A Cold Creek Reunion (9 page)

She appeared to consider this, looking first at the big black gelding he pointed at, then back at Taft. Finally she gave him that brilliant, wide heartbreaker of a smile. “Okay.”

Taft Bowman may have met his match for sheer charm, she thought.

“I guess that just leaves me,” she said, eyeing the two remaining horses. Something told her the dappled gray-and-black mare was Caidy’s, which left the bay for her.

“Do you need a crab apple to break the ice, too?” Taft asked with a teasing smile so appealing she had to turn away.

“I think I’ll manage,” she said more tersely than she intended. She modified her tone to be a little warmer. “What’s her name?”

“Lacey,” he answered.

“Hi, Lacey.” She stroked the horse’s neck and was rewarded with an equine raspberry sound that made Alex laugh.

“That sounded like her mouth farted!” he exclaimed.

“That’s just her way of saying hi.” Taft’s gaze met hers, laughter brimming in his green eyes, and Laura wanted to sink into those eyes.

Darn the man.

She stiffened her shoulders and resolve and shoved her boot in the stirrup, then swung into the saddle and tried not to groan at the pull of muscles she hadn’t used in a long time.

Taft pulled the horse’s reins off the tether and handed them to her. Their hands brushed again, a slight touch of skin against skin, and she quickly pulled the reins to the other side and jerked her attention away from her reaction to Taft and back to the thousand-pound animal beneath her.

Oh, she had missed this, she thought, loosely holding the reins and reacquainting herself to the unique feel of being on a horse. She had missed all of it. The stretch of her muscles, the heat of the sun on her bare head, the vast peaks of the Tetons in the distance.

“You ready, sweetie?” he asked Maya, who nodded, although the girl suddenly looked a little shy.

“Everything will be just fine,” he assured her. “I won’t let go. I promise.”

He loosed his horse’s reins from the hitch as well as the lead line for old Pete before setting Maya in the saddle. Her daughter looked small and vulnerable at such a height, even under her safety helmet, but she had to trust that Taft would take care of her.

“While I mount up, you hold on right there. It’s called the saddle horn. Got it?”

“Got it,” she mimicked. “Horn.”

“Excellent. Hang on, now. I’ll keep one hand on you.”

Laura watched anxiously, afraid Maya would slide off at the inevitable jostling of the saddle, but she needn’t have worried. He swung effortlessly into the saddle, then scooped an arm around the girl.

“Caid? You coming?” Taft called.

She glanced over and saw Caidy finish her phone conversation and tuck her cell into her pocket, then walk toward them, her features tight with concern. “We’ve got a problem.”

“What’s wrong?”

“That was Ridge. A speeder just hit a dog a quarter mile or so from the front ranch gates. Ridge was right behind the idiot and saw the whole thing happen.”

“One of yours?” Taft asked.

Her braid swung as she shook her head. “No. I think it’s a little stray I’ve seen around the last few weeks. I’ve been trying to coax him to come closer to the house but he’s pretty skittish. Looks like he’s got a broken leg and Ridge isn’t sure what to do with him.”

“Can’t he take him to the vet?”

“He can’t reach Doc Harris. I guess he’s been trying to find the backup vet but he’s in the middle of equine surgery up at Cold Creek Ranch. I should go help. Poor guy.”

“Ridge or the stray?”

“Both. Ridge is a little out of his element with dogs. He can handle horses and cattle, but anything smaller than a calf throws him off his game.” She paused and sent a guilty look toward Laura. “I’m sorry to do this after I invited you out and all, but do you think you’ll be okay with only my brother as a guide while I go help with this injured dog?”

If not for the look in Caidy’s eyes, Laura might have thought she had manufactured the whole thing as an elaborate ruse to throw her and Taft together. But either Caidy was an excellent actress or her distress was genuine.

“Of course. Don’t worry about a thing. Do you need our help?”

The other woman shook her head again. “I doubt it. To be honest, I’m not sure there’s anything
I
can do, but I have to try, right? I’m just sorry to invite you out here and then ditch you.”

“No worries. We should be fine. We’re not going far, are we?”

Taft shook his head. “Up the hill about a mile. There’s a nice place to stop and have the picnic Caidy packed.”

