Gran shook her head. “Bummer. I mean, good for Tyler, but that would have been an easy solution.”
“Who needs easy? At this point, I’d settle for complicated if it would get the job done.” Saying it brought a pang, though, because there was one very complicated option that Krista had been doing her best to ignore ever since it snuck its way into her head in an annoyingly chirpy little chorus that started with Wyatt’s in town and went through several variations of He’d be perfect for the job.
Ugh. Unfortunately, her inner ranch boss had a point—he’d had a part-time job leading trail rides when they met in college, and even the rankest of beginners had swaggered like cowboys when they climbed off at the end of a ride with him.
“You’ll figure something out.” Gran patted her hand. “You always do.”
“From your lips, Gran. In the meantime, I’m going to hit the office and see if I can knock a few things off the to-do list.” Like confirming the hair and makeup people Jenny had found for Makeover Week and taking a crack at the growing digital mountain in her e-mail in-box. Maybe a message from the perfect fill-in would be waiting for her.
But instead of an “I heard you were looking for a temporary dude wrangler, here are my awesome creds” message, there were thirty other new e-mails since that morning—inquiries from potential guests, order info from suppliers, and a few offers to make parts of her anatomy bigger or smaller, depending.
Those could be deleted. The others she would have to deal with. Thing was, she couldn’t settle into a productive rhythm. Her eyes drifted to the window, her fingers tapped on the desk, and her toes beat a pattern on the floor. Just do it, she told herself. Just call him. She surged to her feet and paced the small space, resisting the urge to kick a box of logo-embroidered towels out of the way. It wasn’t their fault she kept coming back around to the seemingly perfect solution that made her want to stick a Bic in her eye.
Make the call. What’s the worst that could happen?
He could say no.
Or, worse, he could say yes.
Gah!
She already had the number—she had gotten it from the mayor, along with the go-ahead for him to compete in the mustang contest, even though he’d worked behind the scenes for a day. Which was putting the chuck wagon ahead of its team, but whatever.
“Just do it!” She snatched up the phone and dialed before she could talk herself out of it again. Then, listening to it ring, she crossed her fingers. Please be voice mail, please be voice mail, please be—
Click. “Hello?”
Not voice mail. Bracing herself against the sound of his mellow baritone, she said, “Wyatt. It’s Krista. Which you probably figured, if you’ve got caller ID.” Don’t babble. Be professional. “I, ah, wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?” he said, inflectionless.
Tightening her grip on the handset and telling herself to pretend this was just another stranger who’d been recommended for the job, she said, “I don’t know if you heard, but my head wrangler blew out his knee over the weekend.”
A beat of silence. “I caught something to that effect.”
“Then you know I need to hire someone for the next couple of months.”
More silence. Then: “Are you offering me a job?”
No. Yes. This is crazy. “If you’re available.” She hadn’t been able to make herself look him up, hadn’t wanted to know what he’d been doing for the past eight years. Which was irresponsible from a business perspective, but it was where the business and personal sides of the situation had locked horns. “I know it’s short notice, but you mentioned being between jobs.”
“You seemed like you were in a real hurry to get away from me the other day.” His voice rumbled on the airwaves, stirring echoes inside her as he asked, “What changed?”
Nothing. Everything. Dang it! “I kept thinking about closure and bringing things full circle, and . . .” She pinched the bridge of her nose, unable to lie, even to him. “I’m desperate, okay? It isn’t easy to find someone with the right mix of teaching ability and horse skills, and I know you’ve done the job before.” When he didn’t say anything, she launched into her sales pitch. “It’d be an eight-week contract, room and board plus salary.” She named a generous figure. “You’d be in charge of training Jupiter, the gray mare I got the other day, and overseeing all the guests’ interactions with the horses. Lessons, trail rides, mounted games, cutting cattle, overnight trips, the works. You’d be staying in Foster’s old bunkhouse, which is mid-reno at the moment, as we’re turning it into a luxury cabin. It’s livable, though. It’s six days a week, Saturdays off, and you can have a stall if you’ve got a horse to put in it.”
“You want me to work for you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Think about it.” Her heart thudded against her ribs. “Or just come out tomorrow for a trial run, and we can see how it goes.”
“Okay.”
“We’d need to work together some, especially on the training, but—”
“I said okay.”
He had, hadn’t he? She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone completely dry. “Okay you’ll think about it, or okay you’ll do it?”
“What time tomorrow?”
She wasn’t really doing this, was she? “Breakfast starts at seven thirty, but the barn stuff doesn’t really get rolling until more like nine.”
“I’ll aim for seven thirty. Get the lay of the land.”
Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. “Okay, I guess I’ll see you then.” That felt so inadequate, even over the sudden rushing in her ears, that she added, “And, Wyatt?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. If this works out, you’ll be saving my bacon, big time. I’ll owe you one.”
“The way I see it, we’ll be even.”
Her stomach twisted. So not going there. “Let me give you Foster’s number. You can talk to him about the specifics of the job.” There, that sounded businesslike and in control, didn’t it?
