The Rancher's Dance

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  He didn’t look at her. It had been so long since he’d carried on a conversation having nothing to do with his family or work that he could practically taste the rust. “Did you?”

  “Neck? Sure. A few times.” She held the bottle loosely between her fingers and swirled it around a little.

  He noticed, though, that she didn’t drink much of it.

  The beer had just been an excuse.

  To come out here.

  With him.

  Knowing it was one thing. Knowing what to do about it was another. And he wasn’t even going to touch how he felt about it with a ten-foot pole.

  “I’m sorry about your wife, Beck.”

  He went still.

  Dozens…maybe even hundreds…of people had offered the same sentiment over the past three years. His employees at the architectural firm that he’d walked away from. His friends. His family. Even near strangers. He should be used to hearing it by now.

  God knows he’d gotten used to saying the usual “thank you” and moving on as quickly as possible.

  Instead, the words that he heard coming out of his lips weren’t usual at all. “I loved her.”

  His jaw tightened and he stared even harder at the park across the street. He couldn’t see the kids over there anymore. Maybe they’d gone to the pavilion. Maybe they’d just gone home.

  “That’s the way it should be.” Lucy’s voice was soft.

  Wistful.

  He looked over at her. She was watching the park, too, her long hair streaming over one slender shoulder.

  “What do you want from me?”

  He knew what his body wanted from her—something he had no intention of indulging which was why it was better all around if he stayed away from her. He hadn’t cheated on his wife when she was alive. He wasn’t sure he was ready to do it now either.

  But he was still a man. With the predictable reactions around an incredibly sexy woman.

  But women? They had different things that drove them. He’d figured out one woman in his lifetime. Wasn’t that enough for one man?

  The last thing he wanted to do was start wondering what exactly drove her.

  He didn’t want to be interested, but no matter how hard he tried to pretend he wasn’t, he was.

  “What do I want?” Lucy’s head slowly turned. Her eyes met his. “I don’t know. Maybe just to see you smile again. A real smile. The kind that stretches all the way across your face.”

  He stretched his lips into a humorless smile. “Satisfied?”

  She didn’t look offended. “Not yet.” She took a brief sip of her beer and looked back out at the park. She stretched out her injured leg and pointed her toes, flat thin-strapped sandal and all, then lowered it again. It seemed such an absent motion that he wondered if she even knew she was doing it.

  At least it was easier to focus on that curiosity than it was on the unwanted attraction nagging persistently at him, reminding him that his heart might be dead, but the rest of him was not. “You grew up here, didn’t you?”

  “On the Lazy-B?” She nodded. “Yup. Loved it, too.”

  “How’d you end up being a dancer?” There was no dance school in Weaver now—he knew because it was one of the few things that Shelby had actually complained about to him. But maybe there had been a studio when Lucy’d been a girl.

  “I took lessons. Not in Weaver,” she allowed, as if she’d been reading his mind. “My dad had to drive me miles and miles for them.” Her lips curved. “Usually griping all the while.”

  He knew Cage Buchanan. The guy was devoted to his family. “I doubt it.”

  Her smile widened. “Okay, maybe he complained only some of the time.” She stretched out her other leg and pointed her toes. “But it all paid off. Dancing was always my dream. My parents helped me make it a reality.”

  “And now ballet’s your life.”

  She lowered her leg again. “Right.” She lifted her beer bottle. Took a longer pull. Stared across the street. “Everything I ever wanted was in the ballet,” she murmured softly.

  Then she let out a breath and shook her head a little.

  He eyed her profile. It wasn’t perfectly in balance. Her narrow nose turned up a little too much at the end. Her chin had a little too much of a stubborn tilt.

  And when she was lying—and he was pretty sure that she was—the right corner of her soft lips turned down. “What’s wrong with your knee?”

  “Sprain.” She hesitated a moment. “A pretty serious one.”

  “It’ll heal?”

  She nodded. Less hesitation this time, but something about the way she held her shoulders made him wonder.

  “And then you’ll go back to New York,” he concluded. “How’d you sprain it?”

  She lifted her beer bottle again, only to look at it for a moment and lower it again to her lap. “By falling down the stairs after I found my boyfriend in our bed with another girl.” She gave him a quick look and rolled her eyes, looking embarrassed. “I don’t know why I told you that.”

  “Is it true?”

  She let out a silent, humorless laugh. No curving down at the corner of her lips at all. “It’s true all right.” She grimaced. “I just haven’t told anyone else that’s how I ended up like this.” She swished the fabric covering her knee.

  “Who was he?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment. “The choreographer and artistic director for the ballet company I danced for.”

  He didn’t know a lot about how ballet companies operated but he could make a guess. “Probably makes it hard to work with him now.”

  She tilted her head, acknowledging. “Particularly when he replaced me as the principal ballerina with her as well only a few weeks earlier.”

  “Guy sounds like an ass. Messing around where he works?” He shook his head.

  “Mmm.” She shifted. “That’s not entirely fair of me, though. I don’t know if you can liken the ballet world to most other things, but it’s pretty much a hotbed of drama. And whether I like it or not, Lars was doing his job. Doing the best thing for the company. I’m thirty-three.” She lifted her shoulders and grimaced. “It’s not as if I expected to keep the position forever. Much as my pride would like to think otherwise.”

