by Sheryl Lynn
“Elk River Resort. Janine speaking, may I help you?” She grinned. “Thank you for calling me back so quickly, sheriff.” The grin faded. “Uh-huh…I see…you’re positive? There’s no mistake? Fine, thank you very much.” She slowly hung up but kept her hand resting on the telephone.
“Well?” Megan asked.
Janine shoved away from the desk, and the chair wheels squeaked on the wooden floor. “Bradley Carter is currently incarcerated in California.” She stalked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Stunned, Megan stared at the door.
“I will see that she apologizes to your friend. And there will be no more talk of deserting your post. You’re a necessary addition to this unit.”
Megan huffed a sigh. “I’m sorry for making stupid threats. She pushes me over the edge every time. But I do love him, sir, and if we get married, I’m moving to Wyoming.”
“We’ll see.” His voice held strange emotion.
“Recreation directors are a dime a dozen,” she said. “You can replace me easy enough.”
“We’ll discuss it some other time.”
All her life she’d strived to please him and win his approval. She felt his disappointment like a load of stone around her shoulders. Easing small steps across the floor, she placed a hand lightly on his arm. “Daddy?”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“Don’t be mad at me. I want my own life, that’s all. My own house, my own family. You don’t expect me to live with you forever, do you?”
He cleared his throat harshly, his gaze distant and unreadable. “You always try hard, Megan. That is your greatest strength.” He stepped away from her touch and locked his hands behind his back. “It is your greatest failing, as well.”
She trudged out of the office and walked with her father down the hall to the family dining room where Tristan waited. Though unable to pinpoint exactly what she’d done to earn the Colonel’s disfavor, her heart was heavy, anyway.
Tristan, Elise and William were seated at the table. Judging by the littering of crumbs around William’s plate, he was working on second helpings. Tristan looked up at her with a smile.
Holding her breath, Megan awaited Tristan’s reaction. In his shoes, she’d be furious.
“Janine briefed you on the sheriff’s report?” the Colonel asked.
Tristan pulled at his chin. The warmth in his walnut brown eyes turned into a sparkle. “She was gracious about the mistake.”
“You are most generous, Mr. Cayle.”
“Have to say, sir, all my life I’ve pretty much been one-of-a-kind. Even my son favors his mother instead of me. It’s a jumble wearing another’s face, but no harm done that I can see.” He turned his head to gaze upon Megan, and the sparkle radiated, curving his mouth and deepening the lines in his cheeks. “You promised an adventure. Looks like we got it.”
Janine made herself scarce at lunch, for which Megan was grateful. Her older sister hated two things more than anything: losing an argument and being embarrassed. If she disliked Tristan because she’d lost an argument and embarrassed herself in the process, then so be it.
At least Megan needn’t have worried about Tristan being dazzled by her older sister’s beauty.
Nor did she need fear the Colonel continuing the paternal grilling. William became her unwitting rescuer by winning the Colonel’s attention, asking enthusiastic questions about the military.
“It looks as if my husband has made a friend,” Elise said, offering a basket of rolls to Tristan. “Your son is a very nice young man. What grade is he in?”
“He’ll be starting high school next fall. Ninth grade.” He took another roll and slathered it with butter.
Seeing where this conversation might lead, Megan said, “For a child as young as he is, he’s really tall.”
Tristan shared a knowing smile with Elise. “They grow like weeds, don’t they, ma’am? Can’t hardly believe in just a few years he’ll be on his own. He’s talking about going to engineering school.”
“Hey, Dad?” William said. “The Colonel says he’ll show me his firearm collection. He’s got a rifle from the Spanish-American War.”
“Don’t be bothering the man, son.”
William’s interest had the Colonel puffed up like a prairie chicken. “It will be my pleasure, sir.”
Tristan gave permission for the boy to accompany the man. When the pair left the dining room, Tristan expressed reservations about his son making a pest of himself. Elise’s laughter rang like a bell.