She did
not
feel like having a picnic with him but could think of no graceful way to extricate herself and her children from it, especially when Alex and Maya appeared to be having the time of their lives.

“Thanks for being understanding,” Caidy said, with a harried look, unsaddling the other horse at lightning speed. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“No need,” Laura said as her horse took a step or two sideways, anxious to go. “Take care of the stray for us.”

“I’ll do my best. Maybe I’ll try to catch up with you. If I don’t make it, though, I’ll probably see you later after you come back down.”

She glanced up at the sky. “Looks like a few clouds gathering up on the mountain peaks. I hope it doesn’t rain on you.”

“They’re pretty high. We should be fine for a few hours,” Taft said. “Good luck with the dog. Shall we, guys?”

Leaving Caidy behind to deal with a crisis felt rude and selfish, but Laura didn’t know what else to do. The children would be terribly disappointed if she backed out of the ride, and Caidy was right. What could they do to help her with the injured dog?

She sighed. And of course this also meant she and the children would have to be alone with Taft.

She supposed it was a very good thing Taft had no reason to be romantically interested in her anymore. She had a feeling she would be even more weak than normal on a horseback ride with him into the mountains, especially when she had so many memories of other times and other rides that usually ended with them making out somewhere on the ranch.

“Yes,” she finally said. “Let’s go.”

The sooner they could be on their way, the quicker they could return and she and her children could go back to the way things were before Taft burst so insistently back into her life.

Chapter Seven

W
ith Maya perched in front of him, Taft led the way and held the lead line for Alex’s horse while Laura brought up the rear. A light breeze danced in her hair as they traveled through verdant pastureland on their way to a trailhead just above the ranch.

The afternoon seemed eerily familiar, a definite déjà vu moment. It took her a moment to realize why—she used to fantasize about a day exactly like this when she had been young and full of dreams. She used to imagine the two of them spending a lovely spring afternoon together on horseback along with their children, laughing and talking, pausing here and there for some of those kisses she had once been so addicted to.

Okay, they had the horses and the kids here and definitely the lovely spring afternoon, but the rest of it wasn’t going to happen. Not on her watch.

She focused on the trail, listening to Alex jabber a mile a minute about everything he saw, from the double-trunked pine tree alongside the trail, to one of Caidy’s dogs that had come along with them, to about how much he loved old Pete. The gist, as she fully expected, was that he now wanted a horse
and
a dog of his own.

The air here smelled delicious: sharp, citrusy pine, the tart, evocative scent of sagebrush, woodsy earth and new growth.

She had missed the scent of the mountains. Madrid had its own distinctive smells, flowers and spices and baking bread, but this, this was home.

They rode for perhaps forty minutes until Alex’s chatter started to die away. It was hard work staying atop a horse. Even if the rest of him wasn’t sore, she imagined his jaw muscles must be aching.

The deceptively easy grade led one to think they weren’t gaining much in altitude, but finally they reached a clearing where the pines and aspens opened up and she could look down on the ranch and see its eponymous river bow, a spot where the river’s course made a horseshoe bend, almost folding in on itself. The water glimmered in the afternoon sunlight, reflecting the mountains and trees around it.

She admired the sight from atop her horse, grateful that Taft had stopped, then realized he was dismounting with Maya still in his arms.

“I imagine your rear end could use a little rest,” he said to Alex, earning a giggle.

“Sí,”
he said, reverting to the Spanish he sometimes still used. “My bum hurts and I need to pee,” he said.

“We can take care of that. Maya, you sit here while I help your brother.” He set the girl atop a couch-size boulder, then returned to the horses and lifted Alex down, then turned to Laura again. “What about you? Need a hand?”

“I’ve got it,” she answered, quite certain it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to help her dismount.

Her muscles were stiff, even after such a short time on the horse, and she welcomed the chance to stretch her legs a little. “Come on, Alex. I’ll take you over to the bushes. Maya, do you need to go?”

She shook her head, busy picking flowers.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Taft said. “Unless you need me on tree duty?”

She shook her head, amused despite herself, at the term. “I’ve got it.”