  Thirty-three looked pretty prime to him, but admitting it aloud didn’t seem like a very smart move. Not when he was doing his best to ignore that particular fact. “What does that mean for you, then?”

  “No longer being the star of the show?” Her shoulder brushed his as she lifted her beer bottle. “It’s just a hitch in the road,” she dismissed. Her gaze glanced off his again. “How long were you married?”

  He wasn’t sure if they were in some sort of verbal dance or sword play. She clearly didn’t want to talk about her career any more than he wanted to talk about himself. He could end it, simply enough, by getting up and walking away.

  His butt stayed planted right where it was, though.

  “Eighteen years.” He knew he sounded irritated, but it was directed a lot more at himself than it was at her.

  “That’s even longer than I’ve been a professional dancer.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. My son turned twenty-one today. Yeah, it was a long time.” He flexed his jaw that had gone tight again. “It should have been longer.”

  She said nothing. But after a moment, her hand settled lightly on his arm.

  He didn’t brush it off even though warmth ripped through him.

  And they continued to sit there until his beer bottle was no longer cold beneath his fingers and his father finally came looking for him.

  “Been looking for you for a half hour,” Stan said and didn’t bother trying to hide his curiosity as he looked from Beck to Lucy and back again.

  Beck stood. “I got tired of watching you flirt with Susan Reeves,” he returned. “Where’s Nick?”

  “He’s still inside with that pretty little brunette. Tabby, I think her name is.”

  “Tabby Taggart,” Lucy provid
ed. She stood, too, only to gasp and pitch toward Beck as her knee gave way.

  He caught her and his pulse skyrocketed as he took her weight against him.

  “Sorry,” she muttered breathlessly. Her hands pressed against his chest. “Guess I’d better work on that balance or I’ll be pirouetting off the stage when I get back to New York.” She laughed lightly as she stepped away from him and moved around the bench. “Tabby Taggart,” she said again. “Your son shows good taste. She’s a nice girl. Her brother’s married to my cousin. Evan Taggart. He’s a vet. Has an office not far from here.” Switching her virtually untouched beer from one hand to the other, she extended her right one toward Stan and introduced herself. “You’re Shelby’s grandpa,” she added quickly.

  Too quickly to Beck’s mind.

  She was flustered.

  Because she’d stumbled? Or because she’d stumbled against him and with that full-body contact had realized what sort of state he was in?

  “It was really kind of you to send Beck over with the spaghetti the other evening,” she was continuing. “I should have felt guilty making such a pig out of myself eating every bit of it, but it really was delicious.”

  “My pleasure,” Stan assured, though he gave Beck a telling glance.

  “I, um, I’ll be sure to get the container back to you soon.” She was scooting toward the entrance of the bar. “I’d better get back to my family.” Without looking at Beck again, she sketched a quick wave and slipped inside the door.

  “Well,” Stan said after a deliberate pause once she was gone. “That was interesting.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “She’s quite a looker.”

  Beck eyed his father.

  Stan tossed up his hands. “Fine. Fine. I won’t remind you that you’ve still got a life to live.”

  Beck only stared harder because, of course, that’s what Stan had just done. And over the past year or so, those reminders had been coming more frequently.

  He moved around the bench, heading for the door, too. “It’s late. I’m going to get Nick.”

  “You think this is what Harmony would want for you? She made you promise to move on, remember?” His father followed him.

  Just as he always had before, Beck ignored the question.

  But as he worked his way through the bar, looking for his newly “officially adult” son, his eyes strayed toward Lucy.

  She was standing next to a pool table where one of the teachers he’d seen at Shelby’s school was pushing her long red hair behind her slender back before lining up a shot. As if Lucy had felt his attention, she looked over her shoulder at him.

  The skin on his forearm went warm, as if she’d reached out to put her hand there again, and he deliberately looked away.

  Yeah, he’d always ignored Stan’s nagging about moving on.

  It had never been difficult.

  But tonight, it was.

  The weekend passed with no sign of Beck at the Lazy-B.

  Not that Lucy had expected him to come over and work when his son was home to visit, or even to work on the weekend, for that matter.

  But she still found herself watching for his truck. Listening for the whine of one of his power tools.

  It was a good thing, then, that she hadn’t spent a whole lot of time at the ranch herself. Not when her grandparents decided to throw a barbecue on Saturday at the Double-C that lasted until the wee hours. And then, on Sunday, she drove back into town again to attend church.

  She rarely went to church in New York.

  But get home to Weaver? Then it was just the thing that people did.

  Weaver had a few churches. More now than they’d had when she was growing up because the town had easily doubled in size since then. She knew that Beck didn’t attend the same service she did. One, because she didn’t see him. And two, because Sarah, who’d been sitting behind her, had leaned over Lucy’s pew to whisper—sounding like innocence personified—that Beck didn’t attend there at all.

  Which meant she spent most of the service listening with half an ear while wondering if he went to any church.

  She wasn’t exactly being the model worshipper, she figured, and diligently tried to listen more closely to the sermon.

