Uncertain Loyalties (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 4)

by Patricia Watters

  "I'm sorry, Daddy," she said against her father's broad chest.

  "That's okay, honey," Brad said. He placed his hand on the back of Sophie's head and stroked her hair the way he'd done when she was a little girl, and for the first time since she left California, Sophie felt like her life was whole again. Almost.

  There was still a vacancy Rick once filled.

  She'd try to be the friend to him her mother suggested, and help him get through the anger and resentment and cynicism over his own mother so he could come to terms with it, and with her death, but Sophie knew that wouldn't change his feelings to what they were before she came to the ranch this time because now it wasn't so much about how she'd behaved when she first arrived that was a wedge between them, but Rick's cynical attitude about relationships.

  Earning his love and trust, and changing his mind set against marriage would be an uphill battle, but she couldn't imagine fighting for any other man.

  CHAPTER 10

  Sophie couldn't help feeling that Rick was avoiding her. Two days before he'd spoken briefly to her parents while she was present, so he knew she'd made amends with them, but after that, he'd excused himself and she hadn't seen him since.

  For today, she was determined to put thoughts of him behind and enjoy an afternoon with her mother, so while her dad was scouting out potential pieces of property, Sophie suggested she and her mom go to the bakery and make arrangements for Adam and Emily's wedding cake and then go to the florist to plan the flowers.

  As they stood at the window of one of the bakeries in McMinnville, she said to her mother, while pointing to a three-tiered cake, "I love the way the flowers drape over the edge of each layer and down the cake. What do you think?"

  "I think it's beautiful," Justine replied. "Let's go in and see what they can do."

  Once inside, Sophie studied each cake while imagining the kind of cake she'd want for her own wedding. As she stood in front of one particular cake, she said, while pointing, "I think the cake should have trails of ivy draping down the tiers the way this one does, and I like the way the icing on the tiers is applied to make the tiers look like baskets, the way it's done here."

  The woman behind the counter, catching Sophie's enthusiasm, said to her, "Butter cream baskets with crystallized flowers are our specialty. What are your colors?"

  "Lavender," Sophie said quickly. "And I love pansies. Dark purple with yellow centers. Could you have them cascading down the cake, with trails of ivy intertwining with them?"

  "Yes. Our decorator does beautiful crystallized pansies," the woman said.

  "And maybe accent them with these," Sophie said, pointing to several tiny buttercups, "and a scattering of violets. They grow all along the trail where we ride horses."

  "Then he's a rancher?" the woman asked.

  "Well, actually he's going to be a veterinarian." Sophie stopped short, and when she looked at her mother, Justine rolled her eyes, and smiled.

  The woman eyed Sophie with amusement, and said, "It's always helpful when the bride knows what she wants. How much have you budgeted for your cake?"

  Sophie contemplated that. Jayne hadn't given her a figure, but the cake with pansies she just suggested was exactly what she wanted, and if it went over budget, she’d pay the difference, sort of a wedding gift for Adam and Emily. "I'm sure it would be within our budget," she said.

  "How many guests?" the woman asked.

  Sophie turned to Justine. "Do you have any idea, Mom?"

  Justine thought for a few moments, and said, "I imagine around seventy-five. Actually, along with family and friends and the ranch staff, we'd also need to include any guests that would be staying there. Maybe we'd better plan on a hundred."

  As the woman wrote up the order, Sophie made a mental note to talk to Jayne about including butter mints and mixed nuts and to find out what the kitchen staff would be putting together in the way of food. Since Emily's family would not be involved, Sophie had no idea how much Adam and his folks were willing to spend, but Adam was the first to get married, so she couldn't imagine Aunt Grace and Uncle Jack settling for anything short of a banquet, one that Aunt Grace would put together herself.

  After completing the order for the cake, they went to the florist. On paging through one of their bridal books, Sophie found the exact bouquet she wanted. "This one," she said to the florist. "But instead of purple anemones, I'd like to have purple and yellow pansies to match the cake, and trails of ivy. Can you do that?"

