And now they remained for another reason. Although Tyler had been found and returned to his parents, there was still a lot of wired energy ricocheting among the residents, needing a harmless way to be rechanneled and discharged.
“Celebration’s on me,” Miss Joan announced, raising her whiskey voice so that everyone could hear, “now that there’s something to celebrate. C’mon.” She gestured for everyone in the square to follow her to the diner. There was no question in her mind that they would.
As people began to leave the square and walk toward the diner, Wynona noticed Clint turning away.
He was going home, she thought. Moving fast, she stepped in front of him, blocking his path.
Clint raised one expressive brow. “You’re in my way.”
She didn’t move. “Earlier today, before we started looking for Tyler, you came into the school. I got the impression you were looking for me and wanted to talk. Did you?”
All that seemed like a million years ago now, Clint thought. Wynona was looking at him, waiting for him to give her an answer.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I did.”
“About?” she asked, waiting.
He knew he couldn’t just walk away without answering. For one thing, the woman would follow him. He was beginning to learn that she was as stubborn as they came. So he told her.
“Ryan wanted me to ask you to come to dinner at the ranch.”
“Ryan wanted,” Wynona repeated. She continued watching him, as if she was waiting for more.
“Yeah.”
She waited a beat, but Washburn didn’t say anything further. What did she expect?
Because he had been the reluctant hero today, she cut him some slack. “And what did you want?”
Clint shrugged. He didn’t want to be put on the spot but he didn’t see a way out. Between clenched teeth, he said, “To make the boy happy.”
“Then I guess I can’t disappoint him—and indirectly—you,” she added, taking great pains to word her response carefully.
He shrugged, as if all this was a moot point. “It’s a little late for dinner now,” he told her.
“But not too late for a rain check,” Wynona pointed out.
He frowned. “You never not have an answer for everything?” he asked, irritated that he couldn’t just walk away from all this.
Wynona smiled, the teacher in her coming out. “That’s a double negative, Clint.”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, well, I guess I’m kinda tired.”
“Hey, you two, Miss Joan wants to know what’s taking you so long,” Angel Rodriquez, the diner’s resident chef, asked. “And she said to tell you not to even think about begging off. You two are the official heroes of this thing, finding Tyler the way you did.” The woman smiled understandingly at them. She knew that Miss Joan was a force to be reckoned with, same as they did. “This celebration’s as much for you as it is for him.”
Wynona could feel the man next to her bristling. She could guess what was going through his mind.
“If I remember my facts correctly,” she told him, “nobody’s ever crossed Miss Joan and lived to tell about it.”
Clint considered saying that he would be the first, but then decided against it. After all, this afternoon he’d come to ask Wynona to come to the ranch for dinner, so in a way, the location of the meal had just been changed.
He shrugged, as if he was giving in. “Then I guess I’d better not.”
“Smart man,” Wynona told him with a wide smile.
They fell into step behind Angel and began walking to the diner.
“You know, you surprised me,” Wynona confided to Clint in a whisper just before they reached their destination.
He was tempted to just let her remark go, but something goaded him to take this a step further. He supposed that his curiosity had gotten the better of him.
“How?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “You went on looking when I asked you to even though I know you wanted to go back the way the sheriff had instructed.”
“What can I say? I guess you’re just intimidating,” he quipped.
He was close to a foot taller than she was. Even if he weren’t, she couldn’t visualize Clint being intimidated by anyone or anything. That just wasn’t in the rancher’s nature.
“Yeah, right,” she laughed.
She saw a smile curve just the corners of his mouth a moment before she and Clint walked into the diner. “Well, you are,” he told her matter-of-factly.
Wynona wasn’t sure what came over her. Maybe it was the triumphant feeling that was all but vibrating through her because they had found Tyler and brought him back to his worried parents. Maybe it was that Clint’s smile, unconsciously sexy, had struck a kindred chord deep within her.
Or maybe, just for the moment, she was responding to a man she’d done her very best not to respond to from the first moment she had climbed over his fence and walked straight toward him.
Whatever the reason behind her actions, Wynona didn’t waste any time analyzing it. She just reacted.
Grabbing hold of the front of Clint’s shirt, she stopped him in his tracks and then she turned him toward her.
Before he could ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, she did it.
She kissed him.
Kissed him with all the unbridled emotion that was currently throbbing in her veins.
* * *
Had the woman blasted him point-blank with a shotgun, Clint thought that she couldn’t have surprised him any more than she did.
Stunned, Clint didn’t have time to think about what was going down. Instead, he just reacted the same as she did. Reacted like a suffocating man who had suddenly been connected to a tank of oxygen just mere seconds before he was officially pronounced dead.
Instincts that he had thought had been laid to rest permanently cracked through the invisible walls that he had carefully kept around himself these past seven years and suddenly took over.