Megan laughed, too. “Are you kidding? He’s in heaven right now. All of us have heard his war stories a million times.”
“Oh my, yes,” Elise said. “They seem to have hit it off quite nicely, so your concern may be as to whether you can reclaim your son.”
Seeing Tristan appeared to take Elise’s small joke seriously, Megan mock-punched his shoulder. “She’s kidding. We’ll make sure you get William back. Do you want to see the stables?”
Megan felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her. She and Tristan had made a rocky start, but now everything was rolling along smoothly.
She led the way through the private quarters of the lodge and out the back door. A glance to the left showed purple-clad ladies gathered on the rear deck. A server wearing black and white moved among them, taking refreshment orders. As much as Megan disliked Daniella Falconetti, she had no wish for her parents to lose the woman’s business. “Weird,” she murmured.
Blinking in the bright sunshine, Tristan tugged his hat lower on his forehead. “What’s weird?”
“You looking like Bradley Carter and Daniella Falconetti being married to him.” The eerie coincidence gave her chills, and she rubbed her upper arms briskly. “Figure the odds.”
“Stuff happens to me all the time.”
“Lots of people mistake you for a criminal?”
He laughed, and she adored the richness of the sound and the way it warmed her from the inside out. “I’m talking bad luck in general.”
He’d joked in his letters about being a jinx. “You mean the way machines don’t like you? How you’re always crashing your computer, and your truck is always breaking down?”
“Not to mention doors falling off hinges and pumps freezing up. William says I put out bad vibes and machines can pick them up.”
Megan covered a knowing grin with her fingers. “I bet you’re a lot of fun on an airplane.”
“Haven’t had a wing fall off yet.” He sighed dramatically. “Reckon it’s only a matter of time.”
“You’re silly. Personally, I don’t believe in luck. Good or bad.” She hopped onto a railroad tie serving as a border along the path. Arms spread, she did a balance beam walk along it, heel to toe. “Things happen when they’re supposed to happen. It’s our perception of them that makes us call it good or bad.”
“This is one of your universe-in-balance theories.”
She hopped off the railroad tie. “Universal balance. And it’s not a theory, it’s a fact. Everything is connected. Everything happens for a reason.”
“Uh-huh. So it’s not bad luck I look like that con artist. It was supposed to happen.”
It occurred to her that if he didn’t look like Bradley Carter, Janine would have been friendly to him, and men tended to fall in love with Janine on a regular basis. If Tristan had fallen for her sister, Megan wouldn’t have stood a chance. “We’re mere mortals,” she said. “Not always smart enough to figure out the how or why. That doesn’t mean universal balance isn’t true.”
A chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. “You’re a pistol, honey.”
“Scoff if you must, but it’s true.”
The stables were housed in a long, low building painted forest green with bright white trim. Adjoining paddocks were fenced with lodgepole pine logs. “We don’t have any Appaloosas,” she said. “No paint horses or grays, either. The Colonel is convinced the only proper horses are either bay or chestnut. Cavalry stuff, you know?”
“Thank you.” She stopped at the stall nearest the door and stroked the nose of a dark bay gelding. “This is Doc. He’s my favorite.”
Tristan rested his forearms on the stall door and studied the horse’s legs and chest. “Thoroughbred, huh?”
“A retired racehorse. You ought to see his pedigree.” She tickled Doc’s ears. “He’s like me—loves to run but has lousy legs.”
Tristan glanced at her legs. “Your legs aren’t so bad,” he said, deadpan.
Glad the short skirt wasn’t entirely wasted, she turned her back to the stall and rested against the wood. Even though their correspondence had never taken a suggestive turn, she’d been dreaming about kissing him, holding him and having him hold her. The only other time she’d ever felt this way about a man was when she had a crush on a pole-vaulter in college. It had taken her months to work up the nerve to speak to him, then she’d blown it by boasting she knew how to burp “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Want to start over?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
He looked up and down the wide aisle. “Nobody here but you, me and the critters. We got off on the wrong foot. Let’s start over.” He extended his right hand. “How do, I’m Tristan Cayle.”
