“I had help,” she said warily. As a seasoned deputy, she thought he would catch an outright lie. He’d probably think she meant Liam or Noah, though.
Eric nodded. Was he realizing he was the one who should have pitched in?
“I stopped by to see if you wanted a lift to the meeting tonight. We could get dinner on the way.”
Olivia and Monica were holding another fundraiser meeting, and she was going to help. This week they were going to work with the teenagers who’d volunteered to get them ready for the water Olympics, which was the part of the job she’d taken charge of when Olivia had taken over the event. Many of them wanted to compete as well as help run the events, so there was a lot of coordination and planning to take care of.
“I guess that would work,” Stella said.
“You guess?”
“I mean, sure, that sounds nice.” She’d planned to train for at least another forty-five minutes, but she supposed she needed to eat, too.
“How about DelMonaco’s?”
“Fila’s,” Stella countered. All the extra exercise gave her a huge appetite, and it was too easy to gorge herself on the wrong food at the country-style steakhouse. At least at Fila’s, she could order something light.
She watched as Eric stepped closer to the starting line she’d marked in the grass with two sticks. What was he doing?
“What’s your best time?”
She told him, and he nodded.
“Get your phone out.” Eric crouched down.
“You’re wearing boots,” she pointed out. “You can’t run in those.”
“Watch me. You ready to time me?”
What else could she do but pull out her phone? “On your mark, get set—go!”
Eric erupted out of his crouch and barrelled toward the first obstacle, moving faster than she’d thought possible in a pair of dress cowboy boots. He clattered up and over the first obstacle, a section of chain link fence, and raced for the next one.
“Go, Eric,” she called, trying to be a good sport. That’s what friends did for each other, right? “Oh!”
He landed funny on one foot after jumping over a low hurdle, careened sideways a few steps before he caught his balance and raced on, but he was limping.
“Don’t run on that injury!” she called out, but Eric ignored her. He finished the course, huffing and puffing as he went, his face mottled with color, obviously straining against the pain. When he crossed the finish line, she hit the stop button and hurried to his side. “You need to get that on ice.”
“I’m fine.”
“Eric—”
“I said, I’m fine!”
Stella stepped back, shocked by his anger. Eric straightened, took a step, winced and swore. “Let’s get going. I have a reservation for us.”
“At DelMonaco’s? I told you I want to go to Fila’s.” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He couldn’t ignore what had happened; his ankle was going to swell up.
“I can go to dinner without you. I could even bring someone else. Don’t think I don’t have options,” he snapped.
“I never said you didn’t have options.” She took a breath. “Look, you’re in pain. Is there anything I can do for you?” Why were men so damn touchy when they made mistakes? A woman would never act like this.
“What you can do is get changed and meet me at my truck.” He held up a hand when she went to protest. “I’m really fine, Stella. Just… humor me, okay?”
“Okay,” she said slowly, even though what she really wanted was to call the whole thing off. The strain on Eric’s face stopped her. He was in serious pain, and she hoped if she went with him, she could persuade him to have his ankle looked at after their meal. “I’m going to follow you to town in my truck. I have to stay late after the meeting to help Monica and Olivia clean up and go over a few things. And I’m going to Fila’s.”
“Fine. See you there.” He limped off toward the driveway, and Stella headed to the house. She wasn’t bringing her truck because she had to stay late; she was bringing it because in an hour or so, Eric wasn’t going to be able to drive, and she was damned if he was going to ruin her night because of his own stubbornness.
Her fears panned out. They got through their dinner in near-silence, Eric answering her polite questions with a single word or two by the end of the meal. His face was drawn with pain, but he even refused her offer of an ibuprofen to take the edge off.
Luckily, a friendlier face appeared as they were finishing their dinner. “It’s been too long!” Camila Whitfield, the restaurant’s co-owner, said as she embraced Stella. Her pregnancy was showing, but she seemed in good health and spirits.
“We didn’t get to talk much at the wedding, did we?” Camila had lived on the Flying W before moving onto her own ranch with her new husband, Carl, and it still felt strange to not see her every day. “How is Laurel Heights treating you?”
“It’s great—especially now that it’s raining again. You know Carl is working on growing Mexican produce with Sven?”
“I heard something about that.” Despite both being retired millionaires, Camila’s husband had been joined by his friend a few months ago, and neither seemed capable of simply sitting back and enjoying themselves. Instead, they’d thrown themselves into running the ranch. Last Stella had heard, they were using geothermal something-or-others to provide Camila with fresh ingredients she’d normally need to have shipped in from Mexico.
“The real challenge will be getting the plants to survive through the winter,” Camila said, “but the water shortage nearly killed everything before they even got this far. Luckily some of my cousins from Mexico were able to get their paperwork sorted, and they’re working on the ranch now. They’ve worked with chilies and gauyabas and so on their whole lives and were able to keep the plants alive until the rain started again. Anyway, if all goes well, the food
