Once Tempted

by Laura Moore

  “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, your great-grandfather was the second son so he went into the city and got a job in a bank. He and his wife lived in the city. His older brother’s family eventually sold the farm. So this family, the Knowleses, they have many sheep?”

  “I don’t know the exact number. It seems like a lot.”

  “And they have cows and horses and goats, too?”

  “Yeah. I met the goats, too. They weren’t quite as adorable as the lamb but they were pretty funny. One, her name is Hennie, likes to hit a ball with her head. The goats are dairy goats. And I have to say the cheese they make is delicious. Speaking of cheese, I got Mrs. Vecchio’s recipe from Anna so I’m all set to make my Italian dinner for the chef here. He’s going to love your baked penne.”

  “Don’t forget the gorgonzola. It doesn’t have the right pep without it.”

  “I won’t. I miss you.” She thought of the banter Quinn and Ward had exchanged, the love they—Reid included—had for one another. There was so much Chris would never know. “Will you tell Chris I miss him, too?”

  “Of course.” There was a short silence on her mother’s end. Then she spoke. “Teresa, these people, this place—your papa and I think it’s good you went there.”

  Tess swallowed the thick lump of emotion clogging her throat. “Thank you, Mom.”

  Ward was in a tack shop on the outskirts of Hopland. He had a fairly long list of items to pick up. Topping it was a dozen saddle blankets that had been woven with Silver Creek wool in a deal his father had negotiated several years ago with Clinton Stiles, the owner of the tack shop, and his sister, Clover, a weaver who owned The Fold in Acacia. Per their agreement, Clover bought wool from Silver Creek at a reduced price and wove a certain number of blankets for the ranch. The rest Clinton sold in the tack shop. Clover used their wool to make other items as well, spinning it into yarn and knitting sweaters and whatever else struck her fancy.

  Acacia had an artsy, homespun feel to it; its townsfolk liked the idea of wearing sweaters and scarves from sheep that were raised a few miles down the road. Tourists got a kick when they heard the wool came from the biggest ranch in the area. Ranch guests bought them as souvenirs.

  Normally Ward would have picked up the blankets in town at The Fold, but Clover was away, exhibiting her work at a wool festival in Oregon.

  Another item on his list was for Quinn. She wanted him to pick up a new bosal because she’d decided that if Tucker ever agreed to let her on his back she’d try him in a hackamore rather than a bridle with a bit. Ward figured if anyone was going to convince Tucker that humans were worthy of a ride, it would be Quinn.

  The vet had cleared Tucker of having any communicable diseases. As soon as she got the green light from Gary Cooney, Quinn had turned the gelding out with Harper and Bristol, two of their mellowest dudes, so docile and laid-back that it was the common joke that all they were missing in life was a sofa, a bag of Doritos, and a bong.

  Whenever Quinn passed by, they’d mosey over to the rail for a scratch and tickle and then follow her around the corral, just hoping for some more of her lovin’. Tucker, ever watchful, must have noticed that they had no fear of this human. By now Quinn could stand next to him without him rearing or pawing. Yesterday she’d even been able to apply the ointment Cooney had prescribed to Tucker’s gashes. The progress with Tucker thrilled Quinn.

  The autopsy results from the veterinary lab had determined the cause of death for their cow: redwater, a bacterial disease that colonized in the liver and then attacked the other organs. Mature cattle that contracted redwater could be healthy one day and dead the next. The diagnosis had come as something of a shock since they’d vaccinated the herd last spring. But Gary Cooney believed that perhaps the vaccine had worn off. His recommendation was to move to a six-month schedule for the vaccine. The loss of a healthy cow stung, but so far she was the only one to have contracted the disease. And at least redwater wasn’t infectious like brucellosis or leptospirosis, which could spread to other animals.

  Having selected a nice braided bosal, Ward had everything he’d come for, but instead of going to the register to pay up, he found himself in a different section of Clinton’s store. The boot section. The women’s boot section, to be precise.

