Riding the Storm

by Delilah Hunt

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2011 Delilah Hunt

  ISBN: 978-1-926950-41-9

  Cover Artist: LF Designs

  Editor: Kimberly Bowman

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To all the public librarians who never batted an eyelash when I threw down my ton load of romance novels on their counters, you have my undying gratitude.

  To the wonderful and supportive ladies at Evernight Publishing, you all are the best, albeit a group of chatterboxes (winking) Yes, me too!

  RIDING THE STORM

  Delilah Hunt

  Copyright © 2011

  Chapter One

  “Jesus.” Matthew Caldwell shook his head on a frustrated sigh.

  He’d spent half the day tending to the newborn calves and mending the log fences that seemed to stretch off into forever on the sprawling Montana ranch. At his most tired, he now had to contend with seeing the one person he’d spent the greater part of the year avoiding at every cost. Zara Whitley. Out of the blue, she was sitting on his doorstep with her head bowed and resting on her bare knees.

  Matthew pinched the bridge of his nose. He liked the petite, dark-skinned girl, but he thought they’d come to an understanding months before his wife’s tragic accident. Matthew swallowed hard against the painful memory. An entire year had passed since the paramedics had recovered her body inside the nearly unrecognizable Volvo. For an instant Matthew thought of the phrase Time heals all wounds. Whoever coined that term had to be the most uncaring asshole ever to live. So far, nothing was being healed. It never got easier and he doubt it ever would. Time was a bitch and he wished he could have known why Kristin was in such a hurry to get home to him on that snowy afternoon a year ago. Familiar stirrings of guilt and regret tore at his conscience. He clenched his jaw.

  Zara had to know she had no business visiting the ranch, much less bringing… food. His brows drew together at the ceramic container beside her covered with aluminum foil.

  What is she thinking?

  It had to be the shock of seeing her again after so many months. His mind spun with images of unwarranted memories. Hour-long conversations, the frequent moments of madness he’d indulged in by sitting around and laughing with her. And God knows all those times he’d spent with Zara had been brought about by nothing more than sheer coincidence of always being in the same place at the same time. He was a married man, and as long as the union was alive, Matthew would have never sought out the company of another woman.

  Scrubbing two fingers above his eyebrow, Matthew set his course. His wife might be dead, but that didn’t mean he and Zara were going to pick up where their friendship left off.

  Just can’t do it. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  In no hurry, Matthew continued toward the house, clearing his throat, alerting her to his presence. Her head lifted. Tight ebony curls were held back by two thin bands of sliver threads, leaving a thick puff of hair at her nape. His entire body grew taut. She was going to smile at him, not just with her lips, but those glossy almond-shaped brown eyes. Worse, he was actually waiting for it.

  I miss her.

  “Matthew.” She scrambled to her feet. Her full lips parted into the beginning of a smile. Matthew raised his eyebrows and her smile faltered. “Zara,” he paused, shaking his head. “You know we agreed not to see each other.”

  She jerked her head in a quick nod, bending to retrieve the container. “I remember. How could I not?” Her eyes went soft with a vacant expression before she replied, “It’s springtime. I was thinking back to last year when you told me how hectic it was even with the help you’ve hired.” A shadow crossed her features, doing nothing to help her average looks. “I was concerned. That can’t be wrong, can it?” Her gaze drifted to his dirtied jeans and mud-soaked boots. He was busier than usual, hadn’t found the time to eat this morning. She had a point there.

  Matthew tilted his head. “So you wanted to check up on me…again?” He was being harsh and he knew it. Despite the end to their friendship a few months prior to Kristin’s car running off the icy road and slamming into a tree, Zara had called him more times than he could count trying to find out how he was holding up. Each and every time he stared at the phone longing to answer.

  “You’re thirty-two years old, Matthew. I don’t check up on grown men,” she muttered, drawing him out of his brooding.

  His eyes narrowed and she let out a sigh which he translated to mean ‘I’m tired of talking to you’. “I only came to give you this. That’s all.” She shoved the container toward him.

  Matthew stared at the dish, which caused her to laugh, a nervous pitch bubbling from her throat in spite of the bravado she’d clung to seconds earlier. It struck a chord inside him. Shouldn’t.

  “It’s just lasagna. Do you want it or not?”

  He wanted to say no, but the sad fact was he hadn’t eaten in hours and it didn’t sit well with him to hurt her feelings.

  “It smells good.” He took the dish. The rich aroma sent his stomach rumbling with hunger almost forgotten by intentional overwork. “Did you get off work early?” he asked, taking in the amber line of sunset sweeping across the big northwestern sky.

  Zara was an accountant, a whiz, actually, when it came to crunching numbers. Before the twenty-three-year-old graduated early from the nearby university, she was already employed in a small yet established accounting firm.

  “Nope,” she answered. “I stayed until five to help a co-worker do some catching up. I baked it awhile ago.” She lifted a slender shoulder and shrugged. “Was only trying to be helpful.”

