by Jen Peters
If it was custody. Her heart clenched—was it possible he was married?
She sent her mind back, replaying every conversation they had had. He had talked about loving the ranch life and never wanting to do anything else. He had talked about childhood memories. But mostly, he kept the conversation on her.
Maybe he just didn’t talk too much about private stuff.
Still, he had opened up about his father dying and that was pretty private. But maybe that was only because he had to explain why he was on his uncle’s ranch.
He never said he had kids, but he never said he didn’t. Same for marital status. She had just assumed. Good heavens, she didn’t even know if he was single!
But there had been sparks between them from the very beginning, sparks that had blossomed into feelings and those oh-so-delicious kisses. She couldn’t have been misreading it all, not unless he was a total scumbag.
She’d been misled before, though, placing her trust in someone who didn’t deserve it. It certainly could happen again. Maybe he was just leading her on, getting his kicks away from the drudgery of family life. Maybe he was a serial cheater she would have heard about if he’d lived there very long.
Don’t be stupid. Her imagination was really getting ridiculous now. Of course he wasn’t married. Of course he wasn’t getting his kicks out of leading her on.
She had to get a hold of herself. But she had dated so few guys that she really didn’t know how to read them, didn’t have the right questions to ask all lined up and ready to go. Her old college roommate would have rolled her eyes and said, “Typical Robin.”
Could she help it if she’d never gone from guy to guy? Her roommate seemed to think that was what college was for, but Robin had enough trouble opening up to girlfriends. She never would have managed it with various boyfriends.
So look where it left her. She eyed Cliff, noted the grin on his face, the joy when the little boy squealed in delight. He finally slowed the swing down and said something to the boy, at which the child slid out of the seat and slumped his way toward the parking area.
Cliff didn’t follow immediately, though. He bent over the stroller behind him, adjusted something, then wheeled it carefully over the grass.
Not only a child, but a baby too! Or at least someone young enough to nap in a stroller. It had to be a nap—anyone awake would have been squalling for attention.
“Heel, Soldier,” she said to the dog sitting obediently beside her. Soldier didn’t care about any of the possibilities running through Robin’s mind. Sometimes she’d like to be a dog. Right now, she’d settle for putting her heart back in its place and getting on with her life.
“Let’s go home.”
Chapter 19
Robin found herself at the grocery store Sunday afternoon, looking for pecans. When Mom got the urge to make cinnamon rolls, Robin would drop most anything to help. She wound through the produce section first for a few snacking apples before heading for the main aisles.
A toddler was gleefully taking oranges from the display, while his mother let him giggle and kept cycling them back. And older child swung himself from the handle of the shopping cart.
It was the boy that Cliff had been pushing on the swings.
She looked closer at the mom: dark, auburn hair and a not-too-slender figure, dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. Tennis shoes, not cowboy boots.
Robin tried to picture her with Cliff, and it was all too easy. Besides, there was something about the boy that reminded her of Cliff. The color of his eyes? The way he turned his head? No, it was the way a piece of his cowlick stuck up in the air.
She turned to leave before her tumbling thoughts got out of hand, then turned back. This was an opportunity to find out, and she wasn’t going to be a mouse and let it slide by.
She approached the other side of the orange display, picking one up and examining it. “He’s having fun,” she said, smiling at the giggling toddler.
The mom looked up. “Oh yes, it’s his favorite thing about shopping. A treat for being good through the rest of the store.”
“It must be hard, shopping with kids.”
The mom nodded. “It is, but if I wait for the weekend instead of trying to go when I’m tired from work, it helps. And the games keep it positive for the boys.”
The five-year-old spoke up. “If I can say the first letter of each thing we buy, I get to stay up late!”
Robin smiled at him. “I bet you’re pretty smart and get to stay up a lot!”
The boy chattered away while Robin wondered if she was a single mom. Could Cliff be the father? What could she ask that would tell her more?
