One Night With The Cowboy. Brenda Harlen
Brie echoed, when she’d managed to find her voice. “But—”
“Don’t you dare say you can’t go,” Grace interjected. “We talked about this months ago, and we all agreed that we would take a long weekend to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“Of course I’m going to celebrate with you,” she assured her friend. “I just thought you’d want something a little more...or maybe a little less. And Vegas in August is going to be sticky and gross.”
“Worse than New York?” Lily asked dubiously.
“Trust me,” Brie said.
“I realize you’ve probably been there a thousand times,” Grace said. “But I never have and that’s where I want to go. Plus, the plane tickets and hotel are already paid for by my parents as their birthday present to me.”
Although Brie had grown up less than 450 miles from Las Vegas, she’d only ever made one trip to Sin City. One unforgettable trip more than seven years earlier, and though the heartache had begun to fade, she knew she could never forget the man—or their reasons for making that trip.
“Now I’m off to the obligatory birthday dinner with the family at Per Se,” Grace continued, already heading toward the stairs. “Make sure you pack your party clothes—I want to celebrate my quarter-century milestone in a big way.”
Lily pushed off the sofa. “I knew there was a reason I bought that sexy red dress at Bergdorf’s last weekend.”
“I thought you bought it because you couldn’t resist a sale,” Brie noted dryly.
Her friend grinned. “That, too.”
Lily disappeared into her bedroom to begin packing, and Brie decided to do the same, albeit with less enthusiasm. Because going to Nevada naturally made her think about Haven, where she’d grown up and where most of her family still lived, and thinking about Haven brought back memories of Caleb, the first—and only—boy she’d ever loved. And even after seven years, those memories made her heart yearn.
When she left Haven, she didn’t think she’d ever go back. And for the first four years, she hadn’t. Then her grandmother died, and she’d needed to grieve with her family. Two years after that, she’d returned for a much happier occasion: the wedding of her brother Spencer to Kenzie Atkins, Brie’s best friend throughout high school. The next spring, she’d gone back for the birth of her sister Regan’s twin baby girls—and again for Piper and Poppy’s baptism.
Each successive trip had been a little easier than the one before. Of course it helped that she didn’t need to worry about running into Caleb, because her parents had built a big house closer to town a few years earlier and he rarely ventured far from the Circle G.
She pulled her suitcase out from under her bed now and set it on top of the mattress—and vaguely wondered if she could fake being sick to avoid the trip. She immediately felt guilty for even contemplating such a ruse, but the way her stomach tied itself into knots at the prospect of returning to Las Vegas, she might not have to fake anything.
But she would do this for Grace. She would do anything for either of the two women who’d been her best friends since her first week in New York, when they’d met as freshmen residents of Hartley Hall.
There was a light tap on the partially open door, then Lily poked her head into her room. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” Brie invited.
Her friend looked at the still empty suitcase, then at her. “You absolutely hate the idea of going to Las Vegas, don’t you?”
Brie opened a drawer and began rifling through the contents. “There are a lot of other places I would have preferred to visit, but I can understand why Grace wants to go. Everyone should experience Sin City at least once.”
“I’m not particularly close to my family—as you know,” Lily admitted. “But even I go home at least three times a year.”
“My parents come to New York periodically.”
“They come here,” her friend agreed. “How often do you go there?”
In the past year, more than she’d wanted to, but Brie knew that response would only raise more questions. “I don’t enjoy traveling as much as they do,” she suggested as an explanation instead.
“Says the woman who visited ten countries in Europe on her summer vacation last year,” Lily noted.
“That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Her friend lowered herself onto the mattress, leaning against the headboard with one leg tucked up beneath the other. “Las Vegas is 432 miles from Haven,” she pointed out.
A detail of which Brie was well aware, but not one that she’d expect an East Coast native to know.
Her surprise must have shown on her face, because Lily shrugged and explained, “I looked it up.”
Brie continued packing.
“Are you ever going to tell us what happened to make you leave Nevada and never want to return?” her friend asked gently.
“What can I say? I love New York.”
“I know that’s true, but I also know it’s not the whole truth.”
Brie sighed. “Maybe I should have told you—and Grace—a long time ago, but I was feeling too raw and vulnerable at first. And then, as time passed, I realized that my heartbreak wasn’t nearly as big a deal as it seemed.”
“It must have been a bigger deal than you’re pretending now,” Lily said. “Or the thought of going to Nevada wouldn’t have you strangling that dress the way you are.”
She immediately unclenched her hands and shook out the garment, then folded it neatly into her suitcase. “It wasn’t a big deal,” she insisted. “I simply fell in love with the wrong guy.”
“Why was he wrong?” her friend wondered.
“Our families were the Montagues and Capulets of Haven,” she explained. “And while the whole star-crossed lovers thing seemed incredibly romantic at the time, it didn’t end well.
“No big surprise there, of course, but I chose to walk away with a broken heart rather than put a dagger through it.”
“Are you still in love with him?”
“It was seven years ago,” she reminded Lily.
“Which doesn’t actually answer the question,” her friend noted.
“I’m not still in love with him,” she said, because she needed to believe it was true.
After more than seven years, she didn’t want to admit—even to herself—that Caleb Gilmore still owned the biggest piece of her heart.
* * *
Caleb Gilmore had been back to Las Vegas a handful of times since his impulsive trip with Brielle Channing seven years earlier. But each subsequent journey inevitably brought back memories of the first time.
And of Brie.
Of course, it was rare for a single day to pass without him thinking about her, because in Haven, there were reminders every way he turned. Driving past the high school, he couldn’t help but think about the first time they’d danced together. Riding up to Eagle Rock to herd a lost calf, he was reminded of their first kiss. And returning to Las Vegas brought back memories of the promises they’d made to each other so long ago. Promises that had obviously meant more to him than to her, since she’d broken every one of them within a few weeks of their return to Haven.
This time, he’d made the trip at the request of his childhood friend Joe Bishop, to serve as best man at Joe’s wedding. They’d arrived late the night before and checked into The Destiny—a newer luxury hotel on the strip that