She solemnly shook hands. “Megan Duke. I am so very glad to meet you.” Now he’d kiss her. She hoped.
His gaze roamed the stable. Megan knew he must approve of what he saw. She and the wranglers kept it clean enough for a tea party. The stalls were mucked daily, and fresh sawdust was laid down every three days in the aisles. Everything was in its place, and the safety and health of the guests were paramount.
“This is a nice barn. Mine aren’t so fancy.”
“You want fancy, you should have seen some of the riding academies in Europe. This is functional.”
“Looks like a dude ranch. My outfit is a lot…cruder.” He grinned sheepishly. “I don’t think you’d like my house. Haven’t done much to it since my wife died.” He slid a hand around the back of his neck, and his face skewed in a grimace. “Fact is, haven’t done anything to it.”
If he meant he needed a woman’s touch, she was in trouble. Her decorating skills extended to pounding nails in the wall wherever her mother told her to. Chewing her inner cheek, she considered the best way to reply. “Uh, there are always books.”
He tilted his head, looking puzzled.
She showed her palms. “I don’t know anything about decorating. But I can learn. I can get books or magazines that show me how.”
His puzzled expression remained and her panic rose. “I confess, I’m not very domestic. If you want me to decorate, I’m a fast learner, honest.”
“I wasn’t talking about decorating.”
“Then what are we talking about?”
“My home. I don’t have a dishwasher or a microwave oven. The house is small. The roads aren’t paved, and there aren’t any gravel walkways to keep your feet out of the mud.” He tugged on a wooden board as if testing its strength. “Nothing fancy at all.”
“So what’s your point?”
“Reckon the point is, I don’t have any luxuries to offer.”
Incredulous, she lowered her gaze to her expensive sweater and suede skirt, now regretting her decision to wear them. “I see. Not only too young, but a spoiled princess, too. What did I ever say to make you believe that?”
“I don’t pay much heed to words. I look at actions.”
She could have groaned. “In that case, one place we lived in in Germany had a mildew problem so bad we had to scrub the walls with bleach every day or they’d turn black overnight. When we lived in Arizona we had to shake scorpions out of our shoes. It never bothered me.”
He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. A gleam in their soft, brown depths hinted he might enjoy a debate. Up for the challenge, Megan lifted her chin.
“I’m up at four every morning,” he said, “even Sundays, and more often than not, it’s way past dark when I get back to the house.”
“I’m up every morning at five.” She ticked off on her fingers. “I manage the stables and the swimming pool. In the summers I teach tennis, and in the winter, skiing. My average day is twelve hours long. I like hard work. Hardship for me is sitting around doing nothing.”
So there.
“The weather is rough.” He nodded curtly, sending the ball back to her court.
“Ha! Nobody can beat Colorado for insane weather. See that blue sky? Last week we had eight inches of snow. By tomorrow we could have a blizzard. Or thunderstorms. Or it might be eighty degrees.” She pushed away from the wall and sauntered down the aisle, swinging her hips. “I’ve lived through tornados, hurricanes, floods and even an earthquake in Italy. I’ve been snowed in, rained out and sunburned. Weather doesn’t faze me.” She flipped a hand in dismissal.
A peek over her shoulder showed he was smiling. Maybe his concern was merely an excuse because he had cold feet and needed coaxing.
“Nearest movie theater is two-and-a-half hours away.”
“I can live without movies. And I’d rather read than watch television. I’m not a party person. I don’t like bars. I’m a lousy dancer, so if I never have to dance again I won’t mind.” She faced him and clamped her hands on her hips. “Did I ever mention that I’m a terrific cook?”
“Ever cooked for a crew of forty?”
“Sounds like fun. I’d love it.”
He cocked back his hat with his thumb.
