Swallowing hard against a grief-swollen throat, she shifted her gaze back to the town passing her by through her front windows. Her shell might be itchy, but it was the only thing she had left. The only protection against a world she knew took everything.
No, Fly Creek would just have to continue on without her. She couldn’t be anything more than what she’d been the past three years no matter what her night with Adam said to them.
Adam.
Her cheeks heated. A vision of dimples and a confident gaze appeared, and she caught herself smiling in return.
The smile dissolved, and she stomped her foot in frustration. Mr. Conley was an issue that Emily needed to handle. But the problem was, even now, some twelve-odd hours later, all she had to do was close her eyes and every fingertip, every sweep of his tongue, every muscle was branded in her memory. Recalled in an instant in full tactile sensations. The connection as he said between “one change seeker and another” urging her to take another step out of her shell. He was so much more than a problem of lust, but she would be kidding herself if she didn’t admit, just a little, that she would add a whole other basket of problems for more time with the man.
Chapter Six
“I’ll be there tomorrow. Finishing up some of the lingering estate business in Bo Ridge.”
Adam’s brother’s voice waved in and out with cell service being pretty hit and miss no matter where you went, or what position you stuck the phone in. He gritted his teeth against the mention of his hometown. Seeing Levi was a blessing, since he was the only family he had, but knowing what had him near Fly Creek triggered memories of their childhood. Memories he would drown if he could.
“Hope you won’t find yourself bored here.”
Levi laughed. “Bored. Hell, baby brother. I’ll take bored for months on end over living in the woods and training new recruits. Besides you’re on a ranch. An extra pair of capable hands can’t go to waste.”
Adam couldn’t hide his shock. “Dude, you ran screaming from a ranch before me. You’re telling me that fourteen years of military service cured you?”
“Cured me? From what, Adam? You act like our upbringing was a disease.”
Adam didn’t respond. It had been like a disease to him. And he’d thought Levi and Drew had felt the same way.
“Anyway, I’ll see you soon. Your new employer mind if I bunk with you?”
Adam smiled. Shelby would eat Levi, and his offer of idle hands, up. “Nah. The Marks are good people.”
“Glad to hear it. And maybe you’ll finally tell me what the heck you’re up to in the wilds of Wyoming.”
No, he wouldn’t. But Adam would cross that interrogation when the time came.
“Tomorrow’s fine. See ya.”
He dropped his phone on the seat and turned down Miller Street, and let his thoughts travel to the beautiful artist he’d left flabbergasted this morning.
He knew the feeling. The battle between believing in what your path is and wanting something different. She was the reason he was in Fly Creek. He’d been looking for a way forward. A safe way forward. But safe had flown out the window last night when their lips met. And in safe’s place came a brief thought of exploring what might happen between them. Nothing safe about that for either of them. She would be hurt enough in the end, and leaving her after spending time with her, would be devastating to both of them.
He prayed the anger, remorse, and disgust after his actions last night would surface and keep his mind off her lips and smile. But no matter how deep he reached he couldn’t regret a single touch. A single moment that occurred in Clapton Field.
Regret? No. But guilt? That he carried around like a saddle on his back.
Adam argued away the guilt by telling himself she’d initiated it and he really went along with good intentions. Intentions that had nothing to do with kissing, but good lord, not even a saint would have withstood that woman once her lips touched him.
Last night there had been a spark. Something that overrode the sorrow he’d seen in their first meeting. Even this morning, despite her obvious guilt, she’d seemed more alive. A brightness in those hazel depths. And he would continue to work with that without crossing any more lines.
He was one step closer to fulfilling his promise, and if that meant he followed through on his threat to be friends with her, then so be it. He’d promised to see her happily living, not consumed by grief. Clearly last night she’d been happy, hadn’t she? Sure, she’d retreated, but today she wasn’t so shut off. More like a startled doe. So he would spend time with her and work on bringing her fully out of this self-imposed solitary confinement. And maybe lighten some of the sorrow he’d seen in her eyes. Then he could leave Fly Creek satisfied that he’d kept his word to Drew.
