To Tempt a Cowgirl (11 page)

“Everything all right?” he asked curiously.

“Fine,” she said briskly. “I just need to get to work.” Kelly would show up within the hour and until then she was only doing groundwork with a young filly. “But I will give you a ride home.”

She had to make the offer, but she felt a whisper of relief when he said, “I’ll walk. Thanks.”

“And I’ll be in contact about Molly.”

He stopped on the porch. “Would it be all right if I came by to watch you work her? Not every day, of course, but since I’m close...”

He shrugged and Dani heard herself say, “Sure. I’m all right with that. But give me a couple days, okay?” That would give her time to get acquainted with the mare.

“Great. Thanks.”

He started down the path, but Dani stopped him by calling his name. When he turned back, she said, “Just what are your plans for Molly? You never told me.”

“I’m giving her to a friend as a present.”

“Must be some friend.”

“Oh, she is.” He smiled, raised his hand in a brief salute, then headed down the driveway, leaving Dani with something to think about. Maybe it didn’t matter if he became a permanent resident. And she was glad about that.

Regardless of how her stomach had twisted at the word
she
.

* * *

G
ABE WANTED NOTHING
more than to conk out for a while, but he forced himself to stay awake. He really needed to break this late-night habit if he was going to keep normal hours, watch Dani train his horse, live like a normal person. But it was killing him. His ability to live on two hours of sleep for days at a time seemed to be slipping away.

Stewart had sent another small job his way—redesigning the entrance area of an older getaway hotel that he was refurbishing—and Gabe was determined to take his time instead of blasting out the entire project in a few marathon sessions.

He wandered outside and sat on the front terrace with his sketch pad. He’d barely touched his pencil to paper when a rooster tail of dust at the far end of his driveway caught his attention.

Dani?

She had his number and would call first.

A salesman? A neighbor coming to greet him? A package delivery?

No—it was law enforcement.

Gabe got to his feet as the white sheriff’s SUV came to a halt at the end of the path leading to the house. The guy that got out was tall and lean, wearing a cop face.

“What can I do for you?” Gabe called as he walked down the path, thinking he’d rather be on the offensive than the defensive. It’d been well over a decade since he’d had any kind of trouble with the law, but old habits and knee-jerk reactions were hard to shake.

The deputy tipped back his hat, his expression shifting toward friendly as he held out a hand. “I just wanted to stop by and thank you for helping my sister-in-law the other night. I’m Kyle Randolph.”

So this is the brother-in-law.

“Gabe Matthews.” Gabe automatically shook hands, wondering what the real purpose of this visit was, because the message he’d gotten from Dani the other night was that Kyle wasn’t particularly concerned about the welfare of either her or the ranch.

“Not a problem.”

Kyle glanced around the property, assessing, then brought his attention back to Gabe. “I’m just glad someone was close by. I read the report and, frankly, it’s probably just a string of coincidences—kids getting their kicks—but you never know.”

“That’s why she made the report,” Gabe replied. “Just in case it wasn’t.” He shifted his weight slightly before saying, “You used to live there. On the ranch.”

“Yeah.”

“She mentioned that she’d tried to call you to find out where the water main was.”

“I was out of town on my first ever vacation, so I didn’t get the call.” He smiled ruefully. “And don’t think her sister didn’t give me an earful over that.”

“If you didn’t get the call, I don’t know how you can be blamed,” Gabe said smoothly.

“Exactly.” Kyle smiled distantly. “I still care about Allie and her sisters, even if we couldn’t make things work. You can’t just shut off feelings like that.”

“No doubt.”

“So...I hear you’re leasing this place. Are you considering buying?”

Gabe shook his head. “It’s not that kind of lease. It’s a vacation deal...and I’m not thinking that far ahead. I just needed some time away from the day job and this seemed like a good place to do that.”

“Not many people can do that,” Kyle said. “Just...take an unlimited amount of time from the day job.”

“I’m an independent contractor, so I’m still working, actually.”

“I see.” But Gabe didn’t think he did. In fact, he couldn’t quite figure why the guy was there. It wasn’t to thank him for looking out for Dani. So...