  "That's not a problem," the woman said.

  "And wild chicory," Sophie added, reflecting on the time she and Rick had taken the horses to the mountains, and in a meadow covered in wildflowers she'd made a garland out of chicory and put it around Rick's head, claiming he looked like an emperor.

  The woman looked at her curiously, and said, "Chicory isn't a flower we keep on hand since it's a weed, but if you bring some in a couple of days before we'll work it into the bouquet, since is seems to be important to you."

  "It is kind of special," Sophie said. "And maidenhair ferns. They grow at the high meadows above the ranch where we also ride."

  Justine placed her hand on Sophie's arm. "Honey, keep in mind what this is all about."

  Sophie realized the wedding had literally morphed into her own, and there was no question who the groom was. "I guess I got a little carried away," she said. "Now, back to reality."

  At the hotel later, Sophie and her mother addressed the rest of the invitations, but when her dad suggested Sophie stay with them at the hotel instead going back to the ranch, Sophie explained that she was staying with Maureen Hansen, matriarch of the family, who'd been like a grandmother over the years. But mainly, she wanted to be at the ranch because she hoped Rick would come around, which wouldn't happen unless she spent time with him.

  Two hours after returning to the ranch, she still had no idea where Rick was. He hadn't been at his house when she'd stopped in to see Becca and the baby, and when she poked her head in at Aunt Grace and Uncle Jack's, he wasn't there either, and no one had seen him, nor was he at the lodge. She had just returned to Maureen's house, after having had dinner at the lodge with the kitchen staff, and was surprised that Maureen wasn't there.

  But while she was walking to the back bedroom where she was staying, she noticed, in the middle bedroom, a wedding dress draped across the bed. It was a strapless gown with lace crisscrossed over the bodice and draping down the long wide skirt, and from the looks of the long but aging box opened on the floor, she knew the gown had to have been the one Maureen wore when she married her Adam, and she wondered why it was spread out on the bed.

  Sophie's question was answered a few minutes later, when Maureen entered through the mudroom, and walked in stocking feet down the hallway to find Sophie sitting on the bed, while tracing a finger along the lace on the bodice.

  "It's so pretty," Sophie said. "You must have been a beautiful bride."

  "I guess to Adam I was," Maureen replied. "He told me enough times over the years."

  Sophie knew that whenever Maureen spoke of Adam, she was referring to her husband. The man was an icon, whose presence was almost palpable, even though he died a couple of years before Rick was born. But to Maureen, as long as she held one last breath, Adam would still be alive to her. "Why is the dress out?" Sophie asked.

  Maureen ran her fingers over the skirt while looking reflectively at the dress, and said, "I thought Emily might want to wear it. She has no support from her family, and she was uncertain about what to wear, so I offered it to her, but she thanked me and said she was borrowing a dress from a friend. It is a little outdated."

  "Outdated or not, if it's still available when my time comes I'd love to wear it."

  Sophie realized at once that she couldn't wear the dress unless she married one of Maureen's grandsons, but Maureen quickly set that notion aside when she said, "Honey, I'd be honored if you wore the dress, no matter who you marry."

  Sophie turned from the dress and looked at Maur
een's worn jeans and tall socks, and said, "You look like you've just come back from riding."

  Maureen nodded. "I love a late afternoon ride, especially on the trail above the winery where there's such a beautiful view of the valley at sundown. Adam and I used to ride there often."

  "It is beautiful up there," Sophie agreed, "but I hope you don't ride alone. I know you're a capable horsewoman but something could happen."

  "Don't worry, honey," Maureen said, "my boys, young and old, never let me ride alone anymore, although sometimes I'd like to, but they mean well, and because of that I'm blessed. Rick went with me this evening. I'm surprised he didn't come get you since the two of you usually spend time together when you're here."

