by Lori Wilde
“Would that be the same Hondo Crouch who used to be a heroin addict?” Ryder asked evenly. He knew Hondo had cleaned up his act after he’d returned from Vietnam, but it didn’t hurt to remind Tumley that Ryder wasn’t the only one in town with demons to live down.
Tumley raised his fists and took a boxing stance, his eyes flinty. “Dissing Hondo, whippersnapper? Them’s fightin’ words.”
Joking? Or not?
Ryder estimated the odds of a fight breaking out in the coffee shop. Not that he couldn’t take Tumley with his hands tied behind his back and his legs shackled, but he didn’t want to cause a ruckus. Plus Tumley did have a gang of the old guard as backup. And while he might be a senior citizen, Tumley had served in that mess of a war that had ruined many a man, and he’d come out of it a survivor. He had Ryder’s respect for that if nothing else.
Joe’s eyes narrowed and he fisted his hands, ready to come to Ryder’s defense.
Ryder shook his head. Easy. It’s all good. I can handle the likes of Tumley Hudson.
Joe nodded, unclenched his fists, went back to his sandwich, but kept a watchful eye on the senior citizen standing between them.
“Sorry about your stepmama.” Tumley’s voice softened and he sounded sincere. “And I’m sorry about your dad being laid up in the hospital. But he’s an ornery old bastard, so I know he’ll pull through.”
“Thanks,” Ryder said, and exhaled, not knowing if he could or should trust Tumley’s sympathy.
“I’ll let you get back to your breakfast.” Tumley returned to his seat.
Leaving the sweat that had popped up on the back of Ryder’s neck drying in the cool air.
“What was that about?” Joe muttered.
“Who knows? Probably just showing off for his posse. Tumley is a loudmouth. You could park a 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood in his jaw and still have room for a Volkswagen.”
Joe laughed. “Let’s talk about something else. For instance . . . what’s going on between you and Katie? Before the trivia game last night I thought you guys were pissed off at each other, but then you two were giving each other heated looks and I started to realize something else was going on.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ryder took a sip of coffee that was already going cold.
Joe dabbed at his face with a napkin. “Just what are your intentions toward my sister?”
Ryder didn’t know why, but irritation bubbled up inside him. Maybe it was the exchange with Tumley, and the fact his muscles were still twitching for action. Or maybe it was the realization that while the chemistry between him and Katie was stronger than ever, and so was the swift undercurrent keeping them apart. Or maybe it was because he was scared to death of the feelings he didn’t dare name.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t have any intentions toward your sister. No feelings for her at all.”
“Oh shit,” Joe murmured, eyes widening as he gazed over Ryder’s shoulder.
And before Ryder ever turned around, he knew whom he was going to see standing behind him.
Katie.
Dread filled him as he swiveled his head to take her in. She wore old blue jeans, a fluffy blue sweater over a white T-shirt emblazoned with the same “Fresh Start” logo on her branded packing cubes. She had on fleece-lined boots and . . . sunglasses?
Why was she wearing sunglasses inside the coffee shop?
He couldn’t read her eyes because she was wearing the sunglasses. Couldn’t tell how much his words had hurt her.
Gabi was standing beside Katie, staring at Ryder with a fierce you-are-a-total-butthead expression on her face. But she quickly replaced it with a soft smile for Joe and moved over to kiss her husband-to-be.
“Hey Trouble, how are you this morning?” Joe cupped her cheek with his palm.
“Trouble?” Ryder asked, because he was having problems gauging just how much trouble he was in. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry and he was scrambling for something to say that would make everything all right between him and Katie.
“His nickname for me.” Gabi patted Joe’s chest. Then to her bridegroom, she said, “We didn’t know you guys were coming here.”
“No, but I knew you were planning on treating Katie to breakfast, and I just had to see you before going to work. I missed you.”
Gabi plunked down in the empty chair beside Joe. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and interlaced hands.
