He grinned, grabbing a beer from the fridge and heading for the living room. Brynne wouldn’t like being called a waitress, he figured. No, sir.

She might have come back to the Creek to take over her parents’ dining joint so they could retire, but she wasn’t like other women who’d grown up in rural Montana and liked it there just fine.

Brynne dressed big-city and talked big-city.

Eli’s grin faded. Sara, who was friendly with Brynne, said she’d wind up back in Boston one day soon, or maybe New York, because Painted Pony Creek was nothing but a backwater to her.

Oh, she hadn’t said as much, according to Sara, but it was obvious to anyone who paid attention. Brynne had been hurt, and badly, by a man she truly loved, and she’d come back to the Creek to nurse her wounds.

Once she’d gotten over the worst of it, she’d be gone again, off to a world of symphonies and operas, five-star restaurants, museums and galleries.

Although he would have liked to believe otherwise, Sara’s theory made a lot of sense. Even as a kid, Brynne hadn’t been your typical Montana girl. She’d mostly spurned the standard blue jeans and tank tops or T-shirts for sophisticated outfits she’d designed and sewn herself, and, though she’d been popular, there had been a certain air of remoteness about her.

During the latter part of their junior year in high school, over that summer and a few months into their turn as seniors, Eli and Brynne had been an item. He’d been crazy about her, but she’d been reserved, though sweet and funny and so damn beautiful he sometimes couldn’t catch his breath.

Then came Reba.

She was out of school, working with Shallie out at the run-down motel owned by Russ and Bethanne Schafer’s folks. Reba was bold, full of life, vibrant and wild and very, very pretty.

Unlike Brynne, Reba was more than ready for sex: the more of it, the better.

Older, out of school, on her own.

And hot for him.

Like the dumbass kid he was, he’d believed her when she said she only wanted him and nobody else. The lie was flattering so he’d bought it.

After all, he was seventeen.

The trouble was, the whole time she was going out with Eli, she was playing the same game with Cord and J.P.

Things had come to a head at a party out in the woods, just days after graduation. J.P. and Cord had been away that weekend, competing in a rodeo, but they’d come back early, showed up at the secluded beer blast.

They’d found Eli and Reba practically wrapped around each other, and all hell had broken loose.