Adam hit his brakes as a few antelope leaped across the road. Following their sporadic jumps, he smiled, imagining them hoof deep in snow come winter.
Whoa! Winter?
That was one season he wouldn’t be experiencing in Fly Creek. His time here was an interlude. Nothing but a moment in his life anchored by a final wish from a man he would have given his life for.
Fly Creek was too much like the home he’d sprinted from the moment he was able. True, circumstances of his family and their fall from grace tainted most of what he remembered from his hometown. But all small towns were the same in the end, confining and suffocating, with everyone in everyone’s business. Basically your whole life mapped out for you. Take the gleam already in permanent residence in Shelby Marks’s and Polly Brooks’s eyes. He had no doubt they had sat together at Potter’s sipping tea and discussing his and Emily’s every move.
Ten minutes later, Adam pulled through the stone and iron arch of the Sky Lake Ranch. Dust kicked up behind his truck as he drove alongside paddocks full of horses and steer. Passing the indoor arena, he saw a class of kids atop ponies, sawhorse steers across from them. He smiled. Children deserved happy memories such as these, and Sky Lake really was a pleasant enough site to be biding his time until he was free to continue his search for the place he would settle into and call home. A place he could make memories with his children.
He slowed going around the bend in front of the main lodge. He rented a small cabin on the back forty right along the river where several of the ranch hands also stayed. The owners, Shelby and Mitchum, lived a little farther out. Their house nestled among a grove of Aspen trees. Adam turned onto the gravel patch to the left of the porch and hopped out, his boots skidding on rocks. As he came around the back of the tailgate, he heard his name. Dan Rigby and Max Fields walked along the road, and he met the two halfway.
Dan clapped him on the back. “Well, if it wasn’t the foreigner who snagged pretty Miss White.”
The last thing Adam wanted was for anyone to think he’d done anything with Emily. It was bad enough he remembered their kiss on a constant rotation. Guilt and ecstasy rolled together like a ball of bailing wire. To have to endure good-natured ribbing and the whole damn town eyeing him about it? That would be too much.
Just as he predicted. Everyone in everyone else’s business. He just hoped to God no one was bothering Emily about it. If anything was guaranteed to send her right back down the rabbit hole she’d burrowed for herself, it would be rumors of the two of them.
Damn, this was exactly the sort of problem living in a small town brought. This time it was about a woman, but growing up it had been about his dad and the alcohol or the women or the money.
He unhinged the tailgate and let it slam open. “Didn’t snag anyone, Rigby. Just a little dance.”
“Not from where I stood,” Max added.
“Then maybe you needed to stand somewhere else.”
Max held up his hands. “Whoa, back up, buddy. Every single man in Fly Creek and probably some of the married ones as well are jealous as hell. That pretty thing’s been in town for three years, and not a one of us has even managed a smile from her. Just living vicariously and all that.”
Guilt needled
him thanks to his harsh words. The truth was, if the boot was on the other foot and Adam was Dan or Max, he’d be acting the same way. Men ribbed each other over women. Only this wasn’t just any woman. And to be honest, he was proud to have been the one to make her smile.
“Sorry. Just a little low on sleep and high on a list of jobs Shelby has for me.”
“Lack of sleep, huh.” More claps on the back followed by a low whistle. “Well, get to it because ain’t no one want to be on Shelby Marks’s bad side. She looks sweet as a rhubarb pie, but there’s pepper in the mix if you don’t live up to her standards.”
The two continued on down the road. They were good men. Adam had instantly taken a liking to both of them when he first showed up at Sky Lake. His instincts were rarely wrong, and they’d come in handy more than once over the years. Now he needed to follow them for a whole other reason, but sadly they weren’t working nearly as well where Emily White was concerned.