As she walked away, she didn’t want to think about what a good team they made or how very similar this was to those fantasies she used to weave.

Alex thought it was quite a novel thing to take care of his business against a tree and didn’t even complain when she whipped the hand sanitizer out of her pocket and made him use it afterward.

The moment they returned to the others, Caidy’s dog King brought a stick over and dropped it at Alex’s feet, apparently knowing an easy mark when he saw one. Alex picked up the stick and chucked it for the dog as far as his little arm could go and the dog bounded after it while Maya clapped her hands with excitement.

“Me next,” she said.

The two were perfectly content to play with the dog and Laura was just as content to lean against a sun-warmed granite boulder and watch them while she listened to a meadowlark’s familiar song.

Idaho is a pretty little place.
That’s what her mother always used to say the birds were trilling. The memory made her smile.

“I can picture you just like that when you were younger. Your hair was longer, but you haven’t changed much at all.”

He had leaned his hip against the boulder where she sat and her body responded instantly to his proximity, to the familiar scent of him. She edged away so their shoulders wouldn’t brush and wondered if he noticed.

“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong. I’m a very different person. Who doesn’t change in ten years?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m not the same man I was a decade ago. I like to think I’m smarter these days about holding on to what’s important.”

“Do you ride often?” she asked.

A glint in his eye told her he knew very well she didn’t want to tug on that particular conversational line, but he went along with the obvious change of topic. “Not as much as I would like. My niece, Destry, loves to ride and now Gabi has caught the bug. As often as they can manage it, they do their best to persuade one of us to take them for a ride. I haven’t been up for a few months, though.”

He obviously loved his niece. She had already noticed that soft note in his voice when he talked about the girl. She would have expected it. The Bowmans had always been a close, loving family before their parents’ brutal murder. She expected they would welcome Becca and her sister into the family’s embrace, as well.

“Too busy with your social life?”

The little niggle of envy under her skin turned her tone more caustic than she intended, but he didn’t seem offended.

He even chuckled. “Sure. If by
social life
you mean the house I’m building on the edge of town that’s filled all my waking hours for the last six months. I haven’t had much room for other things.”

“You’re building it yourself?”

“Most of it. I’ve had help here and there. Plumbing. HVAC. That sort of thing. I don’t have the patience for good drywall work, so I paid somebody else to do that, too. But I’ve done all the carpentry and most of the electrical. I can give you some good names of subcontractors I trust if you decide to do more on the inn.”

“Why a house?”

He appeared to be giving her question serious thought as he watched the children playing with the dog, with the grand sprawl of the ranch below them. “I guess I was tired of throwing away rent money and living in a little apartment where I didn’t have room to stretch out. I’ve had this land for a long time. I don’t know. Seemed like it was time.”

“You’re building a house. That’s pretty permanent. Does that mean you’re planning to stay in Pine Gulch?”

He shrugged, and despite her efforts to keep as much distance as possible between them, his big shoulder still brushed hers. “Where else would I go? Maybe I should have taken off for somewhere exotic when I had the chance. What do they pay firefighters in Madrid?”

“I’m afraid I have no idea. I have friends I can ask, though.” He would fit in well there, she thought, and the
madrileñas—
the women of Madrid—would go crazy for his green eyes and teasing smile.

Which he utilized to full effect on her now. “That eager to get rid of me?”

She had no answer to that, so she again changed the subject. “Where did you say your house was?”

“A couple of miles from here, near the mouth of Cold Creek Canyon. I’ve got about five acres there in the trees. Enough room to move over some of my own horses eventually.”

He paused, an oddly intent look in his green eyes. “You ought to come see it sometime. I would even let Alex pound a couple of nails if he wanted.”

She couldn’t afford to spend more time with him, not when he seemed already to be sneaking past all her careful defenses. “I’m sure we’ve got all the nails Alex could wish to pound at the inn.”

“Sure. Yeah. Of course.” He nodded, appearing nonchalant, but she had the impression she had hurt him somehow.

She wanted to make it right, tell him she would love to come see his house under construction anytime he wanted them to, but she caught the ridiculous words before she could blurt them out.