  His eyes traveled along the rows of cowboy boots, their hues as varied as a rainbow, their stitching running the gamut from plain to intricate. He skipped the ones made of snakeskin, ostrich, and lizard. They weren’t made for doing more than showing off on a Saturday night. Besides, he couldn’t see Tess being too happy about wearing snakes.

  Aha, that was the boot for her, he thought. A Lucchese with whorls of purple stitching against distressed brown leather. The stitching made him think of the purple nail polish decorating her very pretty foot. The image of it remained fresh in his mind.

  He grabbed the boot off the wall. “Do these run true to size, Clinton?”

  “Yeah.” Clint nodded slowly. He did many things slowly. “I’ve heard tell they’re real comfortable. ’Course they’re Luccheses, so what would you expect? They’re not cheap,” he warned.

  “You got ’em in a size eight?” He’d caught a glimpse of the size of Tess’s high-heeled pump and somehow that piece of information, along with the rest of the things he’d learned about her, was seared in his memory.

  “Might have.” He ambled off in the direction of the stockroom.

  Ward sat down on the wooden bench, the sample boot in hand, and waited for Clinton to return.

  Yeah, these would look good on her, he thought. They were beautifully constructed and in a color just funky enough to appeal to her city girl side. Most important, the intricate stitching didn’t impede their function. And he wanted these boots to be functional.

  He realized that he’d begun a campaign of sorts with respect to Tess. And just as he would a business plan for the ranch, he intended to pursue this campaign thoroughly and successfully.

  The idea had been born the afternoon she’d shared a few reluctant comments about herself: her lack of a formal wedding; her neighbor’s nasty dog, Caesar the ankle biter; her brother Christopher’s autism. Her admissions had revealed a depth of pain that to Ward seemed all the more poignant for the effort she took to conceal it. Obviously a lot of things that should have been joyous in her life weren’t—he now strongly suspected her marriage had not been the happy union he’d initially believed; certainly her brother’s illness had taken a terrible toll on her family.

  The new assignment he’d given her of tweeting and creating a picture board of the ranch on Pinterest fit in neatly with his plan. He wanted to introduce her to the animals that were the heart and soul of Silver Creek.

  She’d already come a long way in the past week. The sheep were her favorites. Every day she went looking for Angie. A stunned smile would spread over her face when the lamb would come over. And while she was obviously leery of Tucker, Quinn’s rescue horse, she nevertheless stopped by the corral to see how he was faring.

  Despite her professed disinterest, it was easy to see that Tess’s fascination with the animals on the ranch was growing. He intended to nurture that fascination. The next step in his campaign was to get her astride a horse. These funky purple-stitched boots would forestall the first excuse she’d use: that none of her shoes or boots were suitable for riding.

  Knowing her as well as he did, he could guess what her second ride-avoiding attempt would be: a smart-aleck comment about how she’d rather have a car to drive than a horse to a ride. He had an answer for that, too. It was all in the timing, and he was planning with the precision of a general going into battle—because he knew Tess was going to do her damnedest to avoid getting on the back of a horse.

  That his mother had orchestrated it so that Tess and he would work together no longer irritated him. He wouldn’t change his mother—not even her matchmaking proclivity—for anything. Besides, he was willing to admit that something about Tess had gotten to him the mo
ment he spotted her behind the wheel of her smoking clunker. She’d been all huge, dark eyes and raw courage, and graced with the softest breasts he’d felt in a long time.

  “You’re in luck, Ward. We got a pair in size eight. Good thing, because Luccheses are special orders.”

  Clinton’s mellow drawl was as startling as the blare of a sixteen wheeler. Ward straightened on the wooden bench with a jolt. He had no idea how much time had passed while he’d been reliving the sensation of his arm brushing against Tess’s lush rack. It could have been minutes; it could have been hours.

  Clinton opened the cardboard box and pulled the tissue paper back for Ward’s inspection. “That’s going to be one happy lady.”

  Ward surely hoped so.

  Walking along the winding gravel path that led to her cabin, Tess slowed when she spotted the large cardboard box resting against the cabin’s door. Had Anna mailed her something? she wondered. She’d already sent the blue resin necklace she’d found for Adele—perfect timing since Adele and Daniel were due to leave the next day for South Carolina. They’d be spending ten days with Daniel’s sister and brother-in-law, helping them ready their inn for its grand opening. From there they would fly to Spain for their romantic getaway.