Ryder offered a sheepish smile to Katie, who still hadn’t reacted. “Have a seat,” he invited, sweating bullets and pulling out a chair for her with his foot. “Join us.”
“Coffee,” Katie muttered. “I need coffee.”
Because of the sunglasses, he couldn’t see if she was looking at him or not, but she sidestepped the chair he’d pulled out, and headed for the counter.
“Hey.” Panicked, he reached out to snag her elbow as she brushed past, stopping her.
She froze. Glared hard at his hand as if it was the nastiest thing she’d ever seen.
“Katie,” he murmured, feeling like a giant shitheel, and wishing that every person in the place wasn’t eyeballing them. Another downside of being the town bad boy with a dangerous reputation. Everyone kept tabs on you. He wanted to hustle her to one side and have a private conversation, but there was no room in the place.
“Yes?” The Sahara was wetter than her tone.
“I swear I didn’t know you were standing behind me.”
“Clearly,” she said, her smile strong but her voice stringy, and she wrenched her elbow from his grip, tucked it tight up against her side. “But that’s all right. Good to know how you actually feel, which is, oh, right, nothing.”
He let her go. What else could he do? Tackle her? Make her listen to him? And tell her what? The truth? That he was so scared of his feelings for her he denied them?
“I’m sorry,” he said. Which was unusual for him. He rarely apologized. He was of the school of thought that apologies showed weakness.
“Let yourself off the hook, Ryder.” She readjusted her sunglasses, compressed her lips into a straight line. “It’s perfectly fine. I don’t have any feelings for you either.”
“Oh,” he said, knowing it was total bullshit, but unable to call her on it in front of everyone. Funny, even though he knew it wasn’t true, it stung anyway. Dammit, why had he been so worried about admitting to Joe his feelings for Katie?
Maybe because he wasn’t exactly sure himself just what those feelings were.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said. “I’m in desperate need of coffee. Now that I have strong feelings about.”
Ryder cringed and watched her walk away with a you-can’t-touch-this strut, back pockets swaying, not letting him get her down. God, how he admired her pluck.
“Don’t take it personally,” Gabi leaned over the table to whisper to him. “She’s got a hangover.”
“Katie?” Joe sounded puzzled. “My sister? She hardly ever drinks. To my knowledge, she’s never had a hangover in her life.”
“She hasn’t,” Gabi confirmed. “This is her first. Hence the sunglasses indoors.”
“What caused her to drink too much last night?” Ryder asked.
Joe and Gabi both stared him squarely in the face, looking at him as if he were an utter moron, and simultaneously said, “You.”
Chapter 16
Katie grabbed her coffee from the barista and lit out the back door of Perks. No way was she walking past Ryder again.
She sat in her car, listening to her heart thump erratically, realizing she was going to have to go to the Circle S and face him.
No. She couldn’t. Not today. Not with this hangover. Not until she’d had a chance to sort herself out.
Tears pushed at the backs of her eyes, but she blinked them away. It was okay. She was going to be okay. Nothing had changed. She been in love with Ryder for years, and he wasn’t in love with her. Status quo.
Except she’d actually admitted to her
self—and, egad, to Gabi—that it was far more than a high school crush gone on too long. She was in love with the man. Always had been, probably always would be.
So yeah, she was not going to the ranch today.
She did something she’d never done in the ten months she’d owned her own business. She took a sick day. Because she was sick.
Sick at heart, that was.
She phoned Jana and asked her to go meet the crew and stick around to help them.
“Extra pay?” Jana asked.
“Of course.”
“Double time?”
“Time and a half.”
“Done.”
Feeling blue, she drove home, intending on going back to bed for a couple of hours to see if she could sleep off the hangover. Once inside the house, she sank down into a kitchen chair in front of the bay window that looked out over the big backyard. She admired how green the yard was, planted with pines transplanted from Joe’s Christmas tree farm. She had forgotten to turn the Christmas lights off when she went to bed last night, and hadn’t remembered them when she and Gabi left this morning. The lights twinkled a fairy-dust glow over the yellowed blades of grass.
