Allison Leigh - Just Friends?

“Tell her what?”

Leandra suffered a head-to-toe examination from her mother’s all-seeing brown eyes. She was ten years younger than Jefferson, and more than once had been mistaken for Leandra’s sister, rather than her mother. “He’s claiming that instead of him, it’s you who thinks no man is good enough for me.”

Emily smiled. “Well, we both know what a tale your father can spin. So, how much longer are you going to be following poor Evan around? You know we’re all going into town tonight to meet at Colbys, right?”

“Sarah told me.”

“I really wish you could stay out here with us.” Emily closed her arm around Leandra’s shoulder. “I know it’s not too practical during the week because of the drive, but what about the weekends?”

A part of Leandra wanted nothing more than to escape to the sanctuary of her childhood home. To sink into the comfort and care of parents whose love was a constant in her life. A bigger part of her resisted those very same things for fear that she’d never make her own way. “I’ll still be working on the weekends,” she told them truthfully. “We just won’t be actively following Evan.”

“Working on the weekends.” Emily sniffed wryly. “Why does that sound familiar?”

“Because you grew up on Squire’s ranch,” Jefferson drawled. “And there ain’t no time off on a ranch.”

Emily tilted her head up, looking at her husband. “Oh, and you’re so different from your father, are you?”

Jefferson closed his hand around his wife’s hand. “Hell, yes. I’m nothing like Squire Clay.”

Leandra snorted softly. Her mother laughed and her father smiled before dropping a kiss onto his wife’s forehead.

There was no way that Leandra could ignore the contentment radiating from her parents. It blossomed around her as surely as the sun rose and set. “I’ve got to round up my crew and get them back to town,” she told them. “So I’ll see you later at Colbys.”

“Even if you’re not staying with us, I’m glad you’re here.” Emily kissed Leandra’s cheek. “It’s been so long since you were home.”

Not since Emi.

Leandra kept her smile in place, but it suddenly took an effort. And she knew that her parents were aware of that fact, which made the effort even harder. “I know. So…later.” She hurried away from them, retracing her steps back to the small arena.

Evan, though, was nowhere to be seen.

Paul and Janet were busy loading up the rental van with equipment. “Looking for this?” Janet handed over Leandra’s clipboard.

She hadn’t been, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need the jumble of schedules and notes and other assorted items that were clipped together on the large brown clipboard. “Where’s Evan?”

“He left a few minutes ago.”

For some reason, the news startled Leandra. “When?” She hadn’t noticed his pickup truck driving away from the ranch, but then she’d been on the opposite side of the barn, facing away from the road.

“A few minutes ago. We’re still finished, right?”

“Right.” Leandra realized she was looking in the direction of the road, as if she would be able to see Evan’s departure. They probably wouldn’t see each other until Sunday, when the show aired and the crew threw a promotional event in town to play up Evan’s debut. The thought nagged at her, and she deliberately looked down at her clipboard. She was there to work and that was all. Work was good. Work was safe.

And amid her work was a big pink note, taped on top of her collection of pages. Call Marian.

She automatically reached for her cell phone.

Which she’d given to Evan.

“Don’t suppose he gave you my cell phone before he left?”

Janet shook her head. “Nope. Sorry.”

Well, if for no other reason than to retrieve her cell phone, Leandra would be seeing Evan before Sunday, after all.

“Guess you’d better lend me yours, then,” she told her assistant.

The young woman handed it over and Leandra dialed Marian’s phone number.

Even the prospect of talking to her half-sane boss again wasn’t enough to dull Leandra’s sudden burst of cheerfulness.

She wouldn’t be waiting until Sunday, after all.

“Does your daddy know you still play pool?”

Bent over her borrowed pool cue and the side of one of the pool tables situated inside Colbys Bar & Grill, Leandra’s stroke hesitated. When had Evan arrived at the bar? She angled her chin, looking beside her. “Does your daddy know you’ve taken up drinking beer?”

The corner of Evan’s lips twitched. “I’d have to say he did since he’s the one who bought it.” His fingers were looped around the slender neck of the bottle and he tilted the bottom of it, gesturing. “He’s at the bar over there.”

Leandra followed the gesturing beer bottle. Sure enough, Drew Taggart was standing at the bar.

From Leandra’s vantage point, it looked as if the only thing that had changed about Evan’s father were the strands of silver threading through his black hair. He was talking with one of her uncles. Tristan Clay was as golden blond as he’d ever been, and standing there, the two men—one dark haired and one light—made a striking image.

“I thought you were going to Braden this evening.” She distinctly remembered him saying as much that afternoon.

“Plans change.” He shifted beside her.

“You said your parents have been to Florida?” She focused again on lining up her shot, instead of on his well-worn jeans.

“Got back yesterday.”

The cue ball struck the racked balls with a satisfying thwack, scattering them nicely. “Were they gone long?”

“Two weeks.” Evan set his bottle on the wide ledge of the pool table and pulled a stick from the selection hanging on the wall rack. Colbys might serve the best steak in town, but it was still a bar, complete with jukebox, wood floors, a very long, gleaming wood bar and a half-dozen pool tables. “They came back early. Because of the show being on television.” His voice sounded disgruntled.

“I’ll have to catch up with them and say hello,” Leandra murmured, stepping around the table and lining up her next shot. She hoped Evan didn’t get any grumpier about the shoot. She truly didn’t like the idea of making someone miserable just so she could achieve her own goals. “Where’s your sister been staying while they were gone?”

“Tris and Hope’s. Though she’s eighteen now. She could have stayed by herself at the house. Jake doesn’t know anything about Ed-wa-ahrd.”

Her shot went wide, the ball banking uselessly off the side cushion. She straightened, propping the end of the stick on the toe of her tennis shoe. “What did you do? Ask him about it when he called?”

“Yes.”

An invisible band seemed to tighten around her skull. “I told you it didn’t concern Jake. It doesn’t concern you, for that matter.”

“Sounding a little defensive there, Leandra.” Evan leaned over and sank two balls in the corner pocket.

So much for her sympathy. She had an intense urge to smack him over the shoulders with her own pool cue. “And you are sounding pretty interfering there, Evan. What does it matter, anyway? Why do you care?”

He was studying the table, his head slowly tilting to one side, then the other. “Jake’s one of my best friends.”

“So out of loyalty to him you figure he needs to know about Eduard?”

He leaned over again, his movements with the pool cue infuriatingly confident. “Does he?”

Despite her intense concentration on them, the infernal balls didn’t have the sense to thwart his rapid shots. They went sailing exactly where he wanted. At the rate he was going, he’d have the table cleared in minutes. “I’ve already said there’s nothing for him to know. Why are you making a deal about this?”