Before he could finish unloading the boards from Gunther’s, a truck came through. Shelby Marks stopped her battered two-ton dually in front of him.
“You got everything you need?”
“Yes, ma’am. You were right. Gunther’s had just what you said. Shouldn’t be too long before the benches are where you want them by the roping ring.”
She smiled. “Of course I was right. Now, have you eaten today?”
Shelby might run Sky Lake with an iron fist and a soft smile, but she was a mother hen to her toes. Which included making sure all her boys and girls were fit and fed.
“Had some fruit and coffee this morning before morning roundup. I’ll get something more substantial after I get these benches made for you.”
She clucked at him. “Fruit is not a breakfast in Wyoming. It’s a topping on ice cream or a filling in a pie. I realize those city ways are hard to shake, but you’re in sky country now and you need sustenance. You head up to the house and grab something. Those boards and my benches aren’t going anywhere.”
Adam was stuck, as you absolutely did not turn an offer of food down from Shelby Marks. In all the good ways, she reminded him of his own mother. Except he knew for a fact Shelby wouldn’t have stood by while her husband destroyed everything loving about their home, their marriage, and even his sons. No, if Mitchum had tried to pull that stunt with Shelby, she would have had him sleeping with the horses, most likely in a stall that hadn’t been mucked in a while. No, Sky Lake and the Marks had very few similarities to his prior home and family. But then again, he was an outsider. Maybe there was more to Sky Lake than he saw.
“I’ll be up in a minute. Just let me get these boards laid out in the sun.”
Shelby gave one firm nod, but then her face softened and worry filtered across the tanned skin. “I heard you were dancing with Emily White last night.”
Awww hell. “It was just a dance, ma’am.”
She snorted. “If it was any other woman in Fly Creek, I wouldn’t even be batting an eye at the gossip, but there’s no such thing as just a dance with Emily White. Now, I get that you’re new and I believe you’re a good man. A man with secrets, but a good one just the same. But I’ll not be having you hurt that girl. She’s one of us. She may not realize or accept that, but when she rolled into town three years ago, looking as if the entire burden of sorrow was hers to carry, we banded together and promised to protect her. We’ve respected her and her need to be private for all these years, and now that she’s dipping her toe in the pond, I won’t be having you, good man or not, causing waves she can’t surface from.”
Adam took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “Hey, she asked me to dance not the other way around. No plans to cause any damage.” It was the last thing he wanted.
Shelby’s eyes softened. “See that you don’t.” She met his gaze as the truth of her words hit him square in the chest. “Now, get up to the house and eat.”
Adam put his hat back on and tipped it as she drove off. What the hell should he do? He couldn’t leave now, but staying was only inviting more of the same conversation he just had with both Dan and Shelby. Conversations he would outrun when he finally left town come September, but would linger long after for Emily to face. And somehow that seemed unfair to her.
He slammed the tailgate back up and shook his head. The town was a wild card he couldn’t have foreseen, and it might be the ace he needed or the card to bust his hand.
Chapter Seven
His talk with Shelby had unsettled his movements the rest of the day. His lunch rolled around in his belly like a pebble in a shoe, and he’d nearly sliced a finger off with the scroll saw. He had more damn splinters in his hands then a beaver building a dam, and he laughed at the thought of his brother, Levi, seeing the namby pamby city boy he’d become. All because an all-too-knowing Mother Hen had upset him.
At least he’d finished the benches, but he’d had to go back into town for more varnish. As everyone kept warning him, Wyoming winters were brutal and the wood needed protecting. He wasn’t about to tell them he’d be long gone before the first snowflake touched the top of his hat. But he was pretty damn proud of the way the benches had turned out, and a small surge of satisfaction flushed through his system at the thought that they would remain here long after he was gone. A little bit of him left at Sky Lake.
The sun was beyond the horizon of the trees, and lights illuminated Miller Street. Adam glanced into several of the businesses, each in various stages of shutting down except for Potter’s and the Wagon Train. There was an alley break and then he had a clear shot of the Painted Glass. Through the front windows, Adam saw Emily lugging a large frame up the steps in the back of the shop.