The boy wound down, and the mom introduced herself. “I’m Carla. I’ve seen you around, haven’t I?”
“Uh, maybe,” Robin stammered, thinking fast. “I find homes for stray dogs, so maybe you’ve seen me walking some of them. I’m Robin Cooper.”
“Oh, Cliff knows you!”
Robins heart dropped to the floor like a scolded dog. There it was, confirmation.
“He said you’ve got quite a way with animals,” Carla continued. “Is the dog okay?”
The dog? Oh, Jinx. “H-he’ll be fine, but he’s going crazy right now.” She was feeling a little crazy herself. She really needed to leave. “He has to clump around in his cast for another week or two. I have to keep keep him penned up until then and he wants to be with the other dogs.”
“Must be frustrating to see what you want and not be able to have it.”
Robin grimaced. Was the woman playing with her? Her pulse pounded. She took a shallow breath, but couldn’t think of what to say.
“Hey, my two favorite ladies!”
Robin whirled at the sound of Cliff’s voice. A sappy grin covered his face. And his cowlick was identical to the boy’s. He seemed casual and comfortable, shopping with his family on a typical Sunday. It made perfect sense, after all.
She just didn’t want to be around them right now.
“Hi Cliff,” she managed to get out. “You have a lovely family, but I have to go now.” She turned toward the door as Carla burst into laughter. Her shoulders stiffened and she increased her pace. She was not going to turn back just to be ridiculed.
“A lovely family? Robin, wait!” Cliff’s footsteps hurried after her. “It’s not what you think!”
No? Who would be out grocery shopping with his family on a Sunday afternoon besides a husband?
He caught up to her, grabbed her arm to foil her escape. “We’re not a family. Well, we are, but not like that. Carla is my cousin.”
His cousin? Robin looked at him, then back at Carla, who was trying valiantly to smother her laughter but not succeeding very well.
“Really,” Cliff promised. “She’s a teacher here in town and Elijah and Joey are, well, I call them nephews but I guess they’re some other sort of cousin..”
“So when I saw you in the park…”
“You were in the park? Oh, yesterday. Yeah, I take the boys when Carla’s desperate for some horse time, or just to give her a break once in a while.”
Carla approached with the cart, an orange still in the toddler’s hands. “You really thought we were married?”
Robin felt the embarrassment creeping up her cheeks. “He seemed like a regular dad pushing these guys on the swings, and then here…”
Carla chuckled again. “I get it. It’s only that the idea of being married to this lunk is hilarious. He’s a little too young for me and I know way too many of the stupid things he did when he was little.”
Robin’s heart still pounded. She forced a knowing grin on her face. “Oh? Tell me some good stories.”
“Whoa, ladies,” he interrupted. “Let’s not get carried away. Carla, don’t you have ice cream melting in your cart? And Elijah has opened the Lucky Charms.”
Carla gasped and grabbed the open cereal box out of the older boy’s hand. “I can’t take my eyes off you, can I?” She gave a weak smile back at Cliff and Robin a
nd headed for the checkout lane. “You two enjoy yourselves, now.”
Robin could feel Cliff’s eyes on her. Never, never, would she let her imagination take charge again. She made herself look up. “So. Cousins. Just what kind of escapades did you get into when you were young?”
Cliff grinned. “Nothing you’re going to hear about from me.” He took her carry basket from her. “Now, what can I help you find? And did you really think I was married?”
Robin felt the flush creep up her neck and flood her face. “I guess I was being stupid, as usual. I just…you know how my imagination can take off on its own.”
“Hey, wait a minute.” Cliff pulled her to a stop next to the yogurt and looked into her eyes. “First, you are not stupid. You hear me?”
Robin nodded mutely and looked at the floor.
He tipped her chin back up. “You’re not. And your imagination needs to remember this.” He leaned down and kissed her softly, then kissed her again, lingering, promising, utterly marvelous.
Marvelous enough to ease her jitters, at least for a while.