  But it was hard because the good reverend was preaching about loving thy neighbor.

  Then after church was Sunday dinner, which the extensive Clay family always held every week at one or another’s house. Didn’t matter how many people could make it. Those who could, did. Those who didn’t, usually made it the next week.

  It was tradition. And going there felt right to Lucy, too, even though it meant another round of concerns expressed about her knee.

  This time, the meal was at Ryan and Mallory’s place. They had a seven-year-old daughter, Chloe. Which only reminded Lucy of Shelby, who was a year younger.

  By the time Monday morning rolled around, she had to face the fact that even when the man was out of sight, he definitely wasn’t out of mind.

  Didn’t seem to matter that she was perfectly aware of his grieving. Didn’t seem to matter that she knew focusing on anything other than getting herself back in dancing form was most likely just another way of not dealing with the uncertainty of her future.

  Whether he liked it or not, he was attracted to her.

  That particular fact had been more than apparent.

  Equally as apparent as the fact that he didn’t want to be.

  When Beck hadn’t shown up by the middle of the day—about the same time that Caleb finally showed up from wherever he’d been all night—she was a bundle of nerves from waiting.

  She’d mucked out half of the stalls in the stable, leaving the other half for Caleb. Fair was fair after all, and even though she took pride in being capable, shoveling horse manure wasn’t exactly high on her list of favorite things to do, particularly when it took her three times as long to do it because her knee kept giving her fits.

  She’d also mopped the floors, cleaned the kitchen and baked a triple batch of chocolate brownies from scratch.

  All to keep from hovering in the front window watching and waiting…

  For a woman who was supposedly “off men” she was showing all of the signs of being on.

  “Smells good.” Caleb wandered into the kitchen, obviously freshly showered because he still had a towel wrapped around his neck. He leaned over the large sheet pan that she was dolloping swirls of icing over.

  “Don’t touch.” She swatted away his hand.

  “Hey.” He gave her an injured look. “I just wanted a taste. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’ll give you a taste when I’m finished. And there is no occasion.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Lot of brownies there. You planning to go on a major binge or something?”

  She deftly lifted out a square for him and set it on a napkin.

  He promptly shoved half of it in his mouth.

  She grimaced. “You’re the one looking like a pig. I figured I could take them to Sunday dinner.” And maybe next door to the Venturas. It would only be neighborly, after all, to return the favor of the spaghetti.

  Her brother was grinning as he swallowed. “Think they’ll even be around by the end of the week?” He tucked the remainder in his mouth and went to the refrigerator where he pulled out a jug of milk and poured it straight into his mouth.

  “So this is what college has done for you? Made you forget all of your manners?”

  His grin only widened and before she could stop him, he’d scooped another soft, sticky brownie right out of the pan. “I’m heading out.” He turned to leave the kitchen. “Don’t wait up, Grandma.”

  “You better not be doing anything stupid like drinking and driving when you’re staying out at all hours with Kelly like you have been,” she called after him.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her and the grin was gone. “Who says I’m with Kelly?” Then he took another bite of brownie and disappeared, leaving Lucy blinking.

 
She went straight to the telephone and dialed Sarah. “Who is Caleb dating?”

  “Kelly Rasmusson, of course. Why?”

  Lucy licked the chocolate frosting from the end of her thumb. “Just curious,” she dismissed, although she was more curious than ever what company her baby brother was keeping these days. “Max still have a soft spot for homemade brownies? I made a huge batch and I’m willing to share.”

  “My husband has a soft spot for anything chocolate,” Sarah said with a laugh. “And the only time you turn on the oven is when you’re stressed out. So, what gives?”

  “I turn on the oven,” Lucy defended.

  Sarah laughed again. “When?”

  “When I have to,” she allowed, then laughed a little herself because Sarah was right. If Lucy could find a way around cooking or baking for herself, she usually did. “I have to run into town anyway tomorrow morning, so I’ll bring some by for you.”

  “What’s tomorrow?”

  “Dr. Valenzuela is driving up from Cheyenne to see me. We’re meeting at the hospital.” The renowned orthopedist was one of the same doctors who’d treated her when she’d been a teenager, and he still worked for her uncle Alex at the sports clinic located in Cheyenne.

  “Ah. Checking on the knee?”

  “Yeah.” Lucy drew her fingertip along the edge of the brownies, gathering up another taste of icing. “So that’s the reason for the stress,” Sarah concluded. “I knew there had to be something, but sort of thought it might have something to do with your widowed neighbor.”

  “I am not stressed.”

  “Whatever you say,” Sarah soothed, clearly disbelieving. “Eli!” Her voice went sharp. “Do not bring that muddy dog in this house. Gotta run, Luce. See you tomorrow.”

  The line went dead and Lucy hung up the phone.

  Along with returning to all the comfortable, familiar things she loved, coming home also meant being among people who knew her too well.

  She washed her sticky hands and arranged a dozen brownies in a container. Then, before she could do something really foolish—like go upstairs again and fuss with her hair or her clothes as if she really were trying to impress someone when her knee was already protesting all of her activity that day—she retrieved the keys for one of her father’s ranch trucks and left the house behind.