“You do if your date works on Friday and Saturday.”

She rounded the car and climbed behind the wheel. “Matt and I are not going out tonight.”

Parker climbed in behind her, leaving the front seat for Colin.

“When is your date?”

“There isn’t one.” What was taking Colin so long? Get the luggage in already.

“What? Why?”

“You of all people know why.” Erin looked in the rearview mirror and sighed when Colin closed the trunk. She dug in her purse for a ten-dollar bill.

“Erin . . . Matt isn’t him.”

Erin scanned the rearview mirror, the side mirrors. No one lurked in the garage. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Colin tucked into the passenger seat and closed the door. Before he could buckle up, she was backing out.

Only once they were on the freeway, which resembled more of a parking lot than a highway, did Erin ease up her death grip on the wheel.

“So . . . ,” she sighed. “Did you two set a date?”

Instead of an answer, two sets of eyes just stared at her.

“What?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

A small dive bar in the center of town was the perfect place for happy hour when it included coworkers. And since Erin was with Parker and a couple of other girls having some kind of slumber party at the ranch house, Matt was entertaining Colin and a few of his work buddies. By entertaining he meant buying the beer and driving Colin home.

“Parker is solid, man. I couldn’t be happier for you.” The words came from Colin’s work buddy Fabio. Outside of his long hair, he didn’t look anything like the man who’d graced the covers of romance novels in the eighties.

“She’s pretty special.” Colin was two deep in foam-topped beer, and a third one was lined up.

Glynn bumped into Colin’s shoulder. “She still slinging a gun around?”

“Only when she has to,” Colin said.

“That woman belongs in Texas where she can put a rack in the back of a truck. You heard about all that, didn’t you, Matt?” Fabio asked.

Matt nodded. “I’ve heard a few tales about Parker and her shotgun. Didn’t she grab a gun on the first day you met before she walked you up the wash?” Matt asked Colin.

Colin placed a hand to his chest. “Love at first sight. I knew she was someone I had to know better.”

“She’ll keep you in your place,” Glynn teased.

Lots of male laughter and a few sly remarks about long legs and curves. None of which went too far in light of the fact that Colin was now engaged to the woman. A certain amount of respect came with the title. The truth was, Parker had gained the respect of all the men on Colin’s crew because she never simply sat back and watched them work. Her hands were just as dirty and her back ached just as much as theirs at the end of the day. Matt knew. Mainly because Colin bitched to him about it constantly. Much as Colin wanted to be the one coming to the rescue all the time, Parker never waited for him and just did things herself.

Matt had to admit his own admiration for the woman. “She’s going to make a fine Hudson,” he told his brother.

Colin’s expression softened. “Wow. I didn’t really think about that. Parker Hudson.”

“Mrs. Parker Hudson,” Glynn added.

Matt raised his glass. “To one less bachelor in the neighborhood.”

A toast and cheers were followed by a couple of burps.

“. . . so there we were, fighting to get off the small boat Colin had chartered to take us out to Lovers’ Beach. Colin was already off the boat and standing beside the ladder to help me down when up comes this rogue wave. The boat goes one way, I fly back. Colin tries to catch me and we both end up on our backs in the water with another wave crashing on the shore. We were laughing so hard we couldn’t stand up. Try limping onshore in a sundress that’s plastered to your legs.”

“That’s crazy. If the weather was so bad, why bother?”

“Because Colin had a plan. And besides, the clouds hadn’t been there the whole day so the skipper, or captain . . . whatever you call the boat guy, he kept saying, ‘No problem. I get you there.’”

“He wanted your money,” Erin told her.

Grace kept nodding her head while Jennifer, a friend of Parker’s, refilled their wineglasses.

“So we’re on the beach and suddenly Colin starts tapping his pockets in a weird game of head, shoulders, knees, and toes, and then he turns and runs back into the water.”

Erin’s jaw slacked. “He dropped the ring.”

Parker’s smile grew. “Yes.”

“Oh my God!” Jennifer took her place on the sofa.

“How did you find it?”

“Wait, so he starts yelling, ‘It’s in a black box, it’s in a black box!’ and I’m like, ‘Holy shit,’ so now we’re both back in the water searching the sand for a little black box. I just kept thinking, It’s gone. I mean, the Sea of Cortez is super turbulent and the waves are merciless.”

Erin picked up Parker’s left hand. “You obviously found it, what happened?”

“Wait, I’m not there yet. We had to have been out there for thirty minutes, running back and forth, sifting through sand. Eventually other people on the beach saw us and asked us what we were doing. They joined the search. Finally I just turned to Colin and told him it was hopeless. He told me he wanted the moment to be perfect. I told him that bad weather and water brought us together and we shouldn’t let it kick us again.”

Grace sighed. “That’s so beautiful.”

Parker was beaming now. “So your brother gets down on one knee, in the water, and grabs my hand. I could tell he’d practiced his speech, but he kept messing it up, cuz he kept repeating himself. It didn’t help that the waves kept blowing up around us. But it didn’t matter. He told me he’d replace the ring the second we were home. Even buy something from a street vendor in town to hold me over. Then he asked me to marry him. I was crying. He was crying. It was so damn perfect.” Her eyes were misty with her memory.

Erin brushed away a tear.

“You still didn’t tell us how you found the ring,” Jennifer reminded her.

“Oh,” Parker laughed. “We got back on the boat and the skipper, who had stayed in the boat the whole time, turned and handed Colin a little black box and asked if it was his.”

Grace started laughing first, then they all caught the giggles.

“It was in the boat the whole time?” Jennifer asked.

“Yup. So then I made Colin get back out of the boat so we could take a picture, with the ring, on Lovers’ Beach. And that is why we looked like something the cat dragged in.”

“You both look incredibly happy,” Erin said.

Jennifer looked at the picture that Parker had printed out. “You guys look like the sea swallowed you, then puked you back up.”

“It was crazy. I’ll never forget it.”

“I bet my brother had a heart attack. That ring wasn’t cheap,” Grace said.

Parker looked at her hand. “You know what the ring cost?”

Grace looked at her like she was missing a screw. “I was with him when he bought it.”