Page 26 of Hometown Cowboy
28 August 2021
A smile surfaced at seeing Emma had taken their name. She flipped the cover open, curious.
“Oh!”
A dedication, then a series of beautiful, full-page sized pictures followed.
“A wedding book? This is awesome, guys!”
Emma bumped her shoulder. “It’s yours.”
Darby looked up from tracing her finger over the faces of people she loved. “Mine? Really?”
They both laughed. “The wrapping paper kind of gives that away. We got one for each of you.”
She flipped over a page to come face to face with one of her and Ryan at the reception, standing close, herself staring down at his hand, smiles blazing wide on their faces.
“That one is rather lovely, don’t you think?”
Darby tried not to react to the double meaning she knew Emma hinted at. Instead, she simply nodded. She didn’t trust her voice to work properly anyway.
It really was a lovely photo.
She couldn’t help herself. She traced the side of Ryan’s face with her index finger. She’d always thought him handsome. In that photo though, he took her breath away.
“Yeah, he doesn’t scrub up too bad,” Gabe agreed. Darby looked up to see her brother craning his head to see which picture they were looking at. “The babe in the next one though.Whoa!I’d be tempted to take her home.”
Emma shook her head and sighed with false exasperation. “You did, remember?”
Gabe grinned unrepentantly at them both. “You bet I did.”
The affection in his voice coloured Emma’s cheeks. A shy smile creased her mouth.
“You two make me barf.”
Darby pretended to heave, earning a shoulder bump from Emma and a bark of laughter from Gabe.
“Just wait until you meet him, Darb. When the right guy comes along and knocks you sideways, thenI’llbe laughing atyou.”
Darby turned the page quickly.
She already had. Gabe wouldn’t be laughing, not at all. In fact, she was quite certain he’d be furious. The man in question just didn’t know it, and wouldn’t welcome the heads-up one bit.
Chapter Twelve
Darby picked upher phone and purse from the desk in the back office of the bakery. “I’ll be back soon. I feel like something different for lunch today. You need anything while I’m out?”
Mary shook her head and sat down at the small desk in the corner. “See you when you get back.”
Darby glanced at her watch as she hurried out of the bakery. Plenty enough time for the short walk up the street, go to the supermarket and find something suitably nutritious for lunch.
Nerves had her stomach somersaulting.
“Please, please, please,” she muttered as she stepped into the carefully controlled air of the supermarket.
She grabbed a basket and hung it over her arm, hurrying up the aisles and tossing random items into it. A Caesar salad landed randomly on top of the few items scattered through the bottom. She hurried down the personal aisle, practically at warp speed, and tossed a couple of pregnancy tests in as she hurried past. She hadn’t dared stop to get some the night before after leaving Gabe’s place. Not knowing for sure had let her pretend it wasn’t a possibility, for a few hours at least.
Barely five minutes had passed since she entered the store, and she was already at the checkout, a record for her.