  No, the box couldn’t be from Anna. It was way too big—unless she’d decided to send a good-luck cooking pot to bolster Tess’s nerves for the meal she was making for Jeff and Roo and their kitchen staff the following night.

  Curiosity had her quickening her pace. Surprise had her widening her eyes. There was no address or stamp on the wrapped brown paper; there was only her first name written in black ink. But she recognized the bold angular script. A flutter of excitement burst inside her.

  Ignoring the damp cold of the afternoon, Tess plunked herself down on the stoop next to the box, hauled it onto her lap, and tore open the wrapping. Her breath came out in an “Oh” of astonishment at the box’s contents.

  They were fantastic, she thought as she trailed her fingers over the surprisingly soft leather. Admittedly cowboy boots weren’t her usual style, but maybe it was time to branch out and recognize that craftsmanship was craftsmanship. Prada couldn’t have done better. It amazed her that Ward had gone and bought her a pair of boots. She lifted one out of the box and peered at the size stamped inside. Eight. Damn, the man was good.

  Obviously she’d have to try them. She’d been planning on changing into jeans anyway. It was cold out and Tess had yet to take her daily picture of Angie, who’d started to have a fan club of sorts among Silver Creek’s Twitter followers. And Reid, when he’d stopped by her office bearing a much-appreciated cup of coffee, had mentioned that the night before, a sorrel mare (she didn’t admit she had no idea what “sorrel” meant) had given birth.

  According to Reid, the foal was a great going-away present for Daniel and Adele. They’d been waiting for this maiden mare to deliver. A newborn foal would make a great addition to the collection of images she was posting on Pinterest.

  Boots and box in her arms, she scrambled to her feet.

  NO LONGER CONVINCED that the animals were determined to stampede her, Tess had grown somewhat more comfortable going down and observing them. She’d even become accustomed to the bustle of the barns in the afternoon, when the hands herded the sheep and young lambs into their barn for the night to protect the young lambs from the freezing night temperatures and predators. Holly and Frank Boone, a married couple who’d worked at Silver Creek for the past ten years and had begun dispensing information whenever Tess was in their company for longer than five minutes, informed her that coyotes had started making a comeback in the area. The thought of Angie or her brother, Arlo (Quinn had named him that), being dragged off by a coyote horrified her.

  When she arrived at the barns, the flock of sheep and lambs was being herded into the sheep barn by Pete and Frank and two of the dogs. The dogs were keeping in line the strays that didn’t understand that the sound of Holly rattling a bucket was a good thing, the promise of hay and other delicious feed. She was pretty sure Angie, Arlo, and their mother weren’t that dim.

  Tess would have followed the woolly herd but, glancing to the left, she noticed Quinn, Daniel, and Adele standing by the large corral.

  They were watching Ward. He was on horseback, riding a horse whose coat made her think of blue steel as it moved through the dull light of the late afternoon.

  She had no idea what he was doing, only that it was complicated and exceptionally beautiful. It involved the horse surging from a stop into a full-out run only to stop again, sometimes stopping so quickly that the horse seemed to sink on its hind legs as its front hooves slid forward in the soft dirt. It looked as if the horse was going to sit down on its muscled rear.

  Ward and his horse must have known what they were doing, because they never went barreling through the wooden fence as she half-expected each time they raced from one end of the corral to the other. From what she could tell, this was a standard move, for though Quinn and her parents were watching attentively, Adele hadn’t slapped her hand over her eyes in fright.

  Tess recovered her breath only to lose it again; Ward’s full-tilt racing and stopping on a dime ended, to be replaced by an equally improbable move. His horse started spinning around in a tight circle, his rear hooves pivoting in one spot. How it could whirl like a twister was incredible. Even more astonishing was that, through it all, Ward remained motionless in the saddle.

  It was an extraordinary spectacle, but she couldn’t say she was sorry when the horse ceased its supersonic circling. As seamlessly as the spinning had started, it stopped, and the gray horse was standing stock-still, its hooves perfectly aligned. Ward leaned over to pat its neck with his gloved hand.

