Instead of contemplating his internal drive, he picked up the phone and dialed Wyatt.

Taking an extra day in Eugene sounded like an excellent plan.

Chapter Three

“The town will not fall apart without you there, Jo. Relax.”

“You’re right . . . you’re right.” She looked out the back window of Wyatt’s twin cab truck before twisting around to focus on the road in front of them.

Luke placed his arm around the back of his seat and watched a play of emotions cross Jo’s face. The woman was a mess.

“When was the last time you took time off?” Wyatt asked from the driver’s seat.

“Uhm . . .”

Luke glanced at Wyatt and back at Jo. “Unless you sneak out of town when I’m not looking, I’m guessing the answer to that was back before you took the badge.”

“I have days off.”

“You have overnights off . . . leaving town for something other than work is what the rest of the world calls a vacation.”

“I’ve gone away a couple of times. And look who’s talking. When did you leave town last, Luke?”

It was his turn to stutter. “Uhm . . . ah . . .”

“Exactly! Pot to kettle.”

“I drive into Eugene quite a bit,” he said.

“Which is an extension of our backyard.”

She was right. “I should get out more. It’s a big world out there.”

“I always thought I’d see more of it,” Jo said.

“You still can,” Wyatt said. “It’s not like you’re old.”

Jo frowned as if in disagreement and continued to stare out the window.

“He’s right, you know.”

“I didn’t see anything of the world when my dad was sheriff, and I don’t anticipate the opportunity to now.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t change that.”

Her eyes skirted past his and out the back again.

That’s when it hit him.

As much as Luke felt as if all his options in life were spelled out for him, that any big changes had already happened, they weren’t. He made enough money to live a simple, comfortable life in a small town, working in a garage with his father. He had a modest home of his own. Yeah, his parents had helped him with the down payment years ago and refused to accept any payment back. The anchor to River Bend was his parents, a job he didn’t hate, and a lifestyle that suited him. What was Jo’s anchor? Her job . . . which, if he had to guess, she wasn’t in love with. Her friends . . . and the legacy of her father. For Luke, staying in the town he’d grown up with had been a choice. A logical one. For Jo it was an obligation, a weight that kept her looking out the back window of Wyatt’s truck en route to the airport.

The desire to learn Jo and Zoe’s weekend plans wasn’t just from his slight obsession with his old flame. He wanted to know that Jo would get her mind off River Bend. She needed to remember how to live a little.

“What kind of crazy plans do you and Zoe have this weekend anyway?” he asked.

“I doubt crazy is a word we’ll use.”

“Neither of you knit.”

She smiled. A smile Luke didn’t see on his friend’s face as often as he once had.

“House hunting.”

The image of houses in Texas did a dance in his head. It took a full thirty seconds for what that meant to sink in. “Zoe’s buying a house?”

“Sounds like it.”

“Wow.” He hated the knot in his throat. Hated that he knew her buying anything anywhere meant she wasn’t going to move home. He’d waited for years for word of her getting married. Or at least word that she was in some kind of meaningful relationship with one of those Hollywood types she always surrounded herself with. When he’d seen her at their ten-year high school reunion, and then again when Mel’s daughter, Hope, had gone missing, he’d felt his heart weeping once again.

Jo nudged his arm off the back of the seat.

His eyes snapped up.

“Do yourself a favor, Luke. Don’t ever go to Vegas.”

“What?”

“You have no face for poker,” she told him.

Hiding his emotions was something he had learned to do in Zoe’s presence, but apparently not with Jo and Wyatt. “I’ll have to work on it before the bachelor party.”

Jo sat forward, all her attention out the back window shifted. “Bachelor party?”

Wyatt slammed his arm across the seat to knock a little wind out of Luke’s chest. “Oops.”

“Something you wanna share, Wyatt?”

Wyatt glanced in his rearview mirror, then over at Luke. “Someday.”

“Someday? As in someday soon?”

Wyatt shrugged.

Jo lifted her eyebrows in question toward Luke.

“Don’t look at me. Man code and all. When the day comes, however . . . I think Vegas is in order.”

“Mel will not want a Vegas wedding,” Jo said.

“Bachelor party in Vegas.”

Jo nodded in understanding and placed a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. “Just don’t let this one near a poker table, okay?”

“Deal.”

“I’m not that bad,” Luke defended himself.

At the same time, both Jo and Wyatt said, “Yes you are!”

“Damn it’s hot here!”

Leave it to Jo to greet her with a smile and a bitch.

Zoe made a slightly girlish giggle and squeezed her friend hard once she’d passed through the doors outside the secure zone of the airport.