But when he rang off, she sat there for a second, staring at the computer screen, not feeling professional. At all.
What was she, nuts? She couldn’t do this, not in a million years. She should call him back and tell him she didn’t need him. She could tell him that she found somebody else. Or was moving to Belize. Anything but “see you in the morning.”
Ohmigosh. He would be there tomorrow morning. At Mustang Ridge. It should’ve been one of those twisted reality-meets-impossibility dreams. Not her real life.
She couldn’t do this.
Hands shaking, she dialed again. Twice, because she messed up the first time.
Jenny answered on the second ring. “Hey, sis. What’s up?”
“I need alcohol, chocolate, and girl time,” Krista announced, “and not necessarily in that order.” She hesitated, then went ahead and said it out loud. “I just sort of hired Wyatt to work at Mustang Ridge.”
6
“You should stay here and hang out with me.” Sam pounded his hammer on a chunk of rock that looked like every other rock in the immediate vicinity. “That’d make more sense than working for Krista. Especially when you don’t need the job.”
When a fist-size nodule broke free, he frowned at it and then chucked it aside, letting it tumble-roll down the steep slope with a clackity-clackity-clack and a sssst of pebbles rattling in its wake.
Wyatt watched it go. “Didn’t you say this was the kind of place where neighbors helped each other?”
“Volunteering for the mayor’s mustang deal, sure. But not something like this. And Krista’s not your neighbor—she’s your ex.” Sam wedged his crowbar beneath a flat rock. “Help me flip this over, will you?”
It had taken them an hour to reach the site on the ATVs, another ninety minutes to work their way up the shifting mountain face to where Sam’s gut said he would find something amazing—pink emeralds, maybe, or more of the colored diamonds that had turned him from the poorest kid in town to the region’s richest orphan.
It had taken Wyatt that long to mention Krista’s call because he figured he’d get exactly this sort of reaction. And because he didn’t have a good counterargument.
Guys like him didn’t circle back around to an ex. Especially not one like her.
Angling his pick beside Sam’s crowbar, he said, “On three. One, two . . .” On three they put their shoulders into it. The rock slab shifted, teetered momentarily on its axis, and then overbalanced and fell, bouncing down the scree—pinwheeling and starting a dozen tiny rockslides shushing down with it.
Sam didn’t watch it go, focusing instead on the darkness that had been hidden behind. He hunkered down and slither-slid his top half into the pitch-black. “I can’t believe she called you.” His voice echoed back at Wyatt.
“Sounded like she was out of options.”
“You never saw her after you disappeared. She was a wreck at graduation.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Still.”
And he had seen her. He had meant to be long gone, but had driven back to watch her graduate with Sam and the others. Wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat, he had lurked at the edge of the crowd, reminding himself to breathe when she walked across that stage. Then, later, seeing her surrounded by her family, he had walked away. “So what you’re saying is that I owe her one.”
“Yeah. Which means you should take off.”
“Can’t do that. She asked. I said I’d help her out. Besides, I need to get back riding. Not just dinking around on the trails near your place, but real saddle time on a good cow horse.”
“There are other places where you could play cowboy.” Sam backed out of the crevice holding a fist-size chunk of rock threaded through with dark crystal facets.
Wyatt leaned in. “What’s that?”
“Violet iolite.” Sam twisted the rock, which glittered purple, blue, and green in the sunlight.
“Is it valuable?”
“Not especially. But it’s interesting to find it right now.”
“Why is that?”
“According to the woo-woo people, it’s supposed to help you make good decisions.” He held it out. “Here. I’d say you need it more than I do right now.”
*
When Krista reached the Double-Bar H ranch later that night, Shelby was waiting for her on the porch and Jenny was just pulling in. As Krista mounted the short flight of stairs leading up to the renovated farmhouse, she lifted a wrapped plate. “I come bearing brownies.”
“And a story, I gather.” Shelby searched her face. “You okay?” Wearing a sleeveless tee made of silk rather than cotton and jeans from a designer Krista had never heard of, the curvy brunette was dramatic and put together from the tips of her manicured toes to the top of her every-four-weeks haircut. But despite the city shine that still hadn’t totally worn off—or maybe partly because of it—she and Krista were the best of friends.
“I’m fine,” Krista assured her, going in for a quick one-armed hug and taking a moment to lean on her.
“Baloney.” Shelby pulled away and gave her a little shake. “This is the Girl Zone. You don’t have to be brave in the Girl Zone. It’s in the bylaws.”
“I’m not trying to be brave. I’m trying to be”—reasonable, logical, rational—“a grown-up. The ranch needs him.” At least that was what she kept telling herself. The mantra had gotten her through welcoming the new guests, but now it was starting to wear off.
“Ranch, shmanch.” Shelby made a rude noise. “And being a grown-up is overrated.”
“Hey!” Jenny jogged up the steps with a loaded bag. “No fair starting without me. I’ve got Ben and Jerry’s and three bottles of that nice red with the creepy baby on the label.”
