A Long Time (And at One Point Illegal) Crush
By Janette Rallison
Copyright 2013 Janette Rallison
Other titles by Janette Rallison
Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards
All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School
Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws
Fame, Glory, and Other Things on my To Do List
It’s a Mall World After All
Revenge of the Cheerleaders
How to Take The Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend
Just One Wish
My Fair Godmother
My Unfair Godmother
My Double Life
Slayers (under pen name CJ Hill)
Erasing Time (under pen name CJ Hill)
Kindle Edition, License Notes
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A warning voice might have come in handy for Elsie Clark, but as she turned her ancient Civic onto Windham Road, she didn’t hear that type of voice. She looked out across the sloping hills that lay in front of the snow-covered mountains, and the voices she heard whispered, “Come back and stay where you belong. This is home.”
Elsie had been ignoring those voices since she left Lark Field, Montana, nearly three years ago. She’d moved on, she reminded herself, outgrown the small-town life. If she moved back here, everyone would see her as the same Elsie Clark she’d been in high school. Kye McBride would see her that way too.
She didn’t want to think about Kye, but it was hard not to while she drove across his ranch. Whenever she made this drive back—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now for her brother’s wedding—she was afraid Kye would pop up somewhere along the road. It was a stupid worry, really. The Windham Ranch consisted of twenty-thousand acres. It wasn’t as if the McBrides would be strolling around the road looking for familiar cars. Still, if there had been another way to get to Lark Field, Elsie would have taken it.
She drove around a curve that followed the contours of a riverbed and saw the cows. Two of them stood idly in the road, each poking through the snow on the shoulder as though something tasty might be buried underneath.
Elsie slowed down, and when the cows didn’t move, she idled and gave her horn a short tap. Neither cow moved. In fact, both turned and looked at her placidly. She waited a few moments, then hit the horn harder. It let out a scolding blare.
One of the cows turned and strolled up to the hood of her car. Its soft brown eyes stared at her while it breathed out frosty puffs. It had moved, but there still wasn’t a way to pass the cows without hitting them. Elsie waited for one of them to saunter off somewhere, to shuffle by her car so she could scoot around them. A minute went by, then two, then three. The cows only stared at her expectantly and mooed.
This was great. With Elsie’s luck, if she drove off the road to go around them, she’d either get stuck in the snow or end up puncturing a tire. And that would be just what she needed—to get stuck on Kye’s ranch.
Elsie noticed movement in her rearview mirror. She turned around and saw that another cow had wandered onto the road behind her car.
It was then Elsie felt the first inklings of panic. She was boxed in. If she moved her car in either direction, she’d hit a cow. And she knew the price of beef. The only thing that would be worse than getting stuck on Kye’s ranch would be having to tell him she’d killed one of his cows. Elsie laid on the horn again, this time long and hard.
Nothing happened. She didn’t even get a reaction from the cows—unless you counted the way they were looking at her curiously and sniffing the car’s headlights. Off to her right, she spotted two more cows ambling her way, ready to join the others for this impromptu cow party.
What the . . . ? Why had her car suddenly become a cattle magnet?
Elsie put the car in reverse and twisted in her seat. She would find a way around the cow behind her. At this point, she wouldn’t mind backing up the entire way to the main road.
Unfortunately, while she’d been honking at the cows in front of her, another cow had wandered up behind the car. They blocked the road that way too. She stared at them in disbelief. This was beginning to feel like the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds. She’d wound up in a cattle sequel. Elsie honked the horn in a staccato rhythm and glared at the wet nose now eye level with her window. “Don’t you know that people eat you?” she told it. “Where is your fear of predators?”
None of the cows responded to that comment either.
It figured that Kye’s cattle would go out of their way to trap her on his property. She might as well turn off the car and wait them out. Only she didn’t dare turn off her car for fear it wouldn’t restart.
That was the thing about being a college student. She couldn’t afford a new car, and lately her Civic had a temperamental way of pretending its battery had died. It hadn’t. Elsie had replaced the battery a month ago when it had first started acting up. Now sitting here staring at Kye’s cows, she could read her future as well as if a fortune teller were slapping down the cards in front of her. Elsie would turn off her car, the cows would eventually go away, and then her Civic would go on strike and ignore all attempts to coax it into life by fervent key twisting.
When Elsie called home to report the problem, her parents would ring up the McBrides to have them give her a jump. Even if it wasn’t Kye who showed up with jumper cables, he would hear about the event. And he would think it was some pathetic attempt on her part to see him again.
He wouldn’t believe she’d been waylaid on the road by a small but insistent herd of cattle. He wouldn’t believe she’d had a real reason to turn off her car in the middle of his ranch. Elsie could hardly believe it herself, and she was staring at said cattle.
Elsie pulled out her cell phone but couldn’t think of anyone to call for help. Did 911 handle this sort of thing? It didn’t matter. Anyone she called in Lark Field would call the McBrides and have them deal with it. Worse still, anyone she called would ask her why she hadn’t just called the McBrides in the first place.
