in Weaver without the town’s grapevine buzzing about it. “When’s Justin get home from school?” His little brother was back east getting his master’s degree in something too convoluted for Erik to even understand.
She cocked her head slightly and her long, brown hair slid over her shoulder. Just like when he’d been a kid trying to hide his broccoli in the napkin on his lap, he wasn’t fooling her, and they both knew it.
“The kid’s guardian is a friend of Lucy’s,” he added.
“Heard that, too.” She smiled slightly. “I’m taking Isabella’s yoga class on Tuesday evenings.”
He nearly choked. “’Cause you’re interested in yoga, or just checking out the newest woman of marrying age to come to town?”
She merely smiled with as much satisfaction as she had when his guilty conscience made him confess about the broccoli, and patted his cheek. “Enjoy the fishing, honey.” Then she turned on her heel and sauntered away, disappearing around the corner of the house.
Undoubtedly to spread the word among everyone still inside that her oldest boy was showing interest in the newcomer.
“Shoulda stayed home with the cows,” he muttered to himself and swung up into his truck. Nothing good ever came out of trying to be subtle around his family.
He headed toward home, not bothering to maintain the pretense of fishing. His mom was right. He’d been angling for that rainbow longer than he cared to admit, and the damn thing never bothered taunting him unless it was early in the morning.
The drive home from his folks’ house, though, took him straight through Weaver and right on past Ruby’s. Being Sunday, it was closed. But that didn’t stop Erik from wondering where Isabella was living. Maybe, like a lot of newcomers, she’d chosen the newer side of town where Cee-Vid was headquartered. There was a Shop-World out that way and apartments and office buildings, all of which Erik privately considered an eyesore despite their convenience. Or maybe she’d chosen to live in the older part of town.
And wondering at all just made him even more restless.
He passed Lucy’s dance studio. Nearly the entire front of it was lined with windows, though white curtains hung in them to obscure glimpses inside from passersby. Like Ruby’s, there was no activity.
He abruptly turned into Colbys’s parking lot next to the studio. There were only a few people inside the bar and grill when he entered and took a stool at one end of the bar.
“Hey there, Erik,” Jane, the new owner, greeted him from the other end. “Don’t usually see you in here on a Sunday afternoon.” Her gaze went past him toward the door. “You alone?”
He nodded and folded his arms atop the gleaming wood bar. “Give me something dark from the tap, would you please?”
She slung a white bar towel over her shoulder and moved to the taps. A moment later, she was sliding a cold pint toward him. “Get you anything else?” She held up the food menu.
“Just came from dinner at my folks’.” He nodded toward the flat-screen television hanging on the wall to his left. “Mind turning that on?”
She pulled a remote from beneath the bar, turned on the television and handed the remote to him. “Choice is all yours.” With a smile, she left him in peace.
Smart lady. Aside from a temporary misstep over thinking to charge for playing pool, which she’d since corrected, he didn’t get why Casey had a bug up his butt about her.
He turned to ESPN and left the volume low. If there’d been anyone around who looked interested, he’d have picked up a game of pool. But he didn’t feel like shooting a game by himself. Jane was back at the end of the bar chatting with Pam Rasmussen, who was dispatcher over at the sheriff’s office and married to Rob Rasmussen, who taught over at the school. He easily tuned them out as he nursed his beer and watched the tube.
And then he heard the word yoga, and his attention zoomed right in on the women like a dog going on point.
He grimaced, turning up the volume a little, hoping to drown them out, but it was no use. He finally looked over his shoulder casually. “Yoga’s a popular subject,” he said. “My mother was talking about it this afternoon.”
Pam looked at him, her round face wreathed with a smile. “When I called up Lucy to register for the class, she told me I’d just snuck in before she had to cut off registrations.”
He grinned wryly. “Who woulda thought? Yoga classes in Weaver.”
“Not just yoga. I hear