  Of course she was. That was her way. Helpful. Sweet. The only person who thought he had a sense of humor, laughing at his pathetic attempts at telling jokes.

  Matthew averted his gaze and reined in his wandering thoughts. His forehead creased as understanding slapped him in the face. If Zara had rushed over here, that meant she hadn’t had time to eat. Damn. A muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth. He had to invite her inside. To the house he’d shared with his wife, who disliked Zara with an unfounded passion. Matthew glanced at the entrance door and back. “Do you want to come in?”

  “No, thanks. I have a ton of things to do tonight.” She smoothed the hem of her floral skirt.

  She was lying; but all the same, Matthew felt a wicked sense of relief. At least he wouldn’t have additional guilt hanging over his head when it came to his dealings with Zara and his memory of Kristin. Despite his push for a divorce in the days leading up to her death, she had been his wife until the last breath had left her body out there alone in the snowstorm, and he owed her his loyalty.

  Still, the last thing he wanted was to seem ungrateful to her. His chest rose and fell. Have to say something. “I owe you this one. Why don’t you drop by the ranch some other time? I’ll even give you the grand tour if you’d like.”

  A smile danced across her pert lips. His heart jolted and his cock pulsed. God, to feel those lips pressed against his…just one more time. His lips curled in derision. He’d kissed her one time and a year and half later his prick was still getting hard from the memory. “As long as I get my dish back we can call it even. We both know you don’t mean it, so be thankful I’m not the type to hold you to the invitation.”

/>   Matthew stiffened, offended by the truth of her words. “Why do you say I don’t mean it?”

  “I know you and I don’t have to guess that you would never dishonor Kristin’s memory by spending too much time with me. You and everyone else in town knows how much she despised me.”

  Matthew scowled. What did she mean by everyone else in town? Were people discussing his personal life? Tempted as he was to ask her, he didn’t want to discuss his late wife with anyone, much less Zara Whitley.

  “She didn’t hate you,” he said in a monotone.

  She looked at him and nodded. They both knew it was a lie.

  When they’d first met at a party thrown by Zara’s boss, he’d seen her attempts to engage Kristin in conversation, only to have his wife ignore the girl, focusing her attention on the other women gathered around her. It was surprising because he’d never known Krissy to be so callous and dismissive. Shamed by his wife’s behavior, he’d made it a point later in the night to strike up a casual conversation with the girl, not wishing to give the wrong impression to the partygoers about him and his wife.

  He wasn’t sure how it happened, but within seconds they had lapsed into an easy banter, until he’d even become so relaxed as to crack a joke he’d instantly regretted, wanted to kick himself for trying to impress her with the humor he was sorely lacking. Instead of the get-the-fuck-out-of-here-look he’d expected, she had burst into laughter. The sip of Sprite she had taken snorted out her nose until she’d shrieked, quickly covering her face.

  The conversation had ended less than a minute later. He didn’t like the way she’d reacted to him, the openness he’d seen brightening her gaze on him as they chatted and he hated it even more that he’d had to drag himself away from her, someone he’d only known for a few minutes.

  Looking at her now on his doorstep, he wanted to chastise her, remind her they were no longer friends. That she had no right to have adoration in her eyes when she looked at him. There was nothing between them and he’d never be able to give her what she hoped for.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked quietly.

  She blinked and straightened to her all of five feet three inches frame. “I’ve already told you. I don’t want anything except the return of my baking dish. My name’s been dragged through the mud more times than I care to count. It’s getting tiring.”

  His muscles tensed. So Krissy had been telling her friends about their problems and no doubt casting Zara in the middle of their marital woes, where she had no place.

  He expelled a sharp breath and frowned. “Z, c’mon you can’t keep doing this.” Shoving a hand through his hair, he lowered his voice, knowing he was going to come off harsh. “Was it that important for you to bring this to me, if you’re so concerned about what people will say?”

  “It was.”

  A muscle in his jaw ticked and the air sizzled with silence. Why did she continue to care about him? And since when did she learn to stick out her chin and look him down when she knew he was a good foot taller?

  She sighed loudly. “Bye, Matthew.” She waved him off and pivoted in the direction of the paved driveway.

  No choice.

  “Tomorrow,” he yelled.

  Zara spun around, staring at him with her brows raised in confusion. “Tomorrow what?”

  “Stop by after work and I’ll give you a tour of Rain Valley.”

  The tiniest spark of excitement flickered in her eyes. Sobering, she asked, “The entire ranch?”

  He nodded as she pulled open the door of her black Passat. Climbing into the car she gave him a skeptical smile. “Tomorrow it is then.”

  Fucking idiot. Matthew cursed himself as he watched her back out of the driveway and veer onto the narrow country road.

  He knew she hadn’t expected the invitation, and yet for some asinine reason he wanted to prove to her that he was a man of his words.

