Free Big Sky Wedding by Linda Lael Miller Page B

was just glad she hadn’t followed her first inclination and jumped in to ask who Cleo was before Nash got around to clarifying the matter for her.
    So, Cleo wasn’t a girlfriend or, worse yet, a wife. Brylee felt like a damn fool for caring either way, but care she did.
    “I guess she can really cook,” Nash went on conversationally, “but Zane says she’s a stickler for neatness and order, and she’ll raise hell when she gets a look at this place.” He paused, sucked in a breath and went right on talking. “We ordered a washer and dryer and another bed, but we’re holding off on all the other stuff because Cleo’s the type to want a say-so in just about everything.”
    Brylee smiled, amused by this assessment of the unknown Cleo. She sounded like a SoCal version of Opal Dennison Beaumont, local force of nature. “That’s probably wise,” she said.
    Suddenly, Nash looked wistful, and his gaze was fixed on something—or someone—very far away.
    “You don’t have to tell Zane or anything,” he said, very quietly, “but I kind of like it here.”
    Brylee rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, touched to the core of her heart. “Why would you want to keep that from your brother?” she asked, searching his face. If she’d known Nash Sutton better, she’d have put her arms around him just then, the way Donna Jackson had so often done with her, and given him a squeeze, promised him everything would be all right. Since they’d just met, though, she knew that would be overstepping, and she’d done enough of that for one day, accusing Zane of neglecting, if not abusing, his dog.
    A muscle bunched in Nash’s jaw, and a fly buzzed against the torn and rusted mesh in the screen door, the sound of the hammer sifting through on a June breeze fragrant with pasture grass. “Because this is temporary,” the boy finally replied, feigning nonchalance and deftly avoiding Brylee’s gaze at the same time. “That’s the way my life goes. Everything’s temporary.”
    The backs of Brylee’s eyes scalded, and she didn’t speak for a moment, fearing her voice would catch if she did. Sure, she’d missed having a mother continuously on the scene, both as a girl and sometimes even now, as a grown woman, but she’d always had her dad and Walker and a slew of good friends, including the Jacksons. From the sound of things, Nash was alone in the world, allowed to hang around until someone decided he was in the way and sent him packing.
    Seeing Brylee’s expression, and reading it all too accurately, Nash turned up the wattage on that killer grin of his, so like his brother’s. He might have been only twelve, but he’d trained himself to act and talk like a man, and that saddened Brylee, sensing, as she did, that he’d missed out on much of his childhood—skipped right over it.
    “I wasn’t trying to make you feel sorry for me,” he said.
    Too late, Brylee thought, but she smiled to hide her sympathy. Pride seemed to be about all Nash had to call his own. “I live on the next place over, with my brother, Walker, and his family,” she said cheerfully. “We have lots of horses, and there’s always plenty of extra space at supper. Breakfast and lunch, too, for that matter. You’re welcome to drop by anytime.”
    “You don’t have a husband?” Nash asked, apparently having noticed the omission when she mentioned Walker and Company. He sounded somewhat surprised, which was a compliment, she supposed.
    “Nope,” Brylee said, rustling up another smile. This one was harder to come by than the last one, though. She might have had a husband by now, if she’d had the God-given good sense to pick anybody besides Hutch Carmody for a partner. “I’m single.”
    Nash frowned, as though he might be trying to work out an Einstein-worthy equation in his head. “And you live with your brother?”
    The question gave her a pang, but it also amused her a little. “Like you,” she confirmed. She leaned slightly to give her