He pulled into an empty spot and cut the engine. Passing two residents on the sidewalk, he tipped his hat and pulled open the front door of the Painted Glass, cowbell chiming. Paint, citrus, and wood combined to form an assault on the senses. He hadn’t noticed it before, too focused on how to appear in front of Emily, but now he had no choice but to recognize her domain and all it encompassed.
The lighting varied. From giant hanging lamps situated above the rows of scarred tables holding various art supplies for all different types of projects, to small spotlights highlighting canvases hung along the exposed brick wall on his left. Baskets held yarn. Mason jars held brushes and tubes of paint. Blank canvases were stacked alongside the sketchpads she’d knocked over that first day. Colored pencils and oil pastels arranged in rainbow fans. There wasn’t a lot of product, but it appeared more than normal for the kind of traffic she probably received in Fly Creek and much more personal than the massive box craft and supply stores that littered the cities like he’d recently left. That she’d left three years ago.
“I’m getting ready to close, but…”
Emily’s head peeked over the top of the frame, her words dying as she realized her visitor was one she didn’t particularly want to deal with. He smiled, or beamed might be more accurate. He liked that she seemed ruffled by his presence. And ruffled meant a lowered guard, so he might be able to sneak in and get her to open up even more. Find out what her sticking point was and how to move past it.
He strode in her direction, his gaze locked on hazel eyes. Wariness crept into Emily’s expression, mixed with a slight dose of awareness, and that was something Adam hadn’t thought all the way through. Their attraction seemed to have a mind of its own.
He cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his pockets. He hadn’t come here to touch her. “I saw you trying to carry this and thought I might lend a hand.”
Emily cocked her head. “Because we’re friends?”
He lifted the edge of the frame sitting on the lowest step. “Yeah. But I would’ve done the same for anyone.”
She snorted.
“What? You doubt my intentions. I’m generally a pretty nice guy. Ask anyone.”
“Oh, I have no doubt. But I’m just thinking in the six weeks that you’ve been in town, I can’t recall you helping me before.”
&nb
sp; He smiled. “Have you needed my help?”
Emily blushed and shook her head as Adam, once again, ignored the attraction flaring between them. He couldn’t help but focus on the fact that she knew how long he’d been in town. And then annoyance took over at how pleased he was. After all, the town didn’t get new arrivals too often.
“Well, I’m here now.”
Together they carried the frame up the steps and in to what Adam realized a little too late was Emily’s personal space. He’d known she lived above the gallery, but two and two hadn’t added up to four until a clear view of her disheveled bed came into focus. He shifted his gaze, but the reaction was already traveling through every nerve in his body. That bed would be a hell of lot more comfortable than the bed of her truck.
“Let’s just prop it up over there.”
Adam looked at Emily. A blush spread across the bridge of her nose and through her high cheekbones, highlighting freckles he hadn’t noticed before. She wasn’t looking at him, but it was obvious that she must have seen the direction of his gaze, and it wouldn’t take a genius to connect several dots.
“Sure. Do you want me to walk backward?”
“No, I’m good.”
They crossed the open loft area and Emily directed him to spin at the last minute, placing the framed canvas against the wall. He hadn’t seen the painting until that moment, but the emotions conveyed in the massive work sent dizziness spiraling through him, his legs threatening to give out. He knew in an instant it was of the river. Not the one here in Fly Creek but the river from Emily’s past. But rather than a bucolic scene full of light, it was an invitation to storms and upheaval. Angry swirling mixes of grays and blues. It pulled you under and had you gasping for breath.
“It’s amazing. It’s… You’re very talented.” Adam wiped his hands on his jeans, afraid he might reach out to touch it. “Hell, the word talented doesn’t even begin to do you justice.”
Her Cowboy's Promise (Fly Creek) Page 5
