My eyes widened in surprise when I heard what name he’d called me. “You haven’t called me Van in years,” I said quietly, my eyes fixed on his hand, which was gripping the steering wheeltightly.
“No, I haven’t,” he replied, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “It just…slipped out.” It was something only he had called me when we were kids. He had suddenly stopped when I was about 15, and I hadn’t heard him use it since—untiltoday.
“Why did you stop?” I turned to look out the window, the fields of the neighboring ranch rushing past. I heard him sigh loudly and I swung my head around, my eyes meetinghis.
“It just didn’t seem right for me to have a nickname for you, the older you got.” He shrugged his shoulders and focused back on theroad.
“I liked it,” Imurmured.
“I know you did…” He shook his head and we rode in silence through Marble Falls, pulling into the parking lot at Target about five minutes later. He jumped out and made his way around to my side, opening the door and putting his hand out. I reluctantly gave him mine and he helped me down from the truck. “You hungry?” he asked as we walked across the parking lot to theentrance.
“Starving—I didn’t eat breakfast thismorning.”
“We’ll grab sandwiches on the way home and eat them before we startpainting.”
“Okay,” I agreed, following him into thestore.
30 minutes later, we were on the way back to the ranch. We’d bought ‘Lemon Spirit’ paint for the kitchen and ‘Ivory Lace’ for the sitting room, and Josh had insisted on buying paint for the two bedrooms as well. I tried to tell him no, but he said he was buying paint for every room and I may as well pick my colors or he was picking for me. Reluctantly, I chose the same pale cream as the sitting room for those two rooms as well, promising to pay him back once we gothome.
I was currently holding two sub sandwiches and the smell was making my stomach rumble—I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I heard Josh chuckle. “You can start yours now Sav, if you’rehungry.”
“I am hungry, but I canwait.”
“How come you didn’t eat breakfast? You should be taking care of yourself,” hescolded.
“I was throwing up, Josh. Food wasn’t too appealing after that.” I rolled myeyes.
“Should you still be throwing up? I thought that was only really early on.” Concern was evident in hisvoice.
I shrugged. “I guess everyone is different. The doctor said it should ease up soon. The sooner the better as far as I’mconcerned.”
As we pulled onto the ranch, I saw Brody coming out of the barn. He waved and began heading over. “Hi Brody,” I called out as I jumped out of thetruck.
“Where have you been?” he asked, glancing over at Josh. He lowered his voice as he got nearer to me. “Is everything okay with you twonow?”
I nodded. “Yes, Josh came over this morning and apologized,” I said quickly, seeing that Josh was heading over to us. “He’s been helping me at the cottage this morning, and we just went to Target to get somepaint.”
“Hi Brode,” Josh said, clapping my brother on the back. I was worried things would be awkward now that Brody knew how I felt about Josh, but theyweren’t.
“Savannah tells me you’re helping her in thecottage?”
Josh nodded. “Yeah, going to get started on painting the kitchen this afternoon. It shouldn’t take long to get itdone.”
“I appreciate your help man. I can’t help as much as I’d like, but I’ll be there over theweekend.”
“It’s no problem, I’m happy to help. You know Sav’s like a sister to me.” Brody gave me a sympathetic smile, and my heart dropped hearing Josh’s statement. I knew that was how he felt, but I definitely didn’t need reminding ofit.
“I’m just going to grab some drinks to go with these sandwiches,” I said, turning and rushing up the garden path, not wanting to hear anymore.
When I returned to the cottage, Josh and Brody were sitting on the grass outside the front door. I sat down next to Brody and tossed Josh his sandwich. “Do you have lunch Brody?” I asked, unwrapping my sandwich and taking a hugebite.
“I already ate.” He paused. “Hungry?” Brodychuckled.
“Starving,” I replied through a mouthful ofsandwich.
“Well I guess you are eating for two now. I can’t believe my baby sister is having a baby of herown.”
“Me neither,” I said with asigh.