Rachel made a face at him. “Seriously, I miss these kinds of things.”
“So what did you do for fun when you weren’t working?”
Rachel thought for a moment. “Well, when I was still with Deke, we’d usually head out to one of his vacation houses, or maybe spend time on the family yacht.” Seeing his expression, she frowned. “Don’t judge. The guy has more money than you can even imagine, so his idea of recreation is a lot different than yours or mine. In his defense, that’s the way he was raised, so that’s all he knows.”
“That guy has no defense,” Jamie muttered. “Even if he wasn’t filthy rich, he’d still be a dick.”
Rachel gave him a half smile. “Probably.”
“So now that you’ve returned to the real world, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?”
To Jamie’s surprise, she leaned across the table and laced her fingers with his, as she gave him a shy smile. “Well, this is pretty nice. I like being back in Montana, and I like being with you.”
Something shifted in Jamie’s chest as she looked at him. He wanted to capture the moment and savor it. In the time since they’d been together, her eyes had never held the soft promise he saw reflected there now. Hope welled inside him. Could she be falling for him? Could he possibly mean more to her than just a temporary diversion?
He fervently hoped so.
“Hey, is that you, Colter?”
At the sound of the deep, surprised voice, Rachel snatched her hands away, pushing them down into her lap. Jamie shaded his eyes as he turned to see a couple with a child had stopped beside their table. He frowned, peering up at the man.
“Cole Tanner?”
The man’s face broke into a grin, and he stepped forward to shake Jamie’s hand. “I thought that was you. I heard you were home.” He sobered, and gestured toward Jamie’s leg. “Hey, man, I was sorry to hear what you went through. Are you doing okay?”
Jamie nodded. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll be getting this off in a few days. How’ve you been?”
Cole had grown up in Glacier Creek, and although he was a few years older than Jamie, they’d always been friendly.
“Things couldn’t be better.” Cole turned toward his companion, a slender, attractive woman with honey-brown hair and large, blue eyes. Holding her hand and staring at his cast with wide eyes was a little girl, no more than five or six, with corkscrew red hair and freckles. “Jamie, meet my fiancée, Joy Holliday, and her daughter, Piper.”
Jamie shook both their hands, winking broadly at the little girl, who grinned at him and half-hid behind her mother. He gestured toward Rachel, who all but squirmed in her seat. “You remember Rachel McCafferty, right? She’s Dylan’s sister.”
Cole’s face registered surprise, which he quickly schooled into a friendly smile as he shook Rachel’s hand. “Sure, I know Dylan. We jumped fires together before I left the forest service, and we built his house together a couple of years back. I haven’t seen him yet this summer. How’s he doing?”
Jamie briefly described Dylan’s accident, and Cole was instantly sympathetic. “I’m sorry to hear that. I had no idea. Here I was wondering why the two of you would be together, but I get it now.”
Jamie groaned inwardly as the other man all but solidified Rachel’s fears about being seen with him.
“We’re only in Bozeman until tomorrow,” Cole continued, “but I’ll stop by the hospital and see him, unless you think he’s not up for visitors.”
“I think he’d like to see you,” Rachel said. “That would be really nice of you.”
They talked for several more minutes, mostly about how Cole had recently taken over his family’s timber-frame company, before they said their good-byes, promising to get together for a drink back in Glacier Creek.
“Well, that was awkward,” Rachel commented, when Cole and Joy were out of earshot.
“How so?” Jamie asked, pretending to misunderstand. “Cole’s a great guy, and he’s a good friend of your brother’s.”
Rachel gave him a tolerant look. “He couldn’t begin to fathom why you and I are together.”
“Are we back to this again?” Jamie shoved his food away, no longer hungry. “I thought we had an agreement.”
“I agreed we wouldn’t talk about the difference in our ages, but that’s not going to stop other people from talking and wondering.” She gestured toward the passing crowd, where Cole and Joy could no longer be seen. “You must know this is how it’s going to be every time someone sees us together.”