And then she spied the cat.
She took off her sunglasses for a clearer view. It sat statue-still. An orange tabby, scrawny and big-eyed, underneath the pine tree closest to the back porch. The cat switched its tail, stared straight at her, and meowed so loudly she could hear the plaintive cry through the double-paned glass window.
She moved to the fridge and poured up a saucer full of half-and-half she used for her morning coffee. Careful not to spill it, she carried the saucer to the back porch and set it down. Stepped back into the doorway, pulling her sweater around her against the crisp December air.
“Here kitty, kitty,” she crooned.
The tabby lowered its head, crept toward the porch on lithe paws. Its gaze swung from her to the saucer of milk, and back again. Poor little thing was so hungry that survival won out over its natural wariness.
Once he reached the saucer, he crouched with muscles tensed, ready to spring away if she made a threatening move. Up close, she saw that yes, it was indeed a he, and the poor guy was so thin his ribs were visible beneath his skin. He looked young too, not quite a kitten, but he hadn’t fully grown into his cat-ness.
He stretched his pink tongue out as far as he could, lapping up the half-and-half. She wished she had some cat food to give him, and wondered if there was a can of tuna in the pantry.
To her surprise, when the milk was gone, he did not dart away, but instead curled into a ball with his tail wrapped around him, lowered his eyelids halfway, and began to purr.
Katie lowered into a squat, but otherwise did not approach the cat. He raised his head and contemplated her a moment.
“Hey kitty.” She rubbed her thumb against her first two fingers in a circular motion. “Where did you come from?”
The tabby’s whiskers twitched.
“Not the talkative type, huh?” She smiled, felt the cool wind burn her cheeks. “I know something about strong, silent guys. You take your cream where you can, and then don’t give us girls the time of day.”
The cat eyed her.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she told the cat. “Ryder is just not that into me. And why should he be? He’s a man of the world and I’m a small-town girl. Which is fine. Totally. I don’t care. Not really. Okay, I do care. All right, yes, dammit, I stupidly fell in love with him, but that’s on me.”
The cat meowed.
“Yes? You already knew that? I know he doesn’t love me. I don’t even know if he’s capable of love. Losing his mom when he was a kid seems to have knocked the love bone right out of his body. Unfortunately, I can’t avoid him. I’ll be seeing him over and over again during all the wedding festivities. And annoyingly, it’s Christmastime and we’ll have to do all that happy-happy, deck-the-halls stuff together too.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and she closed her eyes, took a deep breath. How did you fall out of love with someone?
“What do you think?” she asked the cat, and opened her eyes. “Any advice?”
But the tabby had disappeared.
“Hey kitty, where did you go?” Had he darted under the porch? She bent lower to peer through the gaps in the boards. “Here kitty, kitty. I’ll get you more milk.”
Nothing. Silence.
Disappointed, she got to her feet, scanned the yard, but that cat was nowhere in sight. “That’s right, get your fill and run away.”
She picked up the empty saucer, opened the door, and felt a cold draft blow through her legs as she stepped back inside. Katie moved toward the sink. Saw the orange tabby sitting on the kitchen counter, contentedly licking his paw, and she let out a startled shriek.
“Holy shit, how did you get up there?” she exclaimed, and slapped a palm over her mouth. “I thought you’d disappeared. By any chance are you Harry Houdini reincarnated?”
The tabby swished his tail.
“And by the way.” She snapped her fingers. “Get off the counter. You could have fleas.”
Harry shot her a haughty expression that said, It’s winter, stupid, lifted his tail, and walked cockily over the counter.
“Hey, you could still have fleas even though it’s winter. This is Texas, and while it gets cold, it never stays cold for long.”
He turned his head, sauntered over to where she’d deposited the saucer in the sink, sniffed at it.
“You’re still hungry. Hang on. Let me check to see if I do have a can of tuna.” She rummaged through the pantry. “No tuna, but here’s a can of baby food meat and gravy for when I babysit my sister Jenny’s kids. Will that do?”