  "Rick and I had a kind of disagreement over how he should handle the whole thing with Marc and Adam," Sophie said.

  "Praise the Lord that's finally out in the open," Maureen replied. "I never liked the idea of hiding things, but that's the way Grace and Jack wanted it so I just kept quiet. It's done now, so we can all breathe a giant sigh."

  "Except that Marc hasn't been back to the ranch since he learned about it," Sophie said.

  "Marc still needs to find his way. He knew something was missing from his life. Guests can pick out every Hansen boy on the place except Marc and he's felt it all his life. I suspect he'll be leaving soon to find out who he is. He has a lot of gaps to fill."

  "Like grandparents," Sophie offered.

  Maureen nodded. "I love Grace as if she were my own daughter, but this whole idea was hers, even though Jack reluctantly went along with it, and I knew someday it would come back to bite us all. Rick's also made it known that he wanted a brother like Jack's bunch, and all along he's had one and never knew it, and that's bothering him now, not only that his father kept it from him, but because he's never been close to Marc and he probably feels bad about it."

  "Then you and Rick had a chance to talk while you were riding?" Sophie asked, wondering if Rick might have talked about what was going on between them.

  "We talked some," Maureen said, "but you can't get anything out of Rick when he doesn't want to talk, so it was a pretty quiet ride."

  "Where is he now?" Sophie asked, and hoped Maureen wouldn't read anything into it. In the past, no one questioned if she and Rick went off together, but now she had the feeling that all adult eyes were watching them. Things were definitely different.

  "Rick's in the office at the stable," Maureen replied. "He said he'd be there a while. He seemed very down and I got the impression it wasn't the loss of his mother that was bothering him. You might walk over there and poke your head in."

  Sophie was uneasy about disturbing Rick, especially after the less than eager welcome he'd given her when she arrived unannounced at the cabin at a time when he'd wanted to be alone. But in the past, her wanting to be alone had never stopped Rick from tracking her down and pressing to learn what was bothering her. He'd done it the morning after Buzz's party and found her at the spring. It had always been that way… until now.

  "Sophie, honey," Maureen said, "you and Rick have been friends for years. Just because you had a disagreement over Marc and Adam, that's a side issue. I think he needs you right now."

  "I guess you're right," Sophie said. "He could be sitting and sulking and that's not good."

  Sophie left through the mudroom and headed down the gravel road that cut between Sam and Jack's houses and walked toward the stable. Because it was Saturday, the weekly guests were gone and the next crop of guests wouldn't arrive until noon the following day, and all of the other boys were gone for the evening, including Adam, who she assumed was with Emily, so the place was quiet. It was also getting dark, but it was still light enough to see the silhouettes of horses grazing in a pasture that stretched alongside the stable. There seemed to be no light inside, but when she started toward the door to the office, she saw that it was closed, but a sliver of light shown on the plank flooring at the bottom of the door. She opened the door slowly and peeked inside and spotted Rick slumped against a leather couch, one arm draped along the armrest, the other in a fist against his knee.

  Seeing her, he folded his arms, and said, "Your coming here isn't a good idea."

  Sophie closed the door and crossed the room and sat beside him. "I know, but your sitting here alone and moping isn't a good idea either." She ran her knuckles along his jaw. "Have you given up shaving again? That seems to be a pattern of late." Instead of removing her hand, she turned it over and placed her palm against Rick's face, turning it so he'd have to look at her, and said, while holding his troubled gaze, "What can I do to make things better for you?"

  Rick curved his hand around hers to remove it, but instead, held it against his chest and replied, "I don't know. Well I do, but it's not going to happen."

  "Would that make things better for you?" Sophie asked, laying it all out on the table.

  "Yeah," Rick said. "It would discharge a whole lot of tension, but like I said, it's not going to happen." He released her hand and curved his fist into a knot like it had been when she came in, and dropped it against his knee.