  Next to her, Quinn spoke. “So, did you film that?”

  To her surprise, Tess realized that she had indeed trained her iPhone on Ward. She supposed she’d gotten so used to taking pictures and short videos during the past week that it had become second nature, no conscious thought necessary. “Yeah.”

  “Don’t stop recording. Reid and Carlos are bringing in the steers now, so Ward can give Bilbao some practice working the cattle. Bilbao’s still learning.”

  “You mean Ward’s not done yet? That was like a warm-up?” Tess whispered incredulously.

  Quinn grinned. “Pretty much. Ward was working on Bilbao’s rundown and reining techniques. Now Bilbao’s going to track and trail one of the cattle. He’s getting good at it. I think he’s been watching Sirrus, Reid’s horse.”

  Quinn’s voice had risen as the air became filled with the lowing and heavy stomp of cattle. Daniel moved away from his place at the fence to open the gate to the corral and waited as a dozen or so black and red cattle entered it, followed by Reid on a light gray spotted horse with an inky black mane and tail. Carlos, another of the hands, was also on horseback, but instead of entering the ring, he dismounted to stand by Daniel.

  A big mooing mass of hooves and swishing tails, the cattle trotted into the corral, which suddenly seemed to have shrunk in size. And though Reid was now in the ring, too, Tess couldn’t keep her eyes off Ward.

  He had kept Bilbao on the far end of the corral when the cattle entered, but now that they were clumped in a patchwork of red and brown hides he moved his horse toward them. Tess didn’t know what he and Bilbao were supposed to do. She had no idea what tracking and trailing involved, but she could tell that Bilbao was behaving differently. He walked straight into the cattle clustered together and broke them into two groups. She assumed that Ward told him to follow the smaller group that trotted into the center of the ring, for that’s what the horse did.

  For a second she couldn’t figure out what was happening, why the horse and the cows just seemed to be standing still in the middle of the ring. Then it became clear. Bilbao had fixed his attention on one of the steers, staring down a reddish brown one with a funny clump of hair sprouting between its ears. If she’d had to describe it, she’d have said Bilbao was giving the steer th
e evil eye. Then he shifted, lowering his dark gray head and moving forward with a menacing intent. She was reminded of how the sheepdogs slunk low to the ground when they were herding a stray sheep. The difference was, Ward’s horse was about two thousand times bigger than those dogs. Nonetheless it nimbly mirrored the steer’s every move as it dodged and feinted, trying to get around the horse and back to the herd.

  Bilbao wasn’t letting it. As he had earlier when Ward was “warming” him up, the horse sank back on his haunches, moving his front legs from left to right with incredible speed, refusing to let the steer pass. Blocking him the way a guard would in basketball. Tess had a sudden fond memory of the days of not playing basketball in school with Anna. Sister Louisa would have loved to have had Bilbao on defense.

  The horse had some crazy moves, all right. Throughout it all, Ward never interfered, just flowed with Bilbao’s rapid shifts, their bodies moving as one.

  Then Ward must have given him a signal, for Bilbao’s head, which had been stretched low to the ground the entire time, rose. He stood, his hooves aligned perfectly, looking beautiful and superior, and making it abundantly clear that he could no longer be bothered to summon any interest in something as bovine as a cow. Released, the steer galloped back to the herd.

  Even if she lived to be a hundred Tess doubted she’d ever be as cool as Bilbao had been for those brief minutes.

  Ward had noticed Tess standing next to Quinn when he ended Bilbao’s run with the steer. He was glad the young horse had performed well and put on a sterling show for her. He didn’t usually show off, but Tess had him doing things he’d never have done before.

  Like buying cowboy boots for a woman.

  He wanted to see whether she was wearing them. For some reason seeing them on her felt more important—more urgent somehow—than when he’d slipped the big sparkly diamond on Erica’s finger. The realization was startling, considering that he’d been set to share his life with Erica, considering how much he’d thought he’d loved her. At the moment, though, he didn’t care to analyze what his feelings signified. He simply had them. Period.