Whatever the deal was, Gabe didn’t want to alienate the guy. Not right now anyway. Unless he messed with Dani a little too much.

The thought startled him. Not only was Dani probably more than capable of fighting her own battles, but her affairs were also none of his business. He found her attractive, yes, but in the end, he was moving on and she was getting a new ranch. He needed to remember that.

“What exactly do you do?”

“I design parks and landscapes. A lot of my business is a matter of drafting up plans after site visits. I can do that here. I also consult.”

“You own your own business.”

Gabe thought he’d just said that, but since Kyle seemed to need reiteration, he smiled and nodded. “Yes. Which makes it possible to make my return open-ended.”

“Return to where?”

“The Midwest.” He wasn’t about to say the Chicago area, on the off chance that Kyle or anyone else put two and two together. He was being paranoid, but since Widmeyer was located in Chicago, he wasn’t going to make any mention of the city. Hell, he didn’t think he was even going to return to the city. The solitude here certainly made it easier to work without distractions. Not that he planned to stay in this particular area, but he was seriously considering moving to a less urban, lower-rent locale.

“No mountains there.”

“You’ve been?”

“I went to Des Moines for SWAT team training.” This guy was on the SWAT team? Somehow that seemed wrong. Then Kyle made things better by saying, “I’m not actually on the team, but went in case there was an opening.”

“We may not have mountains, but we have lots of mosquitoes,” Gabe said.

Kyle laughed. “We have a few of those here, too.” His expression sobered and Gabe wondered if the half-ass interrogation was almost over, because he had stuff to do. “Well, I gotta get going. I just wanted to stop and say thank you. Like I said, just because Allie and I couldn’t make things work, that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped watching out for the Brodys.”

“I don’t know Dani that well, but I’m sure she appreciates it.”

Nothing like lying through your teeth with law enforcement. Kyle smiled as if he was pulling something over on Gabe.

“If you hear of anything else happening, would you let me know? Dani tends to try to handle things on her own, which makes me surprised that she called Dispatch, which in turn makes me think she had to be spooked pretty badly.”

“Or maybe I told her to call.”

Kyle’s expression shifted, but Gabe couldn’t quite read where it had gone. “That was a wise thing to do. Thank you.”

“You bet.” Gabe took a step back, indicating that he was done chatting, and Kyle took the hint, touching his hat before he started back for his vehicle. “Nice talking to you.”

“Same here,” Gabe said and Kyle gave a quick satisfied smile, looking as if he truly believed he was the one in control of the situation.

Which told Gabe that he hadn’t lost his touch.

* * *

O
NE OF THE
laws of nature was that people needed to eat, and early Saturday morning Dani come to the conclusion that she’d better go shopping or she was going to be pretty damned hungry for the remainder of the day.

The cupboards were empty—and not because it was hard to afford groceries, but because it was hard to find the time to go to town. Today was the day, and after she’d worked her horses, she showered, put on her last clean pair of jeans—laundry would commence the next day—and drove to the local supermarket.

Her needs were simple—coffee, bread, butter, cold cuts, cereal, milk, a bunch of fruit, a bunch of salad stuff and a big stack of frozen dinners. After tossing a family-size container of Oreo cookies on top of her load, she headed for the checkout only to stop as Marti wheeled a cart around the corner.
Great.

The aisle had a column in the center, which meant that one of them had to wait while the other wheeled past it. Dani did the honors, hoping Marti would walk on by. No such luck.

“Hey, I just wanted to say sorry about our last meeting,” Marti said after rolling to a stop.

“Well, it’s over and we can just move on.”

“That’s what I’d like.” She smiled a little. “Have you seen Chad yet?”

Dani frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

Marti looked genuinely surprised. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Chad just took the job as branch manager of the local US Western bank.”

“Oh.” Somehow her lips stretched into something that might have been a smile. “I didn’t know.” And all she could think was thank goodness US Western wasn’t her bank, although that was a small consolation.

Marti gave a little shrug. “He and his new wife just bought that house on the corner of Barnes and Fifth Street. You know the one?”