Harry meowed.
“I take that as a yes.” Katie scooped him off the counter and set him on the floor. He protested with a loud meow, but when she put the baby food on the saucer and set it beside him, he changed his tune and got all purry again.
“Stick with me,” she said, “and you’ll eat like a baby king.”
She knelt on the floor beside him, softly stroked his matted tail. She’d not ever had a cat. Growing up, Joe had been allergic, and later, Matt had not cared for cats, but Katie had always adored them. “I’ve always wanted a cat. I wonder if you belong to anyone. Maybe you have an owner who loves you and you got lost. Maybe you have a chip. Looks like a trip to see Sam is in order.”
Harry eyed her suspiciously.
“Don’t panic. Sam’s one of my brothers. He’s a vet. He’ll take care of everything.” She called her older brother’s house.
Emma answered in her bubbly voice that never failed to cheer her up. “Morning, Katie.”
“A stray cat showed up at my back door,” she explained.
“Sam’s already at the clinic,” Emma said. “He’s got a busy surgery schedule this morning, but if you hurry over, I’m sure he could squeeze you in.”
“Um . . . how do I transport the cat over there?” Katie said.
“Hang on.” Emma laughed. “We have a million cat carriers. I will swing by and drop one off for you.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Katie said.
“Isn’t that what family is for?”
“It is. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.” She thought of Ryder, who had no family other than the father he didn’t get along with, and she felt sorry for him.
An hour later, Sam finished examining Harry with a shake of his head. “He’s not feral, but no one’s been taking care of him either.” He scowled. “No chip and he hasn’t been neutered. Looks like someone might have dumped him.”
“How terrible!” Katie pressed a palm to her throat. “Who would do that?”
“Hopefully not anyone in Twilight. He needs vaccinations. Are you considering keeping him?” Sam said it like the idea of Katie owning a pet was completely foreign.
At her brother’s pointed tone, Katie raised her chin. She hadn’t been considering keeping the cat, but Sam’s question
issued a challenge. “You make it sound so farfetched. People get cats every day. Why can’t I get one?”
“You absolutely can.”
“But?” Katie sank her hands on her hips.
“You’re just such a neatnik. I can’t see you with a litter box in your house.”
“Maybe you need glasses,” Katie joked. “I used to live on a farm, remember? We had chickens and cows.”
“Outside animals. Livestock. That Matt mostly took care of. You’ve never had a house pet.”
“First time for everything.”
“You really want to keep him?” Sam stroked the tabby’s thin spine. “Just making sure. He’s young, and well-cared-for house cats can live fifteen to sixteen years or longer.”
“Harry picked me. I’m all in. Do whatever needs to be done.”
“I’ll only charge you for the medication. Family discount.” Sam’s familiar smile was back. “Leave him here for the day, and we’ll take care of him. You can pick him up this afternoon.”
“Thanks.” She headed for the door, leaving Harry in the best hands possible.
“Katie,” Sam called.
She paused with her hand on the knob, looked back. “Yes?”
“You’re going to love having a cat.”
Because that was apparently her fate? If she couldn’t have the man she loved, was the universe telling her she might as well give it up and become a crazy cat lady?
When Ryder finally got Joe to drop him off at the ranch, he vowed never again to be without transportation around lovebirds. Between feeding each other from their plates, and stopping for long, deep smooches, it took Joe and Gabi forever to finish eating breakfast and drive him back to the Circle S.
There was a van parked in the driveway instead of Katie’s silver Camry. Her crew, he figured, and bounded up the porch steps, his palms sweaty, anxious to have a word with her, but uncertain of what he was going to say.
You could start with I’m a complete dumb ass, please forgive me.
The person who met him in the entryway wasn’t Katie, but a funkily dressed young woman with multiple tattoos and piercings. She introduced herself as Katie’s assistant, Jana. She told him Katie wasn’t coming in that day, but she’d be back on the job tomorrow.