  Sophie wanted to lift his hand and uncurl those big fingers and hold his hand against her face and maybe kiss his palm and let him know she cared enough to do whatever it took to help him come to terms with things, whether it was with their relationship, or with his mother's death, or the revelation about Marc. Instead, she rested her hand on his arm and said, "Am I so different from the women you were talking about who you'd spent evenings with, when you had mutual needs? Maybe I have needs too."

  "Like I said, humans are sexual creatures, so what you're feeling is pretty elemental, but if I did it with you tonight I'd get rid of a whole lot of tension, but I'd also be using you like my mom was using that kid," he said, in a brooding voice.

  "You've got to put the seedy side of your mother behind," Sophie said. "I've done that with my mom. She has a past she regrets and can't change, but she and my dad did the best they could to make sure I didn't fall into the trap of using sex to get ahead, and because of my impulsive behavior, I have a past I can't change."

  "What you did was nothing. One evening of letting go."

  "But now you have an image of me sprawled across some nameless guy's lap with his hands all over me, and me doing nothing to stop him, and if there was any way I could scrub that image from your mind I would because that scene will always be there to remind you that I'm—"

  "Human," Rick cut her off. "I'm not going to hang onto that image. Until you brought it up it was pretty much gone."

  "Then can't you do that with your mother?" Sophie asked. "When you stood up at her funeral I was so proud of you, knowing how troubled you were about the way she was, yet loving her unconditionally. Now you need to focus on the angel who sat by your bed. I saw a little of that side of her when I was staying with her and that's what I focus on now."

  Rick said nothing, but from the intense look on his face she knew he was mulling it over.

  She ran her hand down his arm and over his fist and uncurled his fingers, then brought it to her lips and kissed the flat of his palm, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw the spark of his old love burning. Running her hand up his chest, she said, "Don't shut me out of your life."

  Rick covered her hand with his and moved it over his heart, and she could feel the heavy beat against her palm. "I'm not meaning to," he said, continuing to hold her hand against him.

  "Then are we friends again?"

  This time Rick lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, and said, "I don't know what we are."

  "Then let me show you." Pulling her hand free, Sophie slipped her arms around his neck and lifted her face to his, and in an instant his lips were on hers in a kiss that was deep and demanding and spoke of a need so strong he tightened his arms around her and pulled her down to lay on the sofa with him, while pressing her body to his.

  As their tongues searched and entwined, Sophie thrust her fingers into Rick's hair and pulled his
face closer, wanting more of him, wanting all of him, until her lips tingled, and her heart thumped a staccato beat, and still she couldn't seem to get enough of him. He drew her tighter to him, until her breasts were pressing against the wall of his chest. Then his lips became demanding, and she returned the kiss with a passion she'd never known, and when he moved his hands down her spine and she felt that part of him thrusting up, she wanted him more.

  She didn't question what was about to happen, only that it was right that tonight, in the stable where she and Rick had spent hours together over the years, she’d give up the virginity she'd held in tact for the man she was certain she wanted for a lifetime of loving. But now she was anxious to feel the length of Rick's naked body against the length of hers, so when he started to strip off her clothes, and his, she made no move to stop him. But when she moved to allow him to join his body with hers, his muscles bunched, and he started to get off from on top of her.

  "Don't," Sophie said in a ragged voice. "I'm not just any woman."

  "I know," Rick replied, "which is why this has to stop."

  "No," Sophie countered, "it's why it shouldn't stop." She pulled his head toward her, and when their lips again met, he let out a sound deep in his throat then slowly, tenuously joined his body with hers. His movements were cautious at first, but when she let out a little sigh of satisfaction, he quickened his pace until her body was filled with the need for him, a need she'd never known until now, and would never be completely whole again without. Then she felt the pulsating rhythm of his life-force spilling into her, so she clung to him, meeting his thrusts, until she was aware of nothing but wave upon wave of erotic sensation spiraling through her.

  After a while, Rick rolled onto his side and cradled her against him. His breath caressed her ear, as he said, "Are you all right?"