“I see.”
“So I’ll say it again: she’s a good Christian woman who has offered her ranch for a wedding celebration, loves her gay nephew and his family to death, and volunteers at the library in town. Don’t go casting aspersions on Rita.”
Sinclair nodded, his mind whirring. “Okay….” He started forward once again, heading toward Lilly’s home.
“What does that mean?” Lilly asked.
Sinclair shrugged. “I’m just wondering why Dawson is still in the closet if Rita isn’t going to care?”
Lilly slapped him on the shoulder. “Quit teasing. Dawson isn’t gay. He’s just quiet and keeps to himself.” She smacked him again. “What did I tell you about looking all you want, but no touching?”
Sinclair shook his head. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” he teased, which got him a scowl as a reward. “That man is so deep in the closet, it would take a shovel and eight years to dig him out. But that doesn’t change the facts. You must have seen it.”
“I saw you pushing his buttons and trying to get him angry,” Lilly told him, then grew quiet as they rode. “Are you being serious? Sometimes I can’t tell when you’re teasing or not.”
Sinclair shrugged. “No big deal. It isn’t like I’m going to be spending a lot of time with him. It was fun getting the big old sexy cowboy to run in circles, but it doesn’t really matter what Dawson is or isn’t.” He set his mind forward and blew out his breath. “Let’s go find you a wedding venue that isn’t going to require major construction and doesn’t smell like a pile of horse poop.”
Lilly shook her head as they stepped out of the most recent possible location late the following morning. This was probably the eighth place they’d looked at, and none of them had been anywhere near decent. They were scraping the dregs from the bottom of the wedding venue market, and it was obvious.
“I do not want to get married in a place that looks like a saloon.”
“It did not,” Sinclair protested.
She rolled her eyes. “Did you not have your eyes open? There were wagon-wheel chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the word Saloon was printed on the mirror behind the bar.” She sighed, and the light in her eyes dimmed. “I just want a country-elegant wedding. Not an old west nightmare.” She yanked open the door to the car and slumped into the seat.
Sinclair got in as well. They had seen everything from shag carpet to a room that was closer to bordello than wedding, with scarlet wallpaper and gold trim. “There have to be nicer places in town,” he offered.
“Of course there are. But all of them are already booked. Maybe I should just put it off until I can get the right place.” She turned, looking out the window. Sinclair knew that scowl and what it meant—she needed time with her four-legged friends. As a kid, it had always been easy to find Lilly whenever she was upset. Just hunt down the animals and she’d be there. It was that simple.
He pointed the car back out of town, following her mumbled directions. “Are we heading out to Rita’s nephews’ place? The guys you talked about earlier.”
“Yes. I help manage their horse operation with Ben, and I have my horses boarded there. Plans have been in the works for a while to combine the ranches, and the plan is for Ben and me to expand and run the horse operation from that ranch. We’re still working out details.”
“So I’m going to get to see where you’ll be living,” Sinclair said as he slowed, approaching the drive for the ranch. When he’d volunteered to help with the wedding, he hadn’t realized the distances between the ranches… or the scope of the task.
Sinclair pulled to a stop near the house, and three dogs followed by a little girl raced toward the car, with a young man right behind.
“Emily,” the man said, scooping her up into his arms to stop her. “Hey, Lilly.”
“Brodie, this is my cousin Sinclair,” Lilly said.
“How is the search for a venue going?” Brodie asked as he shook Sinclair’s hand.
“Not well,” Lilly answered. “Is Ben in the barn?” When Brodie nodded, she headed off, while Sinclair petted a couple of the dogs, who nuzzled their way closer.
“Everything is awful, and she needed some time with her horses,” Sinclair said.
“Then why don’t you come inside and have some coffee?” Brodie offered, and Sinclair thanked him. Brodie set Emily down, and she ran for the back door with the dogs right behind her.
“Pretty animals,” Sinclair said.
“They follow Emily like she has bacon in her pockets.” Brodie smiled. “Lilly says you’re here from Houston.” He pulled open the back door, and a familiar voice reached Sinclair’s ears. He put on his best smile as he entered the kitchen, noticing that Dawson’s gaze went right to him. Not that he didn’t spend a second taking in the sexy cowboy. Lilly was right, though. He could look all he wanted, but this was a no-touch zone.
“What are you doing here?” Dawson asked.
Sinclair met his steely gaze with one of his own, holding it, daring Dawson to look away. Dawson didn’t, which surprised him. “We’ve been out wedding-venue-hunting, and Lilly needed some time with her horses. And I need some time not looking at ghastly spaces that should be put to the torch.” He took the offered chair around the kitchen table as Brodie set down a mug of caffeinated heaven.
“I see,” Dawson said.
Sinclair decided that maybe it was time to put away some of the attitude, for Lilly’s sake. “Do you think it’s possible that the equipment shed over at Rita’s could be cleaned out? Lilly really wants what she’s calling a country-elegant wedding, and we could make it happen for her and Ben in that space.” As much as he would rather just walk away and not have to deal with Mr. Closet Case anymore, this was for Lilly. Sure, picking on the guy was kind of fun, but if Sinclair was honest, there was something about Dawson that attracted him like a bear to honey. Not that he was going to do anything about it. He had already had more than his share of closeted boyfriends and wasn’t going down that road again, not in this lifetime. He’d managed to get the hell out, but only after his heart had been ripped into shreds that had taken months to begin to heal.
Dawson sipped his coffee and set down the mug. “I suppose we could move out the equipment and find a different place for it. There is the old shed off to the west where we could put the tractors. The four-wheelers would need to find a home, and the rest we could store someplace. It’s not ideal, but it would be temporary.”
“And what about the muck pile? We can’t have the guests smelling that while they’re eating,” Sinclair asked.
Brodie chuckled. “If you want it to be a true country wedding, then leave it where it is, because out here, there’s always manure—lots of it.”
Dawson actually smiled, and damned if he wasn’t even hotter. Holy hell, that man was sex on a stick, and Sinclair averted his gaze just to give himself a chance to catch his breath.
“Yeah, I can get one of the men spread the muck on some of the fields and get it out of there. It will take some time for the smell to go away completely, but with some more rain, it’ll dissipate.” He seemed resigned. “But the rest of it is up to you. I have a ranch to run, and I can’t have my people working on a wedding for the next few months. They have tasks of their own to finish.” He stood. “And with that, I’ll be going. Thank you for taking the additional hay. With us transitioning the horses here, we aren’t going to need as much, so if you have space for it, then I can move the supplies over here.”