“Sounds like the makings of a Girl Zone to me.” Shelby herded them through the front door and into the main living space, which was sleek and modern but still felt very much like a home, with soft fabrics and family photos galore. “I thought we’d set up at the breakfast bar. Foster, Lizzie, and the dog are down in the man cave watching a Firefly marathon, so we should have our privacy—or at least fair warning before we’re interrupted.”
Krista hesitated, looking toward the stairs leading down to the finished basement. “I should say hi and see how he’s doing.”
“He said to tell you hey and that he’d catch you later. I mentioned that we were going to be engaging in Level Five girl talk, and he bolted.”
Which totally sounded like Foster. “His second surgery is next week?”
“Yep. Then rehab.”
“Is he going stir-crazy yet?”
“Actually, he’s doing okay. He’s being stubborn about the pain meds, no surprise there. But rather than staring out the window and bitching about being stuck inside, he’s signed up for a couple of online sci-fi writing classes, and he and Lizzie have been talking about collaborating on a story. I’m sure he’ll get itchy before too long, and well before he’s cleared to be off his crutches, but for now he’s doing okay.” When they reached the gleaming, open-concept kitchen, she pointed to a padded bar stool. “But enough about him. Plant it, girlfriend, and start talking. What happened?”
Krista sat as Jenny stuck a glass of wine in her hand and Shelby put a plate of ice cream–topped brownies in front of her. But despite having spent the afternoon alternating between thinking she had lost her mind and looking forward to hashing things out with her sister and their best friend, now she hesitated. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about with ‘I just sort of hired Wyatt,’” Jenny suggested. “But drink up first.”
The first sip of wine fought a battle of tart and sweet on Krista’s tongue, while the second loosened up the tightness in her tonsils. Reminding herself that she was the one who had called for emergency chocolate and wine, she said, “I called him. I wasn’t going to, kept talking myself out of it, but after the guests left I got to chatting with Mom and Gran, and going over the to-do list in my head, and it hit me that we can’t keep going on like we did last week.” The third sip went down smooth and warmed her insides. “So I called him. And he said yes. Well, he said okay, but it’s the same thing. He’ll be at breakfast tomorrow.”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said, shaking her head. “This is Wyatt we’re talking about. Your one-and-only. There’s a whole lot of worms loaded to come out of that can.”
“I’m not opening any cans. I’m just hiring a wrangler.”
“There’s nothing ‘just’ about it. You were head over heels for the guy, and he took off without an explanation.”
Krista stared into her wineglass for a moment. “He explained.”
“He left a note. That’s not the same thing.”
“Hang on. Time out.” Shelby made a “T” with her hands. “What note? What happened between you two? It’s hard to know whether to hate him or give him a second chance when I’ve only got the CliffsNotes.”
It was part of the Girl Code that they tried not to swap each other’s secrets. Otherwise, Jenny would’ve undoubtedly spilled the whole cringe-inducing story. A few minutes ago, Krista might have said it didn’t matter how it ended, only that it had. But wine and friendship made it easier to say, “Wyatt and I met our senior year, right after spring break. And if it wasn’t love at first sight, it was darn close.”
She had ridden out that day with her friend Darcy, and on the way home the conversation about their final projects—converting a multigeneration cattle station into a dude ranch for her, eco-friendly guest accommodations for Darcy—had turned to gossip about the new guy at the barn. “He’s older,” Darcy had revealed. “I heard that he rode bulls for five or six years between high school and college. And he’s got that swagger, you know?” She made an “mmmmm” noise of approval as Krista maneuvered her horse to open the gate and let them through the perimeter fencing. “Sooo cute. And nice! Even cranky old man Briggs likes him, and he doesn’t like anybody. In fact, I heard— Oh!” Darcy squeaked at the sight of a small herd in th
e courtyard. “There he is!”
The cowboy was still astride, guiding his horse from one student to the next as they climbed down and fumbled with their reins and cinches. He sat straight and easy in the saddle, his cues nearly invisible, reminding Krista of the hardcore, tell-a-man-by-his-horse cowboys who worked for Big Skye. Yum, she thought. But when he turned and looked at her from beneath the brim of his chocolate-brown Stetson, Krista saw that Darcy had been way off. There was nothing cute about his square jaw and the aggressive jut of his nose, nothing so bland as nice about the way his dark eyes locked with hers. He was gorgeous. Arresting. One hundred percent male. And the way he was staring back at her suggested that he liked what he saw.
“He asked me out the next day,” she told Shelby. “We went to dinner and a movie, and he kissed me good night. Then a couple of days later, we took a long moonlit ride out to this little hidden waterfall he knew of. It was . . .” Magical. “Overwhelming. It was like I had designed my perfect match from the ground up, and then he turned real. I didn’t tell him about Mustang Ridge right away, but when I showed him my final project, he understood what I was going for right away and had some ideas of his own. Good ones. Eventually, I told him it wasn’t as much of a dream as it seemed—that I had the property in my family, just had to get the others on board. We used to stay up late, talking about what it would be like to run the guest ranch together.” She hesitated. “I thought we were planning our future. So I didn’t listen when his roommate tried to warn me off.”
Harvest at Mustang Ridge Page 5