* * *
Robin dropped the pecans off just in time for her mother to include them in her cinnamon rolls, and headed straight to Ree’s house, hoping Mitch wasn’t down for the weekend. She felt a bit like a sixth-grader again, but a pinky-swearing, friendship-bracelet-making BFF was just what she needed right now.
Ree opened the door, the house blissfully quiet behind her. “What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.
Robin ignored the question. “No Mitch?”
“He’s catching up on stuff back in Portland. Not easy when he has to finish his old clients’ work and get up to speed on the Foundation.” Ree gave her a hard look and Robin suddenly found herself wrapped in a bear hug.
“Now tell me what’s happened,” Ree said, “because something obviously has.” Ree deposited Robin on the sofa, disappeared for a moment, then returned with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey and two spoons.
Robin reached for it slowly. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“With Cliff?” Ree suggested.
“Of course.” Robin took a mouthful and groaned. “Oh my gosh, this is just what I needed.”
“So?”
“So you’ll never believe what happened. I saw Cliff in the park yesterday, pushing a boy on the swings. And he had a littler one in a stroller. And I thought he was married, or divorced, or something, and he’d kept it all a secret from me.”
Ree’s eyes went wide and she swallowed hard. “Cliff? A dad?”
Robin nodded, taking another huge spoonful. “I thought of all kinds of scenarios and, well, let’s say I didn’t sleep much. And then I was at the store just now and I saw the kids with a woman.”
Ree’s mouth was still open, the ice cream starting to melt on her spoon.
Robin went into teasing mode. “So of course I had to see if I could find anything out. The kids are cute and the toddler was playing a game with oranges—”
“Robin!”
She laughed as Ree finally ate the dripping ice cream. “We talked and her name is Carla, and she knew I did a lot with the dogs and said Cliff has talked about me. And then Cliff showed up.” She took another slow bite of ice cream, savoring the chocolate chunks—and the impatience on Ree’s face.
“So of course I was devastated, and I said goodbye and to enjoy the day with his family and left as fast as I could.”
“Just like any sane person would do.”
“Except Carla burst out laughing and Cliff ran after me.”
“What?”
Robin grinned. “It turns out Carla and Cliff are cousins.”
Ree’s gasp helped soften the memory of the embarrassment. “I was mortified. Horribly. But we got it sorted out, and Cliff helped me with what was left of my shopping. And gave me a luscious kiss in the parking lot.”
She paused, reliving that kiss again. The warmth of his lips, the depth of green in his eyes, the way she felt in his arms. She finally tuned back in to Ree’s voice.
“So everything’s good between you? Then why did you look so wretched when you got here?”
Robin sighed and over-filled her spoon again, taking half of it in the first bite. She let the richness melt in her mouth and freeze her tongue, but it didn’t release the coil of anxiety tightening within her again.
“Robin?”
“I’m so confused.” She pursed her lips. “I don’t know if I can trust him.”
Ree dropped her spoon. “No way!”
“Well, it’s more that I don’t know if I can trust anyone. I mean, I’m really glad he’s not married or hooked up with someone, but what does it say about me that I instantly thought he was? And what do I really know about him? The fact that he’s a fantastic kisser doesn’t tell me anything.”
“No,” Ree smiled, “a guy can kiss you silly and still be a jerk. But you’ve spent time with him, too. You’re not falling in love with him just because of his kisses, are you?”
“Well…”
“Come on, Robin. You know him. He works hard. He cares about animals. He laughs with you, not at you. Right?”
The coil loosened, just a bit. “I guess.”
“You know,” Ree corrected her. “He’s a good guy. If there’s anything in his past he needed to tell you, he would have told you by now, because he’s falling in love with you, too.”
“Is he?” Robin wondered. She didn’t trust herself to know anything right now.
Ree blew her breath out hard. “Of course he is, even an idiot could see that if they spent five minutes with you. Look, I know you’ve been blindsided before, and not just from guys you dated, but you can trust Cliff. He’ll be there for you. And when he’s there over and over, you’ll figure out that he’s someone you can trust.”