“Be straight with me, Tristan. It’s not really my age, is it? I’m doing something wrong.” She lowered her gaze to her feet, regretting her fancy ankle boots, too. “I’m not pretty enough.”
He worked his finger under his collar. The way he avoided eye contact convinced her she was right on track. Proving herself mature and capable would be a piece of cake compared to generating romantic sparks out of nothing.
She sat on a hay bale and plucked straws, idly letting them drift. Disappointment didn’t get easier with experience, she decided. It just got meaner. For the first time in her life she sympathized with the quitters.
“You’re beautiful, Megan.”
The regret behind his soft words touched her heart. Carefully, as if expecting her to shoo him away, he sat beside her on the bale. Under the shadow of his hat brim, his eyes were dark and lonesome.
“Matter of fact, can’t think off the top of my head any woman I know who’s prettier.”
Up close, she noted signs of age in deep parentheses caused by smiles in his cheeks and the squint lines etched around his eyes. He appeared so solid, so sure of himself. Yet, a vein running along the side of his neck gave him a vulnerable air.
“Ranching can be a heartbreaker. It can kill dreams, tromp your spirit.”
“You’ve lived on the ranch all your life. It hasn’t broken your spirit. What about your wife? How old was she?”
“We were the same age, but she grew up in Powder.” He slumped forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“I always thought guys liked younger women.”
His lips curled in a wry grin. “They do.”
“Then, what’s the problem?” His reluctance had a funny affect on her, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. On one hand she felt uncertain and clumsy; on the other, a sensation of power infused her.
“I feel like I’ve sold you a phony bill of goods.”
“That’s stupid. There’s nothing phony about you.” She slid her hand across his, reveling in the rough textured strength of his knuckles. “Give us a chance, okay?”
She held her breath, waiting. She loved him, and knew if he’d give her a chance, he’d love her, too.
Tristan realized his mistake as her slim hand played tenderly against his. He saw the mistake in her shining blue eyes and the determined set of her smile. He felt his mistake in
his reaction to her smile, and how his insides tightened up and his hands turned cold while his blood ran hot. Everything about her, from the vibrant freshness of her face to the slightly breathy urgency of her speech, drew him like a thirsty steer to water.
He wasn’t given to wild impulses or passions. He never had been the sort to lose his head. Decisions took time, and he always took it slow to consider a situation from beginning to end.
Megan Duke cut loose the recklessness in him. He pulled her hand to his chest and pressed it over his heart. Her big eyes turned liquid, gentle as the cool breeze drifting through the open barn door. The expressive femininity in those clear blue depths was as old as the earth beneath his boots. She leaned toward him, her wide mouth going soft, too. He stared, fixated by the clean-cut sweetness of her lips. Mingled with the green smell of well-tended horses and the mouse-mustiness of hay, he grew aware of soap and pretty girl.
Far away, he heard his own voice of reason telling him he’d gone plumb loco and didn’t have a bit of business messing with this child, but reason proved a weak whisper compared to the allure of her lowering eyelids and the sweep of lashes.
He pressed her hand ever tighter to his chest and noted his own pulse, quick and heated. He cocked his head catercorner to the slant of hers and their lips met.
He’d kissed hotter and he’d kissed wetter and he’d kissed with bullish lustiness that made his neck muscles swell and his eyes go blind, but he’d never kissed sweeter. Enough reason remained for him to keep his mouth shut, but the effort made his back muscles shiver.
He touched her shoulder, and the silk sweater caught against his calloused fingers. Underneath he felt firm muscle and he envisioned her skin as smooth as polished wood and soft as the nose of a newborn foal.
He wanted her. Simple as that.
He broke the kiss abruptly. Her eyes opened, and the innocent desire in them lodged a lump in his throat and flooded his groin with molten heat. He shifted his seat, ran out of hay bale and fell off.
He sat hard on his wallet, and his teeth clacked together. Puffs of dust tickled his nose.
He heaved a huge breath. “Don’t make hay bales big as they used to.”
