Bad News Cowboy

“It works fine.”

“Isn’t it slow?”

She blinked. “Compared to what?”

“Do you have a computer?”

“Why would I need a computer?”

He looked at the completely earnest and completely confused expression of the younger sister of his two best friends in the world. Kate was pretty enough even if she didn’t choose to make the most of her assets, not a bit of makeup to enhance her features, her hair rarely in any configuration other than a single braid down her back. Invariably, she wore slightly baggy T-shirts or flannel button-up tops tucked into either a pair of Wrangler or Carhartt jeans.

Kate dressed for functionality, not decoration.

He had no issue with that. Kate was... Well, as women went, she was more functional than decorative, so it fit.

“I think most people would say they couldn’t survive without one,” he said.

“Well—” Kate flashed him a smile “—look at me. Surviving and shit.”

“Good job.” He tapped the counter. “Now let’s see if you can order me a carburetor as handily as you can survive.”

“Watch it, Monaghan,” she said, still typing numbers into the computer. “I am bringing dinner tonight, and I don’t have to bring any for you.”

“Oh, do we have the option of excluding people from dinner now? I’ll remember that when my turn comes around.”

Lately, Kate was usually prickly as a porcupine when he was around. He was never sure why. But then, he seemed incapable of leaving her be. He wasn’t sure why that was, either. She brought out the devil in him. Of course, the devil in him seemed to live real close to the surface.

It hadn’t always been like this. Sure, they’d always hassled each other. But beneath that, he’d known where he stood. Somewhere in the vicinity of her brothers. Both of them had had some pretty shitty home situations. His mother stressed, angry and resentful of his presence. While Kate’s mother had been gone, her father a slobbering drunk.

Eli and Connor had done their best to take care of her, but when they’d needed help? He’d been all in. Making her smile had been his goal. Because she’d been so short on reasons to smile.

An only child, he’d had no one around to take care of him. To cheer him up when he’d been smarting from a slap across the face delivered by his mom. He’d had the Garretts. And he’d soon realized that the void he’d felt from having no one to take care of him could be filled by offering Kate what he’d so desperately wished for when he’d been young.

Somewhere along the way they’d lost some of that. Something to do with her not being a kid anymore, he supposed.

The bell above the door rang again and Alison Davis walked in, carrying a white pastry box with a stack of brochures on top. “Good morning, Kate.” She offered Jack a cautious smile, tucking her red hair behind her ear and looking down at the ground. “Good morning.”

“Hi, Alison,” he said, softening his tone a bit.

Though she’d left her abusive husband a year and a half ago, Alison still seemed skittish as a newborn colt. Maybe that was just him, too.

“What brings you by?” Kate asked.

Alison appeared to regroup in time to focus on Kate. “I wanted to bring you a pie. And also to ask if it would be all right if I put a couple of advertisements for the bakery here in the store. I have two new employees, both women who just left men who were...well, like my ex. I’m happy to have them working for me, but now I need more business to match the expense. One of them hasn’t had a job in fifteen years and no one else would hire her.” Alison let out a long breath. “It’s hard to start a new life.”

“I’m sure,” Kate said. “Yeah, I’ll take a whole stack of those ads. I don’t think Travers will have a problem with it. But if he does, I’ll tell him he’s being stupid. And then he’ll probably change his mind because he’s pretty cool.”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Alison said.

Kate snorted and planted her hands on her hips. “Nobody gets me in trouble unless I agree to be in trouble.”

“I appreciate it.” She set the bakery box on the counter and took the brochures off the top of them. Then she lifted the lid, revealing the most perfect meringue he’d ever seen in his life. “Lemon meringue,” she said. “I hope you like that.”

“I do.” Kate took the pie and moved it behind the counter. “I gladly accept. I promise to refer customers to you, too. If anyone comes in with a pie craving I can send them right down the street.”

“I appreciate it. Really I appreciate what everyone has done. I thought when I quit the diner, Rona would be mad at me. But instead she decided to order all of her pies from me now that I’m not making them there.”

“That’s great!” Kate smiled.

Yes, she seemed perfectly capable of being nice to other people. So it was him.

“I have a few other businesses to go to. And I don’t want to distract you from your work.”

“Great—just leave the brochures here on the counter.”

“Thanks, Kate.” She offered a shy wave, then turned and left the store.

Jack watched her go, then turned his attention back to Kate. “That was nice of you.”

“I am nice,” she said.

“To some people.”

She scrunched up her face. “Some people deserve it.”

“Oh, go on, Katie. You like me.”

Kate looked at the computer screen, a slash of pink spreading over her cheeks. “I like my brothers, too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to punch them in the face half the time.”

She was blushing. Honest-to-God blushing. But he didn’t have a clue as to why.

“That embarrassing to have to admit that I’m not the worst person in the world?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, looking back at him, her dark eyes glittering.

“You’re blushing, Garrett.”

She pressed her palm to her cheek before lowering it quickly. “I am not. What the hell would I have to blush about around you?” She turned her focus back to the computer screen, her expression dark now.

“You wouldn’t be the first girl I made blush.”

“Gross.”

“Are you bringing that pie tonight?” He thought it was probably best to change the subject, because something about it was making him edgy, too.

“I don’t know. I might hide it back in my house and keep it all for myself.”

“You can’t eat a whole pie.”