Oh, yeah. She knew that house—more of a mansion, really—but the part that had caught her attention was the reference to his
wife
. Chad had married Megan Branson?

The day just kept getting better.

Dani forced a mock sweet smile, very similar to the one Marti was now wearing. She was going to be civil, take the high road, then go home and have a stiff belt.

“I really need to go. Nice talking with you.” With that, she wheeled the heavy cart down the aisle and past the column, toward the checkout stand and freedom.

Chad. Back.

Mental note—stay away from the US Western bank.
She was so not ready to bump into her ex. This truly sucked. She’d come back to the Eagle Valley to start fresh, remove herself from Chad’s sphere, and now he was here, too. With his new
wife
.

That was a slap in the face she didn’t need. They’d been engaged for over a year and now he’d married the woman he’d cheated with less than two months after they’d broken up?

That sucked. Pure and simple.

Saturday was officially Dani’s half day and even though she’d already worked the horses scheduled for that day, she went out to the corrals after returning home from the grocery store and caught Johnny, her first horse scheduled for Sunday. She worked him on the ground for well over an hour before turning him loose, then she did the same thing with Sarge, a rangy palomino gelding that she’d developed a soft spot for. He was a grudging performer, but loved his daily grooming sessions, stretching his neck and sticking out his lip when she hit the itchy spots.

He did a lot of neck stretching that day, since Dani brushed him for twice as long as usual, doing her best to distract herself from obsessing about Chad’s return.

She was not successful.

No matter how many times she assured herself that she didn’t care if he was in town, that what he did was none of her business, the sad fact was that she did care. She’d never been a person who spent much time worrying about what people thought of her, even as a teen, but now she felt as if everyone would be watching her, commenting on her broken relationship.

Self-centered? Yes. Paranoid? Probably.

But the town was small and it was a certainty that she would bump into him and the new missus—which was totally unfair, given the amount of times he’d mentioned how much he liked living in Missoula, how he’d never move back to the Eagle Valley. Now here he was. Back in her territory. When they did meet, there would no doubt be witnesses and it would not doubt be uncomfortable, since the last time she’d seen him had been the day she’d kicked him out of her apartment after throwing his girlfriend’s panties at him.

And if this is your biggest problem in life—that your ex married his girlfriend and moved back to town, your life is pretty damned good.

Dani rolled her stiff shoulders after she finished grooming the big horse and then turned him into his pen.

That was true, but she still wished Chad had kept his ass up north.

Dani heard the landline ringing as she mounted the porch steps. Only one person called the landline—her mother, Anne. And if Dani didn’t answer, then she’d call until she did.

“Hey, Mom,” Dani said, forcing a smile and hoping that made her sound upbeat when she was actually feeling beat down. “How are you?”

“I was about to give up on you,” Anne said. “This is my third call.”

“I was just finishing up on the last horse.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

“I went to town today, so had to play catch-up. How was fishing?” There was a brief pause as if her mother sensed she was being sidetracked, so Dani added, “Did you get a chance to use the new tackle we got you for Christmas?”

“I did and it brought me better luck than Richard had with his lucky lures.”

“Excellent,” Dani said. “When’s the next trip?”

“We haven’t decided,” her mother said before abruptly saying, “I heard a rumor that Chad moved to the Eagle Valley.”

So much for sidetracking. “I take it Gloria called.” Her mother’s husband, Richard, had a snowbird sister who spent part of the year in the Eagle Valley. Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet flown south for the winter.

“She did.”

“Apparently that rumor is true.”

“And...”

“That’s life, Mom. I’m pretty sure he didn’t move back here to make me feel bad. He probably doesn’t want to see me any more than I want to see him.”

“Just checking.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nothing odd going on at the ranch?”

Damn. Gloria had been a busy little bee. “Odd?” Dani asked smoothly, hoping she didn’t trigger mother radar. “A plumbing emergency and a horse got out, but, no, nothing odd. Just ranch stuff, you know? The kind of stuff Allie used to deal with on a daily basis.”