  Out of sight, but not out of mind. Matthew scratched the back of his head and strolled inside to the kitchen. Man, but it felt good seeing her again. He glanced over at the wall partitioning the kitchen from the dining room where one of his favorite pictures of Kristin used to hang. Kristin with her flirty, gray eyes and ashen blond hair posing on a black sand beach while they vacationed in Hawaii. The picture had been taken a month into their marriage before he’d begun questioning the union. Something he had always done, but never wished to admit. Who wanted to realize they’d marry for the wrong reason?

  Still, maybe he shouldn’t have taken it down along with the others. It was just so fucking hard walking past her image each day while fighting the waves of guilt that gripped him knowing the woman he had loved, had taken an oath to stay with for the rest of their life, an oath to forsake all others, was dead and buried in a cemetery. He didn’t need the pictures though, did he? It wasn’t like he would ever forget her, what she meant to him, especially in those years before they married.

  Matthew placed the container on the countertop, hesitant to touch the food she had brought him. Zara had to know on some level what her tender gestures and enthusiasm whenever he was around was doing to him.

  Apart from today, the last time he’d been so close to her it had ended with him explaining it was best not to allow a deeper friendship to develop. Or worse, to allow a second kiss to happen like the one they’d shared in her office one afternoon after her boss, a friend of his deceased mother, had cornered him, pleading with him to help her fix something or other. By the time he was finished, Zara was the only other person inside the building.

  ****

  “You’re still here?”

  She nodded. “Someone had to stay behind and close up.”

  Shaking his head, Matthew walked beside her. “And I suppose you volunteered?”

  “I did, but it’s only because I have something I wanted to give you. Thought it might come in handy.”

  “Oh really?”

  Zara laughed. “Is that all I’m going to get out of you today, Matthew. Questions to everything I say?”

  His face closed up. She was joking with him and teasing him again whether she knew it or not. Dangerous.

  Her smile faltered. “It’s in my office. Just some papers I printed out. There’s this rancher in California who knows a lot about what you were telling me the other day and I saw an article that he wrote. I thought maybe it had information you’d like to see.”

  She reached into a drawer of her desk, pulling out a wad of paper, which had to be about fifty pages thick.

  Matthew took it and scanned the title of the article. It was all bullshit information. He’d heard of the man and knew his methods to be a sure way for failure in the long run. He lifted his head to see Zara frowning.

  “You don’t want it,” she said, looking crestfallen. “Give it back to me.”

  “I didn’t even read it. Why do you assume I don’t want it?”

  “Because you started scowling as soon as I handed it to you.” Zara reached for the stash of papers.

  Matthew dropped them on her desk. “You’re right, I don’t need it.”

  She squared her shoulders and began stacking the papers into a neat pile. “Fine then.”

  “Not fine.” Without realizing what he was doing, Matthew thumbed her chin and nudged her toward him. Her eyes widened and before he knew it he was groaning, “Z”, his lips descending on hers.

  ****

  After he’d caught himself and became aware of what was about to happen, he pushed away from her and apologized. He had asked for and received her word that she wouldn’t repeat what happened inside her office to anyone. Not a single soul would know about their kiss.

  A rhythmic ticking sound broke into his thoughts. Through the corner of his eyes Matthew checked the wall clock that had spent the past century and a half keeping track of time for the generations of Caldwell’s who inherited the ranch. Tomorrow evening couldn’t arrive soon enough. A quick go around of the ranch and they’d be square. He would also make it clear to her again that he
wasn’t interested in anything she had to offer, friendship or otherwise. He still had a shitload of guilt knowing Krissy was so determined to see him that she’d venture out in one of the worst snowstorms to hit northwest Montana in years. He’d tried to convince her not to venture out, that whatever it was could wait. Her answer had been to call him a liar and slam down the phone in a fit of anger.

  One failed marriage and one dead wife on his conscience was enough for him to steer clear of getting involved with anyone for quite a while. More important, if he did, it wouldn’t be with Zara. In the four years he was married, not once had he thought about another woman, much less kissed one. In spite of their problems, he respected and cared about Kristin, had made a vow to her, one he’d kept with ease until that fucking day he’d kissed Zara. Sure he thought about her more than a married man should have, but when he’d made physical, intimate contact with her, it had taken his friendship and affection for her to a different level. One he had no business testing. It was all just wrong, adding insult to injury to his wife’s memory by moving on with the woman she suspected he had feelings for. So whatever ideas Zara Whitley might be entertaining in her head about the two of them, he was damn sure going to rid her of them tomorrow.

  Chapter Two

  Zara snatched her dark blue jacket from the back of her chair and dashed down the hallway from her small office to the front door. She swung it open and a gust of springtime breeze whistled by her face. Inhaling deeply, Zara raced toward the parking lot reaching her car with lightening speed.

  “In quite the hurry today, eh?”