Coming Home to Texas by Allie Pleiter

Author:Allie Pleiter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Nash had just finished washing the last of the ranch mud off the church van when Pastor Theo walked across the parking lot from his home just west of the church. He pointed to the buckets and sponges at Nash’s feet. “That’s above and beyond the call of duty.”

Squeezing out a sponge, Nash replied, “Car guys can’t leave a car dirtier than when they found it. It’d have kept me up all night anyway, and I had some thinking to do.”

That put a worried look on Theo’s face. “The outing didn’t go well?”

Nash dropped the sponge on the grass and began coiling the water hose he’d pulled from the garage. “No, it went great. Couldn’t have gone better, actually.”

“And so you’re thinking about...?”

He knew he should have kept his remarks to himself. Pastors were too good at this sort of thing, asking probing questions and never leaving well enough alone. “Nothing.”

Theo chuckled. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me, but I will say that’s the furthest nothing from ‘nothing’ I’ve heard in a while. Maybe you ought to talk about whatever it is.”

Come to think about it, it might be a good idea to get Pastor Theo’s help in keeping things within the right limits with Ellie. He needed someone to hold him accountable so that dumb ideas like sushi-exploration non-dates didn’t happen again. Nash turned the empty bucket over and sat down on it. “It’s not a whatever. It’s a whoever.”

Theo did the same with a second bucket. “I reckon those kids can be a handful.”

Nash shook his head. “That’s not exactly it.” He ran his hands through his hair, finding it hard to even get the words out. He opted for quick and direct. “I lost my head and asked Ellie out today.”

“Ellie Buckton? Yarn-gal-knitting-teacher Ellie?” Theo looked surprised, but not unpleasantly so. The man had a “happy consequence” look in his eyes that made Nash sorry he’d opened his mouth.

“Well, yes, but I was thinking more about the just-been-cheated-on-by-her-fiancé-and-best-friend-and-is-heading-back-to-Atlanta-someday-soon Ellie. I was able to stop and rephrase it to just a friendly outing when my brain kicked back into gear, but when I first brought up the idea of us having dinner, some part of me was asking her out.”

Theo kicked a stone from the driveway. “And asking her out would be bad.”

“Are you familiar with the term rebound, Theo?” Theo had married his high school sweetheart, so Nash didn’t think he had any idea what it was like to swim in the shark-infested waters of a dating pool like LA sported.

Theo scratched his chin. “Vaguely. And I do remember about a certain place having ‘no fury like a woman scorned.’ Only this is Ellie Buckton we’re talking about. Stubborn? Maybe—she is a Buckton, after all. Fury and scorn? I’m not so sure.”

“She told me she had to bite her tongue to keep from telling the girls all men are jerks. Even she admits she’s a mess right now, and what woman in her

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