Lucas arrived promptly at 11 am. Anna had arrived at 9:30 and fretted and paced until Brett and Ned couldn't take it anymore and went outside to start clearing the fence. Maisey had dragged out her cooler and the women had packed it full of food--more food, Maisey thought, than they actually needed, but she hadn't commented on that to Anna.
She'd never seen the nurse nervous before. "Maybe this is a bad idea," Anna fretted.
Maisey took the other woman's hands, "Calm down, Anna, he's your friend and you've know him for years. Besides, he thinks you guys are chaperoning Brett and I."
Anna scoffed, "The way you two are avoiding each other?"
"Don't worry," she told Anna, "Brett told me about a great place we can go swim and laze about on rocks, he promised he'd have lots to show me so that you and Luke could spend time together. But Anna, you've got to be willing to flirt!" Her friend blushed, "I'm serious: I'm supposed to be the damaged one, the one terrified of the world, you know what you want so go take it!"
They heard voices in the yard and realized that Brett was explaining to Lucas why the garden fence looked like it had been hit by a tractor, "You realize," Anna told her, "That the story will embellish with every telling and soon you'll be infamous for being the city girl who drove Ned's biggest tractor over the garden in a fit of pique that Brett was going out dancing with Addie last night."
Maisey laughed, "Jealous rage seems less upsetting than 'didn't know how to stop'. I think I'll take the embellishment." They stepped out on the porch, "Admiring my handiwork? I am thinking about renting out my demolition services: do you think I'd get many takers?" Even Ned grinned at her statement. "Alright, alright, stop mucking about in the flower beds and let's go, I've a mind to see this swimming hole Brett's been talking about and Addie made cobber in jars that I swear if she hadn't taken them home last night I'd have eaten every one!" Brett had already loaded the cooler in his truck and then realized a problem he hadn't considered until that moment: Maisey's truck was the only one with space for all four of them and she had taken the wheels off at some point Friday night, citing that there was a squeal she thought was the brakes and needed to figure out which ones. "Oh right," Maisey winked.
Lucas had realized the problem a minute before Brett and was already holding the door for Anna. Maisey let Brett help her into his truck with a smile. "Are we headed where I think we are?" he asked. Brett nodded, "Do you think Ned would kill us if we dug up his fields like we did in high school?"
Brett groaned, "Please don't," Anna laughed, "I rode with Johnny Lee that day and I'm not sure who was greener when we stopped!" Lucas laughed as he got in his truck and pulled out ahead of Brett to follow a tractor trail down the side of the shed, Maisey had seen Ned take that same track every morning.
Knowing the plan was to give Lucas and Anna time together--even if his friend didn't know it--Brett drove slowly behind the other truck. He pointed out landmarks and cattle in the distance, stopped to check a fence that looked loose. By the time Brett pulled up behind Lucas's truck Anna had stripped out of her clothes into her bathing suit and Lucas was racing her to the water, laughing.
"I'm going to take Maisey up to the top," Brett called to their friends, "save us some food!" Taking Maisey's hand and wrapping it around his arm was a mistake. The minute that her hand curled around his bicep he felt his mind reach out possessively, but it was too late. "Watch your step," he cautioned, "I haven't actually been up here in a while."
"How long's a while?" she asked.
"Two years," he admitted, "There's always too much to do on the ranch, and when there was time for swimming, we spend it at Lucas's fishing instead." The trail was overgrown and Maisey had to let go in order to hold foliage out of the way, he mourned the lose of her touch at the same time as he felt relief.
"Did Melissa beat Andy at pool last night?" she asked.
"Andy didn't make it, he was still in Medicine Hat, the accident was pretty bad and he was up the rest of the night so he crashed at the residence there the hospital maintains for travelling doctors. They lost the driver on the way in."
"Is he okay?"
"As okay as he ever is after he loses someone," Brett told her, "Anna has learned to shut it off, but I don't think Andy ever will. They came out at the top of a rocky incline that overlooked the small lake, "Here we are."
Maisey gasped at the view. She could see the house and the tiny ant like vehicle that could only be Ned in the tractor. "It's beautiful," she breathed, "I could stand here forever and never see enough." She hugged her body and stared.
"I'm starving," Lucas splashed Anna, "do we have to wait for them?" Anna laughed, "I'm serious!" Anna's mouth went dry as Lucas stood up and the water drizzled down his chest, "you need to feed me before I waste away!"
"Not a chance of you wasting away," she muttered, "perfectly sculpted."
"What was that?" Lucas asked moving towards her to try and cajole her towards the shore. Anna stared at his mouth and wondered what was wrong with her, he stopped moving when he was so close she could feel the heat of his chest, "perfectly sculpted hey?" his eyes dipped to her face and her chest, "you're not so bad yourself, Miss Anna, when you're not trying to hide how gorgeous you are."
Anna froze, "You don't think I know what's going on?" Lucas smiled, wiping a drop of water from Anna's bare shoulder, "Maisey and Brett aren't together, he told me that the other night, they're just friends: the chicken salad, the brownies, the cobbler: my bet is you're as hot for me as I am for you." He whispered the words next to her ear.
"Wait, what?" Anna pushed him backwards, "I can't think straight when you're that close."
Lucas smiled, "And I can't think straight anytime you're near, I come out like a babbling idiot. I've wanted you since eleventh grade when you showed up at my lake angry as hell and dragged Johnny Lee out of the water and socked him for telling Nate he'd slept with you." Anna's jaw dropped open, "I just wasn't sure Andy wouldn't sock me for wanting to date his kid sister, and then you left for school and I didn't think I'd ever have a chance."
"I've been home for almost a year," she accused.
"I had a hard time reckoning who you'd become with the girl I'd known you back then." He said lamely. He stopped her from moving any further away by yanking her toward him and kissing her firmly. Anna didn't fight him, she'd wanted this for so long. They came up for air just as Maisey and Brett came out of the forest.
"About damn time," Brett smiled, "Now maybe the two of you will stop mooning over each other and the rest of us can stop tiptoeing around it." He pointed Maisey back to the truck, "I'll leave the basket in Lucas's truck, we're gonna head back to the ranch and see how many more fences Maisey can knock down."
"Asshole." Lucas grinned. Brett grinned back. Maisey let him help her into the truck.
"How long did you know?" Maisey asked as they bounced along.
"About Lucas? Since Anna was in 11th grade. About Anna? Not until just now."