Taft picked up an early-spring wildflower—she thought it might be some kind of phlox—and twirled it between his fingers, his gaze on the children playing with the dog. This time he was the one who picked another subject. “How are the kids settling into Pine Gulch?”

“So far they’re loving it, especially having their grandmother around.”

“What about you?”

She looked out over the ranch and at the mountains in the distance. “It’s good. There are a lot of things I love about being home, things I missed more than I realized while I was in Spain. Those mountains, for instance. I had forgotten how truly quiet and peaceful it could be here.”

“This is one of my favorite places on the ranch.”

“I remember.”

Her soft words hung between them and she heartily wished she could yank them back. Tension suddenly seethed between them and she saw that he also remembered the significance of this place.

Right here in this flower-strewn meadow was where they had kissed that first time when he had returned after the dangerous flashover. She had always considered it their place, and every time she came here after that, she remembered the sheer joy bursting through her as he finally—finally!—saw her as more than just his friend.

They had come here often after that. He had proposed, right here, while they were stretched out on a blanket in the meadow grass.

She suddenly knew it was no accident he had stopped the horses here. Anger pumped through her, hot and fierce, that he would dredge up all these hopes and dreams and emotions she had buried after she left Pine Gulch.

With jerky motions, she climbed off the boulder. “We should probably be heading back.”

His mouth tightened and he looked as if he wanted to say something else but he seemed to change his mind. “Yeah, you’re right. That sky is looking a little ominous.”

She looked up to find dark clouds smearing the sky, a perfect match to her mood, as if she had conjured them. “Where did those come from? A minute ago it was perfectly sunny.”

“It’s springtime in Idaho, where you can enjoy all four seasons in a single afternoon. Caidy warned us about possible rain. I should have been paying more attention. You ready, kids?” he called. “We’ve got to go.”

Alex frowned from where he and Maya were flopped in the dirt petting the dog. “Do we have to?”

“Unless you want to get drenched and have to ride down on a mud slide all the way to the ranch.”

“Can we?” Alex asked eagerly.

Taft laughed, although it sounded strained around the edges. “Not this time. It’s up to us to make sure the ladies make it back in one piece. Think you’re up to it?”

If she hadn’t been so annoyed with Taft, she might have laughed at the way Alex puffed out his little chest. “Yes, sir,” he answered.

“Up you go, then, son.” He lifted the boy up onto the saddle and adjusted his helmet before he turned back to Maya.

“What about you, Maya, my girl? Are you ready?”

Her daughter beamed and scampered toward him. Watching them all only hardened Laura’s intention to fortify her defenses around Taft.

One person in her family needed to resist the man. By the looks of things, she was the only one up for the job.

Maybe.

* * *

They nearly made it.

About a quarter mile from the ranch, the clouds finally let loose, unleashing a torrent of rain in one of those spring showers that come on so fast, so cold and merciless that they had no time to really prepare themselves.

By the time they reached the barn, Alex was shivering, Laura’s hair was bedraggled and Taft was kicking himself for not hurrying them down the hill a little faster. At least Maya stayed warm and dry, wrapped in the spare raincoat he pulled out of his saddlebag.

He took them straight to the house instead of the barn. After he climbed quickly down from his horse, he set Laura’s little girl on the porch, then quickly returned to the horses to help Alex dismount.

“Head on up to the porch with your sister,” he ordered. After making sure the boy complied, he reached up without waiting for permission and lifted Laura down, as well. He winced as her slight frame trembled when he set her onto solid ground again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have been paying better attention to the weather. That storm took me by surprise.”

Her teeth chattered and her lips had a blue tinge to them he didn’t like at all. “It’s okay. My SUV has a good heater. We’ll warm up soon enough.”

“Forget it. You’re not going home in wet clothes. Come inside and we’ll find something you and the kids can change into.”

“It’s fine. We’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”

“If I let you go home cold and wet, I would never hear the end of it from Caidy. Trust me—the wrath of Caidy is a fearful thing and she would shoot me if I let you get sick. Come on. The horses can wait out here for a minute.”

He scooped both kids into his arms, much to their giggly enjoyment, and carried them into the ranch house to cut off any further argument. That they could still laugh under such cold and miserable conditions touched something deep inside him.