Page 1 of One-of-a-Kind Bride (Home to Texas #1)

T aylor Preston ran up the gazebo steps, the Texas sun warming her cheeks. “Come on, Coop. It’s time to play restaurant. And this time I’m the waitress and you’re the customer.” She picked up her pencil and pad and waited. “Aren’t you coming?”

Coop’s mouth twisted like he just ate a sour lemon. “That’s a girlie game. Let’s play pirates. I’m the captain.” He sliced the air with his pretend sword and Taylor folded her arms across her chest.

“We played that yesterday and the day before that.”

He scratched his head. “I know, but I don’t like your game much.”

“But, Coop, you promised me.”

Her cousin Julie walked up. “That’s right, you promised her.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did so,” Taylor said. “And you know it. Mama says it’s not right breaking your promise. She says you shouldn’t make a promise you can’t keep. Right, Julie?”

“That’s right and Taylor never breaks her promises.”

Taylor was glad her cousin stuck up for her.

Julie, Ryan “Coop” Cooper and she were nine years old.

She always spent her summers here, playing games with Julie and Coop and swimming in Aunt Suzie’s pool.

But Taylor only had one day left before she had to leave Last Stand and go back to school in New York with her mother.

Coop stood tall and put his lips together like a stubborn old mule. Even like that, she thought he was cute with pretty blue eyes and shaggy brown hair, but she’d never tell him that. No, that would be horrible.

“No fair,” he said, glancing at her and Julie. “It’s two against one.”

“But we play your games a lot more than you play ours, so it is fair,” Taylor pointed out.

Finally, Coop grumbled and stomped up the gazebo steps. “Okay, fine. We’ll play restaurant.”

Taylor beamed inside. “Thanks, Coop. I’m glad you kept your promise.”

He shook his head. “Promises are silly.”

“No, they’re not. They’re important. If you give your word to someone, you should keep it.”

“Are we gonna play or what?”

“Play.”

A few minutes later, Aunt Suzie called Julie into the house. It was Julie’s turn to pour the lemonade and bring it out. Aunt Suzie would bring out cookies. She and Coop stopped playing to wait for their treats.

Taylor fiddled around with the notepad, making ink swirls and thinking. “You know how you say promises are silly? They’re not. They can be fun. I play a promise game with my mama sometimes.”

“What game?”

“You make me a promise. I make you a promise. We write it down and then see who kept their promise.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Sounds okay.”

“Okay? It’s gonna be fun. Why don’t we make a promise to each other right now and next summer when I come back, we can see who kept theirs.”

Coop’s face lit up. “You mean, if I ask you to promise to eat a bug, you’ll do it?”

“Eww, no. Not like that. What if I promised to…to try to get good grades in math?”

“That sounds boring. What if you promised to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches once a week?”

She scrunched up her nose. “I don’t like peanut butter.”

He smiled. “I know. Maybe you would if you tried it more.”

“If I say yes, what’s your promise to me?”

“Um…what if I…uh, make you something from my dad’s shop? Something out of wood?”

“You’d promise that? What would you make?”

“I promise to make you a…a little treasure box.”

“Really? Wow! I’ll write these down.” She would love that. Taylor picked up her pen and wrote out the promises on two pieces of paper. “All done. Thanks, Coop.”

“Hey, wait a minute. How am I going to know if you kept your promise to me?”

“I’ll send you pictures and then when I come back next summer, you can ask my mother.

” Taylor rolled up the two papers. She wasn’t happy about having to eat peanut butter.

Yuck. But once a week wasn’t so bad, and Coop didn’t say how much peanut butter had to be in the sandwich. “Let’s hide them under the gazebo.”

Coop grabbed the papers and ran down the steps first. He searched for a place at the back of the gazebo. “This board is loose,” he said, wiggling the wood free. “We can put the papers under here. It’s a good spot.”

“Yeah, nobody will ever find them here.”

Coop tossed the two papers inside, under the gazebo floor, and then put the board back in place. He rose and smiled at her. She smiled back. She was glad Cooper wanted to play this promise game.

It made going home a little easier.

She was going to miss Last Stand.

And Coop and Julie most of all.