Elsie shoved her phone back in her purse. Well, this is what she got for going out of her way to avoid Kye McBride for the last three years. Fate was having a joke at her expense.
Elsie honked the horn again, not expecting it to do any good, but the blare sounded like the car was swearing, so it was appropriate.
Then things got worse. Up until that moment there had been a chance this cow traffic jam would clear up on its own and Kye would never know she’d been trapped here. If things had gone the way they were supposed to, Elsie wouldn’t have to see him until tomorrow night at the wedding rehearsal where she would be flawlessly made up. She had planned to graciously ignore Kye while she was busy being stunning.
Now that scenario was shot. Elsie glanced in her rearview mirror and saw him coming over a rise on his horse. Even in his thick jean coat and cowboy hat, she knew it was Kye and not one of the ranch hands. She recognized his height and shape, tall and thin enough that you didn’t notice how muscular he was at first. Elsie could tell it was him by the way he held himself, self-assured but casual.
Kye had seen her, had undoubtedly recognized her car. It was the same one she’d had in high school. Instead of looking stunning, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt, had done nothing with her hair except run a brush through it sev
eral hours ago, and she barely wore any makeup. Now Kye was coming over to see why she was planted on the middle of his ranch surrounded by an entourage of cows.
* * *
The first time Elsie had ever seen Kye, she had been eight and he’d been fourteen. He’d come home from school with her older brother, Carson, to do math homework. Before long the guys had ended up outside on the driveway shooting hoops. Back then, Kye had looked years younger than Carson. He’d been short and wiry with arms and legs that seemed too long for his body. Even at that, he’d still been cute. He had thick brown hair and dark blue eyes the same shade as the Montana sky right after sunset.
Later on, when Elsie was old enough to look back on all the times Kye came over to help Carson study, she realized why the two of them had always ended their study sessions playing basketball. Kye was years ahead of her brother when it came to math. Carson must have hated that—being outdone by someone who looked like he still belonged in junior high. Carson could only take being tutored for so long before he had to prove he was better than Kye when it came to sports.
But back when Elsie was eight, she’d only seen that her brother was outside playing, and she wanted in on the action. She had two other brothers between her and Carson, and neither of them ever had much time for her, even though she tried to be one of the guys whenever she could.
Elsie took her basketball outside, the one with her name written in purple marker across it. She made a shot from the edge of the lawn. It didn’t even manage to hit the basket.
“Go away,” Carson told her in the cuttingly impatient way big brothers had. “You’re bugging us.”
Elsie hurried after her ball before it rolled into the street. “Three people can play,” she said. “Lucas and Mason play with you all the time.”
“Yeah,” Carson said, dribbling the ball with such ease it looked like his hands were magnets the ball was drawn to, “but you’re no good. Go play dolls or something.”
Even though Elsie didn’t know who Kye was, she felt the extra sting of being insulted in front of him. She clutched her ball, tears welling in her eyes. Her name, so proudly written on her ball, blurred in her vision until the letters melted together.
“It’s okay,” Kye said, coming toward her. “She can be on my team.” He effortlessly hoisted her up on his shoulders. Ranch work had made him stronger than he looked. “Now we’re taller than Carson,” Kye said, “so it’s almost fair.”
She had giggled and beamed and cheerfully missed shot after shot. Kye didn’t seem to mind. He kept saying things like, “Dang—the basket ducked out of the way. That should have been a three-pointer.”
He probably had only recruited her on his team so he had a reason to lose. Maybe he didn’t like being reminded of his deficiencies in basketball any more than Carson liked being reminded of his shortcomings in math.
It didn’t matter. After that Elsie adored Kye, worshipping him with a dedication only an eight-year-old could sustain. Elsie renamed all of her Ken dolls Kye. Her family went to the same church as Kye’s, and while the congregation bowed their heads in prayer, Elsie would peek open her eyes and blow Kye furtive kisses. She looked for him at every one of Carson’s school events and ballgames—Kye did eventually get taller and better at not only basketball, but baseball too. She cheered for him louder than she cheered for her brother.
Every time Kye came over during the next four years of high school, she hung around like a stray puppy waiting to be noticed. I am going to marry you, she told him silently. She basked in those unsaid words, felt the power of them lifting her.
Kye never did notice her, though. Not really. Not in the way she wanted to be noticed. He grew even taller and more muscular. His glasses disappeared in favor of contacts. His boyish features sharpened into the crisp handsome lines of a young man.
On the night of their senior prom, Carson, Kye, and several of their friends brought their dates to the house. Elsie sat sulking on the stairs while her mother cooed over everyone, snapping pictures and throwing out compliments like they were confetti. Not once did Kye look in Elsie’s direction or smile at her. She was twelve and in braces, completely inadequate in the face of the glittering girls who glided around Kye and the others.