He pulled Wynona to him, his arms closing tightly around her as he kissed her back, deepening the unplanned contact.
Without giving it any thought, he lost himself in the heat that had suddenly ignited in his veins, very nearly setting him on fire.
Just as she almost did.
Clint wasn’t sure just how long the kiss continued. The only thing he knew was that this woman had managed to awaken things within him that he’d talked himself into believing were dead and that he was better off because they were.
But they weren’t dead.
And neither was he.
When Wynona finally drew back—because she was the one who ended the kiss, not him—he found himself staring at her as if he had suddenly been struck mute. Clint struggled to get his bearings.
Struggled to appear unaffected even though he knew in his gut that he wasn’t going to fool her. It didn’t take a genius to know that she had to have felt him kissing her back.
Attack was always better than retreat. So he did. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
Rather than becoming defensive, he watched, almost in fascination, as a smile blossomed on her lips.
Not one of those self-satisfied or self-congratulating smiles that reeked of smugness, but a smile that radiated happiness. As if she was genuinely happy that he had felt something, the same as she did.
“If you have to ask, Clint,” she told him, “then it’s been even longer for you than it’s been for me.”
Clint cleared his throat. He didn’t want her thinking that. “No, I just—”
The door to the diner reopened just then and this time it was Miss Joan who was on the top step, one fisted hand at her waist as she looked at them. The fact that she was there herself instead of one of her waitresses was not wasted on them.
“Just how much of a personal invitatio
n do you two need?” Miss Joan asked. “Do I have to get the Murphy brothers to carry you into my establishment?” she asked, referring to the three men who were joint owners of the town’s only saloon. “The only way I got them to come here in the first place was to say that this was going to be in your honor. They even donated beer for the occasion,” she added.
It was a known fact that Miss Joan and the Murphys had agreed, years ago, that they wouldn’t serve meals in their establishment and in return Miss Joan had said that she would not serve spirits in hers. Neither of them had ever violated that agreement.
“They donated beer?” Clint repeated.
He was stalling. Stalling as he desperately tried to clear his brain so that he could come up with a decent excuse why he couldn’t attend this impromptu celebration Miss Joan was throwing.
Right now it felt to him like a fog had descended over his brain, completely blotting out his ability to think.
“That’s what it says on the cases they brought with them.”
Hazel-green eyes went from Wynona to Clint and then back again.
The knowing look on Miss Joan’s face testified that she knew more about what was going on between them than she pretended to. The act was strictly for their benefit, not hers.
“So, are you two coming in or what?” she asked. She didn’t bother hiding the impatience in her voice.
Wynona exchanged looks with Clint. Her heart was pounding so hard, she was afraid that Miss Joan would hear it. Most likely, the older woman would be able to see her throat throbbing.
She didn’t know why the woman wasn’t saying anything about what she had walked in on—Wynona was positive that the woman had seen them kissing—but she was really grateful to Miss Joan for choosing to refrain from making a comment.
Taking a breath, Wynona murmured, “Then I guess we’d better go in. Right, Clint?” It wasn’t an order, but a request, asking him to agree with her.
Wynona held the breath she had just taken, hoping that Clint would follow her lead and just go into the diner. If he didn’t, she had no doubt that Miss Joan would say something, not just to make Clint agree to come into the diner and join the others already there, but also to let him know that she had seen what they had just done. She also had no doubts that Miss Joan would comment on what she had seen.
She really didn’t want that out there. At least, not tonight.
“Right,” she heard Clint say. And then, as she watched, she saw him follow Miss Joan into the noisy diner.
Only then did Wynona release the breath she was holding.
She hardly felt her feet as she walked in behind Clint.
Chapter Fourteen
Because it looked as if the diner was going to be so crowded, Clint assumed that he could just slip in, and subsequently out again shortly thereafter totally unnoticed.
Instead, the moment he and Wynona walked into the place Miss Joan presided over like a somewhat benevolent empress, they instantly became the center of attention. All the people within the establishment stopped talking, as well as what they were doing, and within seconds a round of applause swept throughout the restaurant until it swelled, becoming a wave that quickly encompassed everyone.
“I guess there’s no escaping now, Clint Washburn,” Wynona said, smiling up at him.
If it was humanly possible, Clint looked even more uncomfortable now than he had when he first began to cross the threshold.
He probably would have fled, except for the fact that every avenue of escape was blocked by at least two or more human obstacles. There was nowhere to go.
“Relax,” Miss Joan whispered, coming up behind him. “There are worse things in life than being regarded as a hero.”
Clint didn’t want to be “regarded” at all. All he ever wanted to do was to continue going about his life unnoticed.
“How did you know where to find Tyler?” someone called out from within the crowd.
