and said, “It’s Thursday, and you know what that means, right?”
“No.”
“Pot roast at Annie’s.” Wyatt’s wide grin made Graham shake his head with regret.
He didn’t know which was more pathetic: the fact that he was probably just as excited as Wyatt was at the idea of forking down some of the delicious pot roast at the diner in town, or that this time last year, he had been eating in some of the best restaurants in Tokyo, ordering caviar, champagne and other delicacies.
“Pot roast, it is,” Graham said, with a resigned sigh.
The two men started the short walk towards the diner on the other end of Main Street.
Graham nodded in greeting at other residents they passed on the sidewalk, while Wyatt was glad to shake everyone’s hand and have boring conversations about the weather and the predictions for the fall harvest. A few minutes later, the two men settled in their regular corner booth at Annie’s, where the eponymous Annie was taking orders from another table. Annie’s husband stood over the grill visible through the open window behind the counter.
“I heard you met the Sibley sisters,” Wyatt said, while passing Graham one of the plastic menus on the table. “What are they like? No one around here has seen them yet.”
“I just met them. Did a carrier pigeon spread the word?” Wyatt shrugged, noncommitally. “Hey, what do you expect? This is Sibleyville. So, tell me about them. Please let one—at least one—be somewhat decent-looking. The pickings around here have gotten pretty slim since the Hodgkin girls moved back to Oregon.”
“The Hodgkin girls are forty-three and forty-four years old, respectively,” Graham deadpanned.
Wyatt shrugged again. “I take what I can get.”
Graham rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Why do you stay, Wyatt?”
“It’s my home.” Graham stared speechlessly at Wyatt: to him it was really that simple. To Graham, nothing was that simple. “So, you haven’t told me about the Sibley sisters, which must mean they’re as ugly as a pimple on a horse’s butt.”
“Not quite,” Graham said, smiling.
In fact, there was nothing remotely ugly about any of the sisters. Quinn had marvelous breasts that would make a grown man weep, Kendra had a body that could make a grown man beg and then… Well, and then there was the third sister. Whatever her name was—he couldn’t even remember now. She had… Graham couldn’t really remember what she had because he had been so transfixed by Quinn’s breasts and Kendra’s rock-hard body.
“You’re smiling,” Wyatt noted. “That’s a good thing. Please tell me that’s a good thing.”
“Let’s just say you won’t be disappointed.”
Wyatt grinned then prodded, “Tell me more. Details. Stats.”
“Words don’t do them justice. Two of them, at least. Probably about thirty years old and twenty-six years old. Then there’s the third sister. She’s the middle one. She’s different, I think—”
“Different how?” Wyatt demanded, sounding worried again.
“She’s not like her sisters. She’s…different.” The look of distaste that had crossed her expression as she had glared at him floated through his mind again. He abruptly smiled and said, “She kind of reminds me of Mrs. Smythe.”
“Our fourth-grade teacher you had a crush on?”
Graham frowned at his friend. “I did not have a crush on Mrs. Smythe.”
“Do not try to stick me with that one,” Wyatt said, cringing in distaste, ignoring Graham’s annoyance. “I always get stuck with the plain ones.”
“I did not have a crush on Mrs. Smythe,” Graham repeated to make certain Wyatt heard him. When Wyatt only shrugged in response, Graham muttered, “Don’t worry. Her sisters more than make up for her.”
“Did you get anything out of them about why they’re here?”
“I didn’t ask. As the saying goes, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Wyatt’s grin nearly spilt his face. “That good, huh?”
Graham remembered the come-hither look in Kendra’s eyes as she had grinned at him. “Better.”
Wyatt whooped like the cowboy he sort of was, then laughed as the other diners glanced curiously at them. Wyatt waved at them then turned back to Graham.
Graham laughed then added, “Besides, Boyd thinks they’re here to settle their grandfather’s business with the town. He has ordered each of us on the city council to roll out the red carpet. Butter them up. I initially thought this whole thing would be another one of Boyd’s idiotic ideas, but the more I think about it…and them…the more I think he might not be so dumb.”
“About rolling out the red carpet, or about their reason for being in town?”
“The red carpet, Wyatt,” Graham said, impatiently. “I don’t care about their plans for this town.”
“So, when are we going out with them?” Wyatt asked, eagerly.
“Out? Out where?” Graham asked, frustrated. “Maybe the hoedown next week or the next four-wheel-drive tailgate at the lake?”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said excitedly, obviously missing Graham’s sarcasm.
Graham rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Wyatt, these women… These women are not like the women around here. We can’t take them to a hoedown. They’re used to lobster and champagne, not hot dogs and beer.”
Wyatt’s grin disappeared before he said, matter-of-factly, “Well, while you’re trying to find five-star restaurants and champagne, someone else in this town is going to invite them to that hoedown or a tailgate, because what you seem to be forgetting, my friend, is that regardless of what these women are used to, they’re in Sibleyville now.”
Graham mulled over his friend’s words then muttered, reluctantly, “I guess I’ll be stopping by their house to invite them for a night of Sibleyville revelry.”
Wyatt smiled, satisfied, then signaled to Annie that they were ready to order.
Chapter 5
“Graham, is that you? Did you get the wood for the fence?”
Graham inwardly cringed as his father’s booming voice echoed through the house the moment Graham stepped inside. He closed the front door and glanced around the familiar foyer of the house. Nothing ever changed in his parents’ house. It was all wood and comfortable furniture, and it always smelled like lemons.
His father’s charcoal drawing of the view behind their house still hung framed in the hallway leading to the living room on the right and the kitchen on the left, even though Lance had done many sketches and paintings since then. The charcoal drawing had apparently been the first gift Lance Forbes had given his young bride.
The same Navajo rug that had lain on the entry floor when Graham had been in junior high school still remained on the floor—faded and almost threadbare from many washings. His parents did not like change. The perfect day for his parents was to do the exact same thing that they had done the day before. Graham didn’t know how in the world he came to be so different from his parents, because he longed for change. He didn’t just want to read about South Africa, he wanted to go there. And he had. He had been everywhere else on his wish list, and now… Well, now, Graham’s goal was to become a vice president in Shoeford Industries—if he could ever get back to his job. Then he’d think of something else to do.
“Yes, Dad,” Graham called back to his father, who was no doubt upstairs in the study that overlooked their lands with his binoculars watching the farmhands.