Robin studied her best friend. “You promise?”
Ree smiled. “Pinky swear.”
Robin smiled back, her coil of anxiety relaxed into a long line. It might be a loopy line, but it was loose. “Okay, then. I’ll fight you for the last bite of Chunky Monkey.”
Chapter 20
Two days and two short-but-nice midnight phone calls from Cliff later, Robin pulled into the parking lot of Le Jardin. Rain-dark clouds started to spatter fat raindrops, and the drive from McCormick’s Creek to Salem had left her more rumpled than she’d expected. She smoothed down the fabric of her skirt, re-settled her jacket, and faced the restaurant with a deep breath. She could do this.
With her portfolio tucked under her arm, she dashed to the covered entry and held her head high as she approached the maitre d’. “I’m meeting Ms. Williams and Ms. Carlyle.”
The solemn man nodded his head. “Right this way, miss.” She followed him through beautifully laid tables to a corner table where two very different women were seated.
One was slender and elegant, her dark skin glowing and her hair streaming in a black waterfall down her back. The other was, well, frumpy. Average weight, average height, pale skin against faded red hair, and tweedy clothes that looked like she should be shooting grouse at Downton Abbey. Two extra places were set. One was undoubtedly for Robin, but she hadn’t expected anyone else.
The tall one stood. “Hello, I’m Tanesha Williams,” she said, extending her hand. “You must be Robin Cooper.”
Robin returned the handshake and nodded. “Thank you so much for meeting me. And you must be Ms. Carlyle?”
The frumpy lady nodded. “Yes, of course, do sit down. And I actually prefer ‘Mrs.’” She might have belonged at that grouse shoot after all—she didn’t have the posh accent, but there was something British about her. She motioned to a waiter.
Robin seated herself carefully. There was a menu at her place—was she supposed to order? She looked at it briefly as the others ordered. She was hungry after the drive, but didn’t dare get the riblets—no way could she eat those without making a mess of herself. “I’ll have a caesar salad please, with chicken.”
“And to drin
k?”
“Just water, please.”
Mrs. Carlyle took a dainty sip of water. “Mitchell tells us you’re from that family town of his, the one he’s fallen in love with.”
Robin nodded. “I think his great-grandfather started the town when they found enough gold to mine.”
They made small talk for a while, and Robin was telling Jinx’s tale when a striking blonde strode toward them. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, her tone all business. “I’ve already asked Geoff for a salad, so I won’t delay lunch.”
“We appreciate that,” Ms. Williams said. “Ms. Cooper here was just telling us about one of her dogs. Oh, I’m sorry, Robin. This is Erica Harrington-Lewis. I hope you don’t mind, but we thought she might be interested in hearing your proposal too.”
Ms. Harrington-Lewis took her seat and shook her napkin out with a snap. “I am. Would you tell us what you envision? And what you require in funding?”
So much for small talk, Robin thought, trying to keep her breathing even. “I want to start an animal shelter, one that will hold up to ten dogs and eight cats.”
No, that wasn’t how to start. She needed to drive this, not the donors. Regrouping, she began again. “I was telling Ms. Williams how I rescue abandoned animals, foster them to get to know their personalities and quirks, and then individually find homes for them. I do this personally, from my home, but there is a great need in McCormick’s Creek for more. The closest animal shelters are down in Eugene, almost an hour’s drive away. That’s farther than people want to take animals they need to re-home, so they dump them on country roads instead. It’s also farther than people want to go if they want to adopt a pet.”
That was better. She could go forward now, even if she was tensing up a bit. “If we had a shelter in McCormick’s Creek—”
The waiter appeared silently. “Excuse me, miss,” he said, sliding her salad in front of her.
When the others had their food, Robin took a single bite of salad, then continued. “A shelter in McCormick’s Creek would not only serve our community, but would give small towns close to us a resource to use.”