Sensing how very uncomfortable Clint was right now, Wynona answered for him.
“We really didn’t know. We just continued searching through the quadrant of the area we were assigned.” Seeing that the crowd wanted more, she elaborated. “We thought that Tyler might have looked for shelter in a cave or just about anywhere that would provide him with some kind of protection away from the elements.”
She glanced toward the man next to her. “Clint remembered that there were burrows in the area, so we checked them out. And that’s where we found Tyler, in the last burrow,” she concluded with a smile just as someone pushed a mug of beer into her hands.
“Had to be more to it than that,” Garrett Murphy insisted.
“Maybe a little more,” Wynona allowed. “But right now I think we’re both just too tired to remember the details.” Her smile widened. “The point is, Tyler’s back with his parents.”
“But—” Another Forever resident protested, trying to get more of the story out of one or the other of the heroes.
That was when Miss Joan intervened, moving into the middle of the discussion. She eyed Liam Murphy, another one of the three brothers. “You heard them,” the woman said authoritatively, “Wynona said they were tired. Back off, Murphy, or I’ll cut you off from your own beer,” she warned.
Liam inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, raising his hands to show that he was surrendering to the inevitable. There was no shame in that. Everyone knew that Miss Joan always won.
Clint appeared rather impressed that despite the legend that existed about her, the thin, at times downright fragile-looking woman could cast such a powerful, almost intimidating shadow.
At this point, Wynona took the opportunity to lean into him.
“You don’t have to stay too long,” she told Clint, her voice low as she whispered the words into his ear, not wanting to be overheard by anyone else. “You just have to stay long enough to let people thank you.”
Clint was intrigued by her reasoning. She made it sound as if it was all him and they both knew that it wasn’t.
“You were part of it, too,” he told her. “You were more than part of it, really. If it weren’t for you, I would have turned back,” Clint informed her in a quiet voice.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” she countered knowingly.
He felt Wynona’s breath skim along his neck and cheek as she spoke. Felt a shiver skimming through him in response that he had to consciously tamp down.
This was not the time to react to the woman. Actually, there was no right time to react to the woman. He’d sworn to himself that he was done with that sort of thing. Allowing himself to react only led to complications he wanted no part of.
“You claiming to know me better than I know myself?” he challenged. The woman hardly knew him at all.
Wynona’s mouth curved and he felt her smile curling its way through his insides even as he struggled to try to block it.
“Maybe I do,” Wynona answered.
Before he could say anything, Wynona’s cousin descended on them, placing a hand on either of their shoulders. Shania’s eyes were sparkling as she said, “I knew if anyone could find that boy, you would.”
It wasn’t clear to Clint if Shania was talking to just her cousin, or if her comment was meant for both of them. Whatever the case, he did what he could to shift the emphasis strictly onto Wynona.
“She insisted on going on even after it grew too dark to be able to see more than a few feet in front of us,” he told Shania.
Shania nodded, pride evident in her voice as well as in her smile. “Wynona’s always been pushy like that. I’d watch my step if I were you,” she added, this time looking directly at him.
Clint frowned. Was she actually making some kind of reference about them actually being a couple? His back went up.
“Why would I have to—”
Clint never got to finish his question, or to
voice a denial.
Interrupting him again, Shania laughed as she winked at him. “Just know that forewarned is forearmed,” she told him. “I’ll leave you two to mingle with your adoring fans.” And with that, Wynona’s cousin quickly slipped away.
Wynona saw that Clint was frowning again. It struck her almost as odd that he looked rather cute when he did that.
“I don’t want to mingle,” he protested, although she noticed that he wasn’t just walking out of the diner, either.
“I think that’s been taken out of your hands,” Wynona pointed out. But then she added once again, “Give this just a little longer.”
As far as he was concerned, he’d already given this more time than he’d intended. But because he didn’t want to cause a scene—or argue with Miss Joan—he resigned himself to remaining at the celebration “a little longer” as Wynona had suggested.
But just a little longer, Clint underscored in his mind.
The crowd gathered around them seemed to have other ideas.
Everyone wanted to buy them a drink, or at least share in the moment with them. Everyone, apparently, appeared to be flying high on a combination of good will and good feelings.
So they stayed longer.
It was only several hours later that Wynona finally offered up an exit excuse that was acceptable to the good citizens of Forever.
“Tomorrow is a school day and I need to get some sleep if I’m going to be of any use to my students,” she declared, her words making the rounds in a general fashion. Specifically, Wynona’s excuse provided Clint with a reason that allowed him to detach himself from the festivities, as well.
“I’ll take you home.” The words came out of Clint’s mouth before he fully realized just what he was saying or the significance that others might very well wind up attaching to them.
The full import of his words was communicated when Wynona looked at him in surprise.
The Cowboy's Lesson in Love Page 13