Elsie’s mantra of future marriage was drained of its magic that night. The words no longer had power to lift or warm her. The sentence sat in a mangled heap around her feet, deflated.
That was the last image she had of Kye before he went to college: Him in a tux, achingly handsome, never once turning to glance in her direction.
Now that same man was heading toward her car, and he was close enough she could see the amusement in his eyes—and something else, something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Annoyance maybe? Or worse, pity?
If her last Kye McBride sighting had ended on prom night, things wouldn’t have turned out so badly. Elsie eventually stopped acting like she wanted to be one of the guys and embraced all things girly—fashion, shoes, and makeup. She grew out her dark brown hair and had a way of running her fingers through it that made guys stop, pause, and take notice.
The only vestige of her crush on Kye was a permanent placement in advanced math. She had devoted herself to math back in elementary school on the off chance Kye would notice her report cards laying around and consider her brilliant. This never happened, at least not that she knew of, but by the time he’d left for college, she was too well entrenched in the gifted math program to let it all go.
If Kye hadn’t come back, Elsie would have remembered him as a childhood obsession that flared into and out of existence along with her crushes on actors and musicians. That’s where those crushes belonged—behind the unachievable and anonymous walls Hollywood had erected.
On the first day of her senior year, Elsie walked into her honors calc class and saw Kye writing Mr. McBride on the whiteboard in the front of the room.
Her arms went slack and her calc book slid from her hands onto the floor.
Kye turned at the sound. Elsie blushed bright red, hurriedly picked up the book, and slipped into a seat at the side of the room. He smiled at her, but it was just a piece of kindness—a sort of welcoming smile that said I’m not the sort of teacher who eats students. He showed no recognition, didn’t speak to her at all, until after he’d gone over the class rules, the syllabus, and was taking roll.
“Allie Anderson . . . Madison Basha . . . Tyson Boggle . . .” He marked off each student when they answered back.
Kye paused then, and Elsie knew he had come to her name, recognized it. He looked around the room, trying to spot her. His gaze passed right over her without stopping. “Elsie Clark?” he asked.
“Here,” she called back, already uncomfortable at the tone she’d used. It sounded too nervous, too questioning, as though she wasn’t sure herself if she really was here.
Kye’s gaze shot to her, and she knew he still didn’t recognize her. She had watched him grow up during his four years of high school, but he had never seen her change from the eight-year-old he’d played basketball with.
She breathed softly, carefully waiting for some sort of pronouncement from him. Notice me now, she told him silently. Really see me. I’m every bit as beautiful as the girl you went to prom with.
Kye’s eyebrows dipped together. “Are you Carson Clark’s little sister?”
“Yes,” she said, fighting a blush that threatened to creep back into her cheeks.
“Wow,” he said.
Wow. She could eat that word. She had waited long enough for it. Before she could hold the word up and admire his praise, he added, “I suddenly feel old. You were like, what, six when I left for college?”
Then he went on with the rest of the roll.
In so many ways those sentences had put her back on the stairs, an awkward, invisible girl with braces. It wasn’t a role she wanted. And it wasn’t a role she intended to keep.
Seventeen-year-olds are reckless in so many ways.
Chapter 2
Th
at night at dinner, Elsie had told her parents that Carson’s friend was her teacher. Her dad nodded as though it was a sad event, one to be mourned over. “Kye was going to get his electrical engineering degree, but after last year when his father had that knee injury, Kye got his teaching certificate instead. He came home so he could help run the ranch.”
Kye was the youngest of three children. Elsie didn’t know much about his older sister and brother except that they were both married and living in other states. Apparently neither could come back to help out on the ranch.
Elsie had never thought she could be grateful for someone’s injury before, but she was. Kye was back. He would be teaching at her school for at least a year. Best of all, he was gorgeous and still single.
Elsie’s mother took a bite of her lasagna. “It must be hard on him to be back home when most of his friends are gone.”
Gorgeous, single, and lonely—even better. Well, not really. But sort of. It wasn’t that long until she graduated. Only nine months. And then she and Kye could have a romantic whirlwind summer. She could picture them walking hand in hand across the overgrown grass on his ranch, sunshine pouring around them.
“Kye always loved my homemade applesauce,” Elsie’s mother went on. “I’ll send a bottle with you tomorrow to give to him.”
Strictly speaking, her mother’s applesauce was more like pie filling. That’s why everyone loved it.
The next day, Elsie was the first one to reach Kye’s classroom. She had been looking forward to giving the bottle of applesauce to him all day—had spent extra time on her hair and makeup in anticipation of this event—but now she just felt nervous. Transparent. It was one thing to be an eight-year-old with a crush on him. Now, well, this was entirely different. He was a teacher and she was a student. This could turn into the most awkward hour of the day if he knew how she felt. She fingered the jar of applesauce hidden behind her books and wished her mother hadn’t sent it.
Kye was sitting on the edge of his desk, flipping through the math book. His brown hair was mussed, and his button-down shirt a little wrinkled. Such a bachelor.
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